“Most people have probably never heard of Y-Love,” writes Jerry Portwood in Out Magazine this week, explaining that “for a dedicated fan base, however, Y-Love, aka Yitz Jordan, is a popular Hassidic hip-hop artist who raps in a mix of English, Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic and Latin. That’s right: Jordan is an African-American rapping Jew. And now he wants the world to know he’s gay.”
From the story, titled “Y-Love is Ready for Love,” it appears that Jordan was born to a Puerto Rican mother and an Ethiopian father in East Baltimore, and was attracted to Judaism since he was a child, After seeing a commercial when he was 7 years old that said “Happy Passover from Channel Two.”
That’s when he told his mom: “I want to be Jewish.”
Talk about the media influencing everything.
According to Out Magazine, Jordan converted to “Hasidic Judaism” (no Misnagdish Judaism for him!) in 2000 and studied at Jerusalem’s Ohr Somayach yeshiva. It was there that he started freestyling to aid in the learning of complicated texts. While studying the holy gemorah, he also developed his hip-hop skills.
Just like the Ba’al Shem Tov.
