Editorial Reviews

Given what hip-hop has become, calling Montrealer Josh Dolgin a hip-hop artist invites all sorts of confusion. Dolgin, who also plays accordion and performs magic tricks, is more likely to sample Yossele Rosenblatt than Rose Royce, and his most telling rhymes -- "We were spoiled upper middle class, living a life of ease, worst-case scenario, we're skinnin' our knees" -- don't pretend otherwise. But Dolgin's music is by definition hip-hop, and truer hip-hop than most chain-hang-low gangster manqués ply. Dolgin's source material is Ashkenazic Jewish ephemera: Yiddish vaudeville, cantorial recordings, and schtick, and the way that he juxtaposes them is constantly insightful and entertaining. Case in point, on the brilliantly titled "(Rock the) Belz" he sets a backbeat to Theodore Bikel's mournful interpretation of the Yiddish classic and instantly conjures a sidecurled cousin to such hip-hop elegies as Puffy's "I'll Be Missing You." The presence of a gruff rapper barking in French is just the magician's art of distraction. Then he assembles his own source material -- à la the Check Your Head Beastie Boys -- and mines these for even deeper meaning. Nonagenarian pianist Irving Fields plays "Slaughter on 10th Avenue," then realizes that the recording session has already ended; like Dolgin's strange Jewish ghetto visions, he's out of time, an affable anachronism. Later, as a rapper freestyles over the same track, Dolgin tries to explain the song; the rapper, lost, rhymes something about Saks Fifth Avenue and Bartles and Jaymes. Mix that up with a tribute to Jewish cowboys ("You Are Never Alone"), a salute to bossy women ("Balaboste"), and some Borscht Belt humor, and you have an alternately hilarious and touching disc. Like DJs from Kool Herc to Cut Chemist, Dolgin makes you hear everything differently, ears wide open for outrageous samples, ironic juxtaposition, and absurdly original sounds. Mark Schwartz, Barnes & Noble

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