A West Coast rap duo best known for their 1993 single, "Niggaz and Jewz (Some Say Kikes)," featuring Eazy-E.
The group consists of Benyad (born Ben Mor) and Mazik (David Saevitz). Both are Jewish- hence "Blood of Abraham"- and unlike their better-known peers in the Beastie Boys and 3rd Bass, Benyad and Mazik make their Judaism a central theme of their music.
The two, who met in high school in 1989, first came into the public eye when they convinced Eazy-E to let them perform at a 1992 gang-truce event. Eazy became the group's mentor, even letting Mazik live in his mansion when he had nowhere to stay. As Benyad later said,
Eazy was really a mensch.
Eazy signed them to his record label, Ruthless, and the pair released their first album, Future Profits, in 1993. Musically inspired by the quirky, chopped-up jazz samples of De La Soul and Tribe, the album is more notable for its lyrical content. Consistently clever (if sometimes awkward) rhymers, Blood of Abraham work their distinctively Jewish perspective into nearly every track. The lead single, "Stabbed by the Steeple," is an attack on evangelical Christianity:
Stabbed by the steeple, scalpeled by the chapel;
The choir's got my tongue, and the preacher's got my Adam's apple.
with a video filmed at the Wailing Wall:
You take the high road, and I'll take the down low,
And I'll be in Jerusalem before you know,
And when I get there, insert a prayer in the Wailing Wall,
'Cause the Church is gonna motherfucking fall.
A song about interracial relationships, "Stick To Your Own Kind," references King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, over a sample from West Side Story. Even when they deal in hip-hop cliches, they manage to twist them slightly: on "Father of Nations," a song about the patriarch Abraham, Benyad and Mazik send shout-outs to the twelve tribes of Israel, then tell us, "5753 is the year to be"- 5753 being 1993, in the Hebrew calendar. The best known track, "Niggaz and Jewz," links blacks and Jews as oppressed groups, and features both Eazy-E and future Black Eyed Pea Will.I.Am.
A second album, EyeDollarTree, was released in 2000 to good reviews, but went largely unnoticed by the public due to poor distribution.
The relative prominence of Jews in rap music is an interesting story in itself- the Beastie Boys, 3rd Bass, MC Paul Barman, and Def Jam founder Rick Rubin are among the best known. I don't know whether the phenomenon should be attributed more to the largely urban population distribution of American Jews or to the traditionally strong Jewish presence in music and entertainment.
Or one might trace a lineage back to the original Jewish rap, Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues."
"Eric Wright : E & Blood Of Abraham." http://www.eazy-e.com/eazy-e-boa.html 4/1/2004
"Gnostic Hip Hop For Jews" http://www.gettingit.com/article/312 4/1/2004
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