I mean I'm very ignorant. I don't really know if it was important for me to be jewish. I wasn't raised in a observant household. I think art was the only religion, religion is not the right word, art means the spirituality and we didn't have structured religion. I think our rule was to try to be kind to people, my parents tried to teach that. I like that rule, other than that I'm generally not good with rules. I am very self disciplined, but I'm not good with rules.
Mike D
DJ, Rapper, Musician, Producer - Frankfurt am Main
I was talking to rabbi and he said there is no jewish identity. There is just a identities as Jews.
I would agree with that. In terms of the show we are doing here, that's what I'm interested in. We are all in a state of being displaced, replaced, of Diaspora. It's really about the communities that we find ourselves in that actually become our bigger families or more impactful more influential family than our own genetic families.
My Mishpocha is still evolving. I think I'm very lucky because I feel like I've had the support of many Mischpochot. Starting with my family of origin, I was being super fortunate to be born in the right place at the right time in terms of just this confluences of all this art and music and culture that was all around me. And that I had parents who would give me such freedom to be in it and more importantly to be around so many creative people which I thought that it was normal. I thought it was normal to just make what you want to, I didn't realize till being an adult that most people don't come from that. In terms of privilege that was the real privilege, to come from an environment where making things and taking chances as a artist was normal, that's what most of the people around my parents did.
We came up with this idea of Mishpocha, because in terms of my creative life I have not so much created as a solo entity, I've always enjoyed doing stuff with other people. And there is something that is very special and that's exponential. When you are doing something creative with somebody else that's when you go to this place, where you are beyond language almost you are just making something and you are just completely focused and time disappears. That's why I think we musicians we very addicted to making music because of that feeling. And that collaborative state. So I wanted to focus on that process of not just music, but creating.
And then I'm interested in this idea of everywhere we live in the world now are filled with infinite amounts of Michpochot in terms of all these different communities and found families that we all find ourselves in and that we identify with. Thats like as humans greatest resource, but then at the same time we have our biggest confrontations as humans based a little bit on that. This part of the city should only be transfriendly, this part of the city should only be for Jews, this is part of it should only be for Turkish people. Why can't we accept actually that this is an ongoing necessary part of our evolutionary state.
Our family was different as we were with my two brothers and my mum and dad. We weren´t a quiet household. Everybody would be talking all the time and at the same time. I don't know how much of that is normal, but I take that as normal. I also dont know if that is only New York Jewish households or if that's everywhere. But that was definitely real in my house for sure. There is a lot more talking than listening.
We did have a family Motto: Often wrong and never in doubt.
If you have a big family and everybody is right, all the time, but we don't even know because everybody is talking at the same time anyway cause you're not listening to the other person. And because of that your going to have to apologize more.
If you don't take an opinion on something you are never gonna have to apologize for it, because you never invested in having that opinion. I say that we don't listen to each other but we were taught that everybodys opinion mattered, even the kids. But our parents were also very hierarchical they were like clear. If we were deciding about going to go some place they would ask ask all of us our opinion, but it was like each one vote and each of my parents had five.
I come from that family and because of the freedom that I have had I was able to be from a young age out in the world and going to clubs and going to see bands and going out to listen to music and that's how I met both Adam und Adam and then you know we were 15 when we started the band. That was the world I was immersed in so they became my longest standing Mischpocha. And now I am immersed in a whole other Mishpocha being lucky enough to work on music and having my kids around who also work on music and it's like its own creative both genetic family and creative community.
I dont think Mishpocha can brake. In my case I don't feel like it. I don't come from broken or fractured family. But it think it evolves.
Growing up in New York I guess I didn't have a burden of feeling like I was a minority. And that's very real for so many people wether your North African where ever you are from and you are living in Europe.
I identify with being a New Yorker. Identify with being a musician. As a band we were young and we were not really thinking anything through, which is a good thing in a way. It wasn´t until later on we were thinking things through but initially we loved Rap music so much so of course we are going to rap. It wasn't really until we came to Europe and we started doing press for our first album Licence to ill, people are like: A jewish rap group. We never called ourselves a jewish rap group. We didn't look at it that way. We didn't identify that way. So it was a kind of interesting wake up call to us.
We're from New York. So we are in this world where we are not different from other people in New York City, because we are jewish. We are not even different from the people that we were in the same clubs, in the same rap world. But once we got to Europe it's like immediately the headline: Jewish rap group
We are kind of stunned and it almost felt like we are being called a name in a derogitory way. It didn't look like: Oh great they are jewish and they are rapping. I think later on that came, but when we first came it had a negative connotation to me I don't know why I don't know if that was the intention or not in terms of the press, but it felt it that way.
Every year we would go to see our grandmother and her brothers and relatives for a big passover dinner. And actually I really liked it as a little kid and I would meet my jewish uncles. They were kind of all great characters like I do really remember them fondly. There was a period of times where as the youngest I had to read the questions for the haggada. That was a nice thing, because it wasn't a family that I was exposed to every day but just once a year.
My parents grew up in a so much harder reality than I did. Coming from the great depression being exiled coming from Jewish families from eastern Europe that you know my mom is born in the US, but my dad is coming from immigrant families. No money, living in the in the south Bronx. They came from much harder lives, but because of what they came from and so many really hard world events. For my dad I'm not sure. He died when when I was so much younger, but my mom as great a woman she was, she had to be pretty stoic. Because there is a lot about the past that wasn´t so pleasant or genuinly sad and horrible that she was more interested in the present and the future. It's only like later and life I can see the necessity in that from her from what she comes from. And that actually changed and softend much later when I started to have an adult relationship with her as son.
I didn't have an emotional model at home. I had emotional models in terms of art or music or whatever thats why it worked out. Art in all forms whether it is writing, painting or music, everything felt like more life with emotion to me because maybe I didn't have that emotional dialogue.
Parenting is a mixed bag. We all do the things that our parents did that we think that we appreciated and we feel like they did well and then we try to do the things that we feel like we didn't get from our parents we try to do as parents.
My relationship with my kids is so honest and transparent both ways and when I think of my parents generation its more like a go run off and do what you are going to do, but we don't really wanna know. Don't disappear all night, be back by this time, show up at school. But other than that its not like my mom really wanted to know what was happening.
That's why I was able to become who I became. Thats why we were able to do as a Band what we did and why we were able to be in the world that we were in and take in all this music and be inspired by all this music and then make the music we made. You know it's funny, If you don't have rules I still do wish like a little bit like my mom asking: Hey, what were you doing? Where were you until 4 in the morning, you know?
We had family friends who have been to the holocaust that were there in our lives. It was like the holocaust was abstract, but really not abstract, because it wasn't like we never met these people. It wasn´t the idea of a holocaust survivor. It was something from the book, but it was also that there are these people who are in our lives they would be in our home all the time.
In America no one wants to talk about death or dying, they really wanna talk about aging, but we are all going to die and the sooner we structure to have an honest relationship with that the better we all are.
I had actually a really brilliant thinking mom. I miss this beautiful person and Matriarch in my life and miss her wisdom and her care, her love. And then I miss that she was my connection to family history. I miss having this great resource. I could ask her questions about her background and history and not just a family history, also just cultural history too. I would love to ask her about things to our story about her and my dad way before I was born in the 50ties around Abstrakte Expressionist time in New York City, she was a rich cultural history ressource. So I miss that both the family resources and the family history side and the cultural history side.
One of the things I miss most with my mom, not being alife is this resource, it ended with her, I can no longer call her and ask a question of like you when you grew up in the Bronx what was it like?
I don't have that many regrets and life, but one regret I do you have. I was trying to get it together to spend some days recording interviews with my mum just a video and recording the audio. But then by the time I had it organized, she was just wasn't able to speak for long enough to make it worth doing. If I had just done that months and months sooner then I would have had that historical document.
My values in life are remain curious, keep learning alive, always. Be open to trying new things and trying things that make you uncomfortable. Be generous, be compassionate. Try to be compassionate to everyone and to myself.
I embrace failure. Failure gets a bad name which is actually a very sad thing like especially in all our modern education. You were taught its a bad thing to fail, which is rediculous, like I know from myself I only learned from failing. So go into the failure fearlessly.
In making things you gonna have some failure, it's inevitable, It's acually not inevitable, It's necessary it´s part of the process. So why do we give it such a bad name.
I was encouraged to do stuff, But it think it only really came way after having to suffer a lot on my own feeling like, oh I really failed, I fucked this up, oh we could have done better with this, that I started to question that more. And it wouldn't say. I'm still a human, I am still in making music now. I'm really enjoying the process and I get to enjoy it more than to have before just because of my age and where I'm in life, but it doesn't mean that I'm still going to have some of the same fears and insecurities of: Oh god, is nobody going to like this, why are my even doing this but I think that's not me. That's everybody who is making anything.
On Oktober 7th I felt lucky because we happen to be in France at our friends house who is Israeli. And it was a very powerful like you hearing him explain how important rave culture is to Israel which made it all the more ironic that this was part of what was attacked. He was grieving, he was very sad but he wasn't angry and that was actually a really powerful thing to see. Because for him it was much more immediate then say for me. He is in a place where he easily could have been there and he could I've been one of the people killed or taken hostage or whatever. That was a really instructive.
I think its one of those world events where you just you feel very small. There are these thing happening in the world they are so much bigger and crazier than our mondane life and we have that in good ways and bad ways. We are talking about being in nature and go for two days away from seeing any humans and then you start to actually appreciate this land thats here for thousands of years before even humankind has been around so that's the most positive kind of thinking of where we feel really small. And then you have also negative things of how can humanity be so horrible. And that also makes us feel small and vulnerable. Maybe.
Nobody seems terrible interested in listening in the world any more. So how you going to listen to the one side If you're not going to do listen to other sides.
Even when people think they are being compassionate are they actually humanly compassionate or is it compassion that's actually being activated in a manipulative way. There is so much agenda from all sides.
What I see with politics now is what ever side it is there is very little interests in compassion or listening. So people are much more interested in being right than actually caring about somebody else. But I guess caring about somebody else is not more complicated. And you can't break it down into three words that you repeat over and over and over again and what politicians want to do is have three words and they repeat over and over and over again. That's where the power comes from. I guess you just have to choose, are you interested in people or are you interested in power? I chose people.
I think I am on optimist, I believe in the people. We are compassionate, we are kind we are caring and all of those things but we are also all suffering and in that suffering we are also not comfortable being kind compassionate or generous or any of those things.