I’m surprised this was a hot take, but it was.
I didn’t see anyone, anywhere, mentioning the long-awaited Jay Electronica solo debut album A Written Testimony in the context of the strained relationship between Jewish and Black Americans. I pitched the story, with historical and current context, to The Forward; they said “Unfortunately this isn’t quite the right fit for us at this time.” Then, within a few hours of receiving this response, I noticed a tweet from The Forward that nearly quoted my email verbatim. They decided, instead of putting any work into covering this highly sensitive subject, to republish an ‘article’ from Gabe Friedman in the Jewish Telegraph Agency, in which Gabe did what so many ‘journalists’ do today: embed a couple tweets and call it a day.
Gabe ‘quoted’ my friend and high-profile Jewish Hip Hop persona Peter Rosenberg, who said “Not feeling this bar from Jay Electronica and I know I’m not the only person who felt a way about it” and then added “songs dope besides that cringe though.”
I have a hard time calling any song dope in which an artist raps “And I bet you a Rothschild I get a bang for my dollar / The synagogue of Satan want me to hang by my collar.” Not only are these lines anti-Semitic, they represent at least the second time this artist has referred to Jews as…
