JEWISH HEGEMONY IN THE MUSIC WORLD
The Jews who dominated Tin Pan Alley and the turn-of-the century vaudeville
world were also central in the popularization and propagation of profoundly
demeaning African-American stereotypes. Pamela Brown Lavitt notes Tin
Pan Alley and the many onstage Jewish "coon callers":
"Jewish women vaudevillians at the turn of the century popularized what
is now a little-discussed and misunderstood performance venue, known as
"coon shouting" ... Trying to break into the entertainment business, [Tin
Pan Alley entrepreneurs'] aesthetics were circumscribed in a vehemently
antiblack and xenophobic milieu. By the mid-1880-s they had formed a tight-knit
Tin Pan Alley industry that came to dominate vaudeville and early black
musicals ... Intended as comedy, coon song ranged from jocular and dismissive
to cruel and sadistic ... Coon song sheet music and illustrated covers
proliferated defamatory images of blacks in barely coded slanderous lyrics.
For example, the 'N' word and associated inferences were dispatched in
words like 'mammy,' 'honey boy,' 'pickinniny,' 'chocolate,' 'watermelon,'
'possum,' and the most prevalent 'coon.'" [LAVITT, P., 2000, p. 253-258]
Especially well known Jewish "coon callers" included Sophie Tucker, Stella
Mayhew, Fanny Brice, Anna Held, Eddie Cantor, and Al Jolson.
Jews have long gravitated to an entrepreneurial exploitation of the Black
cultural scene and jazz music. As Burton Peretti notes:
"Aside from the hazards of the mob [organized crime] environment, the
exploitation faced by jazz players was rather typical for this era [1930s
and 1940s]. Jazz, like minstrels and ragtime before it, came under the
control of professional promoters who sought to make music profitable.
[They adapted] the technique of advertising, song plugging, and vaudeville
... Some promoters, like Joe Glaser (who managed Louis Armstrong in the
thirties) were associates of organized crime who left the underworld when
prohibition was repealed. Glaser apparently had overseen Al Capone's profits
from the Sunset Cafe and a prostitution ring before he became Armstrong's
manager in 1935. Many more promoters, however, were veterans of Tin Pan
Alley, Manhattan's song-publishing industry, including Irving Mills, a
former singer and songwriter who managed Duke Ellington's and other black
bands in the thirties." [PERETTI, p. 147]
Glaser ran the Associated Booking Corporation, often "the exclusive agent
for many of the top Black performers. He became a close associate of many
of the top underworld figures in Chicago and New York, whom he met through
his band-booking agency." [MOLDEA, p. 14] Glaser had been an early partner
in the company with eventual MCA chief Jules Stein. In 1962, mob-linked
attorney Sidney Korshak, also Jewish, gained control of the ABC company.
[MCDOUGAL, p. 141] Mills and Paddy Harmon, owner of Chicago's Dreamland
Cafe, "sought and gained spurious renown, as Mills took partial credit
for many Ellington compositions and Harmon patented and gave his name
to a trumpet mute that had long been popular among Joe Oliver and other
black players." [PERETTI, p. 148]
The rip-off of Black artists was a norm for the era. As Al Silverman notes
in the case of Fats Waller: "In his time Fats wrote the melodies to over
360 songs. Not that many bear his name today, unfortunately, because when
money was needed he'd write the music and sell all rights to unscrupulous
Tin Pan Alley characters." [SILVERMAN, p. 129-130] "That practice of show
business share-cropping ... in the 1920s and 1930s," notes the director
of Harlem's Apollo Amateur Night, Ralph Cooper, "existed right on through
the fifties and sixties. Its bitterness still exists among many performers
to this day -- a bitterness from the theft of their songs, their sound,
their talent." [COOPER, p. 199]
Jewish singers "Sophie Tucker, Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson," notes Donald
Fischer, "performed in blackface at the beginning of their careers, singing
black songs. They later built on their successes in this medium to develop
national statures and professional sucesses with other music. However,
their early songs were for the most part borrowed or plagiarized from
African-American sources, with little or no public recognition -- or monetary
reward -- for the creative talents that produced them." [FISCHER, D.,
6-30-2000, p. 21A]
Jews were also prominent in the overseeing of the Black community's jazz
life, including the control of musical clubs in Black neighborhoods in
a variety of American cities. "The invasion of the Black community by
organized crime lords with connections to downtown money," notes Ted Vincent,
"was certainly the most sensational contribution to the loss of Black
oversight of neighborhood dance halls and theatres." [VINCENT, p. 176]
"Slumming resorts" served a largely non-Black audience and "were noted
for their riverboat decor, fake magnolia plants, and nearly nude dancers
... Perhaps the nationwide pioneer in the resorts was Isadore Shor's Entertainment
Cafe." [VINCENT, p. 78] In Harlem, such clubs included Connie's Inn (owned
by Connie Innerman) and the famed Apollo Theatre. "From the opening of
the [Apollo] building in 1912 until 1934," notes Vincent, "the theatre
was a showcase for white [i.e., largely Jewish] vaudeville burlesque shows,
with white strippers coming to be the main attraction." [VINCENT, p. 189]
The Apollo was eventually sold by "Burlesque Kings Hurtig and Seaman"
to Sid Cohen and Morris Sussman, and then to Frank Schiffman and Leo Brecher.
Brecher also owned the Douglas, the Roosevelt, the Lafayette Theatre ("the
prime showcase for black talent in America") [COOPER, p. 44], and the
Harlem Opera House located a block from the Apollo. [VINCENT, p. 189-192]
Jay Fagan, and Moses and Charles Gale (Galewski), founded the popular
Savoy Ballroom in 1926.
Mel Watkins notes the reputation in the Black community of dominant mogul
Frank Schiffman:
"Schiffman was a controversial figure in black entertainment. Admired
and respected by some, scorned and excoriated by others, he was rarely
viewed neutrally. His Machiavellian approach to business is a matter of
record, and most would admit that he was an unrepentant shark in business
matters. He quickly eliminated his competitors and for decades eradicated
all serious competition, which earned him the grudging esteem of other
showmen. Among performers, however, the estimate was not glowing. Of his
knowledge of black acts, John Bubbles [an African-American performer of
the era] said, 'Only thing he knew was how to get people cheap as he could,
and work them as long as he could.' And John Hammond, a record producer
and friend, flatly declared 'Frank had no artistic taste at all.'" [WATKINS,
M., 1994, p. 386]
Samuel Charters and Leonard Kunstad note the situation of another famous
nightclub:
"The Cotton Club had opened at 142nd St. and Lexington Ave. in 1922 with
a strict policy of white only. The owner, Bernard Levy, had pressed his
policy, despite loud protests from the Harlem community. He used Negro
orchestras and a Negro revue and ran it as a tourist attraction for society
people who wanted to see a little of 'Harlem life' ... The club was forced
to admit colored patrons during the next winter, but the prices he kept
high and it remained predominantly a tourist attraction until the Depression."
[CHARTERS, p. 217] New York's Latin Quarter club (with eventual branches
in other cities) was also owned by a Jew, Lou Walters, father of famous
newscaster Barbara Walters; Monte Kay was the founder of the famous Birdland
jazz club. He too was Jewish. Mobster Morris Levy later controlled the
place. As Israeli scholar Robert Rockaway notes about a common undercurrent
in such night life: "Jewish Gangsters frequented nightclubs ... In fact,
Jewish underworld figures owned many nightspots and speakeasies. In New
York, Dutch Schultz owned the Embassy Club. Charley 'King' Solomon owned
Boston's Coconut Grove. In Newark, Longy Zwillman owned the Blue Mirror
and the Casablanca Club. Boo Boo Hoff owned the Picadilly Cafe in Philadelphia.
Detroit's [Jewish] Purple Gang owned Luigi's Cafe, one of the city's more
opulent clubs. Jewish singers and comedians, such as Al Jolson, Eddie
Cantor, Fanny Brice and Sophie Tucker played in the mob clubs." [ROCKAWAY,
R., 1993, p. 205]
Upset with outsider exploitation and degradation of the Black community
(where many night clubs were located), there was an effort by the Marcus
Garvey African-American movement as early as the 1920s to institute Black-owned
Liberty Halls "where the musical offerings would be part of an overall
effort at community uplift and not just a profit-oriented business." [VINCENT,
p. 114] (From France, even the international jet-set luxury playground/resort
of "Club Med" was founded by Gerard Blitz, and built to power by Gilbert
Trigano. Both are also Jewish. By 1999 the firm had 116 sites in 36 countries,
now headed by Gilbert's son Serge. [REGULY, E., 4-25-88, pl. 24; MCDONELL,
E., 5-1-99, p. D10] Hollywood's Roxy nightclub was founded by the Jewish
managerial trio of David Geffen, Loud Adler, and Bill Graham. [KING, T.,
2000, p. 187]
Jews have of course been prominent over the years as musical performers.
These included three of the most influential band leaders of the 1930s
-- Benny Goodman ("the King of Swing"), Harry James, and Artie Shaw (Arthur
Arshansky). More recent popular names include Leonard Bernstein, Andre
Previn, Arthur Fiedler, Stephen Sondheim, and many others.
As noted earlier too, by the 1930s MCA (Music Corporation of America)
was a powerful talent agency, founded by Jules Stein and built later to
power by Sidney Sheinbein and Lew Wasserman, who ultimately became one
of the most powerful men in Hollywood. Ronald Brownstein observes that:
"By the mid-1930s, MCA controlled many of the country's most popular bands,
from Tommy Dorsey to Artie Shaw." [BROWNSTEIN, p. 181] For years, MCA's
Jules Stein, adds Michale Pye, "ran the music business so toughly that
no dance hall would stand against him." [PYE, p. 18-19] In a 1946 antitrust
trial that MCA lost, a Los Angeles federal judge "declared that MCA held
a virtual monopoly over the entertainment business." The presiding judge
also stated that MCA was "the Octopus ... with tentacles reaching out
into all phases and grasping everything in show business." [MOLDEA, p.
2, 3] "The one man," notes non-Jewish band leader Guy Lombardo, "who probably
more than any other solidified the business and hastened the era of the
Big Bands was Jules Stein. He had started his Music Corporation of America
in Chicago and to that city gravitated bands from all over the country,
seeking the buildup and engagements they would get if MCA took them in
the fold." Lombardo was also under contract to Stein. [LOMBARDO, G., 1975,
p. 153] Stein even wrote an introduction to Lombardo's autobiography.
For years MCA increasingly interfaced with Chicago's Mafia and other underworld
personalities. Seemingly omnipresent in Hollywood was lawyer Sidney Korshak.
"A close friend of Stein's and Wasserman's," says Dan Moldea, "Korshak
quickly became one of the most powerful influences in the entertainment
industry and in California politics ... [MOLDEA, p. 5] ... Korshak ...
has been described by federal investigators as the principle link between
the [Hollywood] legitimate business world and organized crime." [MOLDEA,
p. 2]
And rock and roll? The Jewish foundation continued. "The most famous and
important [rhythm and blues disc jockey]," note Steve Chapple and Reebee
Garofalo, "was ... Alan Freed, the father of Rock 'n' Roll ... Freed was
credited with co-writing fifteen rock and rock hits including Chuck Berry's
'Maybelline,' but he did little more than promote any of them." [CHAPPLE,
p. 56-57] A biography of Freed notes that "by 1956, there was no bigger
name in rock and roll than Freed, except Elvis Presley." [JACKSON, p.
ix] (Another of America's best known early disc jockeys was also Jewish,
Murray the K, aka Murray Kaufman). In 1960, Freed was indicted for accepting
$30,000 in bribes to play songs at his radio station. "[Freed] grabbed
the kids and led them to the great rock candy mountain," says Albert Goldman,
"He named their music, coined its us-against-them rhetoric, created rock
show biz, including the package tour ... Alan Freed is really one of the
principal exhibits in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Ill Fame ... [He] was
not only a crook but a self-righteous hypocrite. Even [Freed's manager]
Morris Levy [with deep ties to the criminal underworld, particular the
Mafioso Gigante family] had to concede that the 'Father of Rock 'n' Roll'
was not a nice man. Speaking as one Jew to another Jew about a third Jew,
Levy said simply: 'He could have been another Hitler.'" [GOLDMAN, p. 519-520]
In a book about the Atlantic Records empire (later swallowed by Warners),
Dorothy Wade and Justine Picardie noted Morris Levy and the kinds of people
that populated the rock and roll industry: "The truth is, with or without
mob connections, Morris Levy was much more typical of the new music moguls
than either [non-Jewish] Ahmet Ertegun or [Jewish] Jerry Wexler ... The
world in which Atlantic had to survive was populated largely by hoodlums
and hustlers." [WADE, p. 57] As Syd Nathan, the owner of King Records,
once said, "You want to be in the record business? The first thing you
learn is that everyone is a liar." [WADE, p. 60] "The early rhythm and
blues companies were run by a fraternity of Jews ... They were tough and
they were shrewd -- some say unscrupulous -- and they were alternately
loved, despised, respected, and feared. The deep bond of these cultural
outsiders prompted one gentile, mild rebuke in his voice, to comment that
'Yiddish was the second language of the record business." [COHODAS, N.,
p. 3-4, 2000]
"To the general public," notes Steve Chapple and Reebee Garofalo, "the
music business seems to have a tremendous amount of corruption." [CHAPPLE,
p. 226] "I think in Hollywood," media psychologist Stuart Fischel of California
State University at Los Angeles told the Los Angeles Times in 1993, "people
get into a kind of mind meld. You can come in as a relatively moral and
ethical person, but eventually [Hollywood] produces a re-socializing of
a subculture with different norms and ethics based on hedonism and materialism.
It's hard to know what's going to breach the bounds of acceptable criminality
in Hollywood." [ELLER, p. B8, B11] Aside from drugs, prostitution, and
all the other extracurricular norms of the interrelated music, film, and
television worlds of Hollywood, just at the most basic business level,
"payola [bribery] has been a key factor in the establishment of major
artists," says Roger Karshner, "the evolution of publishing dynasties
and the creation of recording empires. Payola, layola, and taking care
of business are the ABC's of the music industry past and present. It has
taken many forms, and many publishers, artists, managers, and record people
at all levels have participated in payola practices." [KARSHNER, p. 39]
Probably the most important early rhythm and blues recording company was
Chess Records, founded by Leonard and Phillip Chess, Jewish immigrants
from Poland. They started out with a scrap metal business in the ghetto,
then moved into the liquor business, eventually owning several bars in
the Black neighborhoods of South Chicago, including the large Macamba
Club, which was "reputedly a prime center for prostitution and heavy drug
dealing." [DIXON, p. 78] The Chess brothers soon recognized a profitable
opportunity open to them with the many Black musical acts that played
at their nightclubs; the entrepreneurs soon embarked upon a recording
business, eventually producing blues, gospel, and rock and rock music.
Seminal Black artists who signed on to the Chess label included Bo Diddley,
Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Etta James, Chuck Berry,
and many others. Berry's songs were among the most influential in rock
and roll history. "Some people have called Leonard and Phillip Chess visionaries
who recognized the potential in the visceral blues of post-World War II
Chicago, "says Don Snowden, who co-wrote the auto-biography of bluesman
Willie Dixon, "A far greater number have branded the Chess brothers as
exploiters who systematically took advantage of the artists who created
that music." [DIXON, p. 78] The Rolling Stones even found seminal bluesman
Muddy Waters still painting the Chess's home when they came to record
in Chicago. [WADE, p. 71]
Frank Schiffman, owner of a number of musical venues in New York's Harlem
area, "was a ruthless competitor who would do anything, including take
advantage of his black employees and exploit the great black artists who
worked for him, in order to increase his profits and beat down the opposition."
[COOPER, p. 44]
"Remember [Black singer] Little Eva Boyd?" asks Ralph Cooper, "She worked
as a babysitter for two Tin Pan Alley [Jewish] rock and roll writers,
Carole King and Gerry Goffen. They wrote a song called 'Loco-Motion' and
they asked her to sing it ... Now [1990] she lives in North Carolina,
where her people are from. She's a working mother on welfare. She works
in a barbeque kitchen as a cook." [COOPER, p. 196]
In 1997, Black singer Darlene Love won a lawsuit for back royalties against
famous Jewish musical producer Phil Spector. (Originally awarded $263,000,
it was later dropped down to $130,000.) Love was the anonymous lead singer
on a number of 1960s-era Spector productions, including He's a Rebel,
Da Do Ron Ron, He's Sure the Boy I Love, and other hits. In the early
1980s Ms. Love found herself cleaning toilets for a living, but her singing
career later flourished anew. [WILLMAN, C., 10-15-88, CALENDAR, p. 10;
WARRICK, P., 11-2-98]
"I didn't know anything about the record business," said early rock and
roll sensation Little Richard (of "Tutti Frutti" fame) about his rock
and roll career. " I was very dumb ... I was just like a sheep among a
bunch of wolves that would devour me at any moment. I think I was taken
advantage of because I was uneducated. I think I was treated inhumane
... I think I was treated wrong and many people got rich out of the style
of music I created. They are all millionaires, writ many times, and nobody
offered me nothing." [WADE, p. 74] Dorothy Wade and Justine Picardie note
Little Richard's lamentation, then add: "To which many, if not most, of
his black musical contemporaries would add: Amen." [WADE, p. 74] Among
others, Richard had in mind the Jewish owner of Specialty Records, Art
Rupe, who many years ago bought the rights to his songs for a paltry $10,000.
Chuck Berry remembers being cheated by the Chess brothers: "[Phil Chess
finally acknowledged] in writing that no songwriter royalties had been
paid for three years on my Chess Records product ... [And in a review
of Chess documents] I was surprised to learn that I had been paid the
same songwriter royalties for an LP as I was receiving for a single record.
Chess claimed to be unaware of this 'mistake,' as if they had never noticed
that LPs had between eight and ten songs on them." [BERRY, C., p. 246-247]
"In 1974 Howlin' Wolf filed a lawsuit against Arc Music [the publishing
wing of Chess Records, it was co-owned by the Chess brothers and two brothers
of Jewish band leader Benny Goodman] [COHODAS, N., 2000, p. 37] asking
for $2.5 million for unpaid royalties from his songs ... In 1976 Muddy
Waters and Willie Dixon filed identical lawsuits against the publishing
company, alleging fraud and conspiracy and asking to paid money damages
and to have their publishing contracts voided." [COHODAS, N., 2000, p.
308]
In 1972, Martin Otelsberg became the manager of African-American musician
Bo Diddley. Suspecting in later years that he had been swindled, Diddley
filed suit against Otelsberg's estate in 1994 and recovered $400,000.
As Diddley's lawyer (also Jewish) John Rosenberg noted, "This is a typical
story that's happened time and again to musicians like Bo." [MORSE, S.,
6-18-94, p. 28] Diddley complained of being cheated by the Chess brothers
as well. "To me every nationality has a reason for bein' here," said Diddley,
"an' mostly all the Jewish people own everything. They got all the money.
Give him a thousand dollars, he'll turn it into ten million. How the heck
they do it, I don't know." [COHODAS, N., 2000, p. 110]
The Jewish agent-producer exploitation of Black recording artists in the
early rhythm and blues era of the 1940s and 1950s (and later) was predominant
and widespread, entrenching a Black hostility among many to their Jewish
financial controllers to the present day. The following Jewish entrepreneurs
were among those who founded record labels featuring mainly Black talent:
Herman Lubinsky (Savoy Records); the Braun family (DeLuxe Records); Hy
Siegal, Sam Schneider and Ike Berman (Apollo Records); Saul, Joe, and
Jules Bihari (Modern Records); Art Rupe (Specialty Records-- its biggest
hits were those of Little Richard); Lev, Edward, and Ida Messner (Philo/Aladdin
Records); Al Silver and Fred Mendelsohn (Herald/Ember Records); Paul and
Lilian Rainer (Black and White Records); Sam and Hy Weiss (Old Towne Records;
Sol Rabinowitz (Baton Records -- Rabinowitz eventually became vice president
of CBS International); and Danny Kessler (head of OKeh Records, a "cheap"
branch of Columbia Records). Sydney Nathan controlled both the King and
Federal record labels and Florence Greenberg owned the Mafia-influenced
Scepter Records (featuring the Shirelles and Dionne Warwick). "Those illiterates,"
Hy Weiss of Olde Towne once said about his recording artists, "they would
have ended up eating from pails in Delancey Street if it weren't for us."
[WADE, p. 70]
"The record producers were white," says Nadine Cohodas in her book about
the Chess brothers, "their talent for the most part black, many from impoverished
backgrounds and few with much formal education, living in a society that
regarded them as second-class citizens. The deals between the two parties
were not the negotiations of peers. The relationship coluld be paternalistic,
even condescending. At Chess it sometimes looked as though Leonard and
Phil gave their musicians an allowance rather than a salary." [COHODAS,
N., 2000, p. 4]
The history of rock and roll is, of course," notes Rich Cohen, "riddled
with pioneering white record men who built careers recording, and sometimes,
exploiting black artists: Morris Levy, that burly, cigar-smoking product
of the Brill Building, allegedly stealing writing credits from Frankie
Lyman; Herman Lubinsky, the founder of Savoy Records in Newark, New Jersey,
throwing around nickels as if they were manhole covers." [COHEN, R., 6-21-01]
In Philadelphia, in 1984 lawsuits were swirling around WMOT, a company
that "developed a reputation as an aggressive independent record producer
specializing in the 'Philly sound.'" Formerly owned by Steve Bernstein,
Alan Rubens, and David Chacker, it was acquired by Michael Goldberg, Allen
Cohen, and Jeff and Mark Salvarian. Lawsuits even named Israel's Bank
Leumi among defendants in a scheme to use the record company to launder
drug money. The central player in this accusation was Larry Lavin, who
was indicted as the "kingpin of a 13-member [drug] ring that allegedly
sold $5 million of cocaine a month." [DAUGHEN, 1984]
By 1978 president Oscar Cohen of the Associate Booking Corporation presided
over "the country's biggest black talent booking agency." [SHAW, A, p.
419, p. 133] Recurrent, "mobbed-up" Morris Levy even eventually owned
Birdland in its heyday, the famous jazz club. [WEXLER, p. 130] Levy also
controlled the Roulette Record label. Nat "the Rat" Tarnopol headed the
Brunswick label (Jackie Wilson was one of its most prominent African-American
stars). Tarnopol was indicted twice in the 1970s "for using payola, drugola,
and strong-arm goons to get radio airplay for Brunswick recording artists."
[MCDOUGAL, p. 366]
An early and important supporter of disc jockey Alan Freed and his own
empire was Leo Mintz, who owned a large record store near Cleveland's
Black ghetto. Even earlier, Eli Oberstein founded Varsity records in the
1930s, Joe Davis launched Beach records in 1942, and "Jake Friedman had
Southland, one of the biggest distributing outfits in the South." [SHAW,
A., Honkers, p. 236] "The whole history of rock 'n' roll," noted the London
Guardian in a review of Jewish author Michael Billig's book about the
subject, "has been portrayed as white artists 'ripping off' black music.
Only now [with Billig's volume] has the major Jewish contribution been
acknowledged." [ARNOT, C., 10-4-2000, p. 6] Atlanta-based Mark Shimmel,
for instance, is the CEO of LaFace Records, which headlines TLC, Usher,
Tonik Braxton, GoodiMob, "and a raft of hot hip-hop artists ... He built
his own company, managing talents as varied as John Denver and Broadway
composer Frank Wildhorn ... He doesn't worry much about what he calls
'the white guy in the black music business.'" He has also worked with
Huey Lewis, Harry Belafonte, Ray Charles, and former Eagle Don Henley.
[POLLAK, S., 1-7-00]
**********
Joseph Heller, formerly of Heller-Fischel, booked acts like Styx, the
Electric Light Orchestra, Boz Scaggs, and a variety of others. "He represented
top-drawer rock talent like Van Morrison, the Guess Who, Marvin Gaye,
War, Elton John and Pink Floyd." [SNYDER, N., 2-19-01] Stretching out
as dangerously as possible to make a buck, Heller eventually gravitated
towards a relative goldmine in the Black ghetto-based "gangsta rap." He
cofounded Ruthless Records and managed the pioneer rap group NWA (Niggaz
With Attitude) from early in their careers. The musical genre of gangsta
rap, notes Jory Farr, "thrives on misogyny, as well as homophobic and
race-baiting rage ... [It] was the perfect music for [a] lifestyle loaded
down ... with warnings of betrayal, murder, revenge, and a short life."
[FARR, p. 70] "I believed that rap would become the most important music
of the nineties," said Heller, "... [But] you can't sell two million rap
records to kids in the inner city. That's a way to sell 200,000. You have
to market it to the white kids." [FARR, p. 68, 71]
Heller hired Ira Selsky as his corporate attorney and an Israeli-born
security chief named Michael Klein to ward off angry, exploited Blacks
who quite literally walked into his office threatening to kill him. Rap
star Ice Cube even threatened Heller in one of his recorded songs, prompting
the Anti-Defamation League to flag it as anti-Semitic. Ruthless Records
released a Jewish rap duo called Blood of Abraham. As Chuck D, the lead
vocalist for the Black rap group Public Enemy, noted, "There's no way
to get trained on the seamier elements of the music business being on
the street -- that element is reserved for boardrooms." [D, CHUCK, p.
85] Those in Chuck D's reminiscences about "boardroom" behavior include
Lyor Cohen (manager of Rush Productions, and an Israeli); Al Teller, an
executive at MCA whose parents died in the Holocaust; Steve Ralbovsky
of CBS; Bill Adler (a publicist); and Rick Rubin of Def Jam Records. (Jewish
diamond dealer Jacob Arabo has made the news as a favored jewelry merchant
to the Black rap crowd that seeks to symbolize wealth and power, or, as
the New York Times put it, "the jeweler who gives most of today's leading
rappers their shine." [CENTURY, p. 1]
In 2001, Heller was named the "Godfather of Latin Rap" by the Los Angeles
Business Journal; he was joining in attempting to build a rap movement
in the Latino market via Hit a Lick records. As the Journal noted:
"If Heller is convinced that Latin rap will emerge as the next big thing,
it probably will be, said other music industry veterans ... Indeed, Heller
is widely acknowledged as one of the key forces behind gangsta rap's crossover
into the music mainstream ... While Heller has the second-tier title of
chief operating officer, he acknowledges that the other partners 'generally
run everything by me because of my experience and expertise.'" [SNYDER,
N., 2-19-01]
By 2001 too, the aforementioned Lyor Cohen had catapulted to power in
the Rap world. Rolling Stone even magazine featured an article about him,
sub-titled How Lyor Cohen -- the White, Jewish Israeli-Raised President
of Island Def Jam Records -- Became One of the Most Important Men in Hip-Hop,
and Why He May Now Become One of the Most Important Men in Rock & Roll."
Cohen started out promoting punk rock acts like the Circle Jerks, Social
Distortion, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He then became president of
the rap music label Def Jam in 1988 and soon had become "perhaps the most
powerful white executive in an African-American business." (Def Jam was
bought out by the Jewish-owned Polygram company in 1999). Irv Gott, a
Black record producer, notes that Cohen is
"a white Jewish guy, but I think everybody respects him like he's black.
He knows how to carry it too. He knows how to get gangster, how to fall
back, when to shut the fuck up, whento say something. That's why other
white executives are scared of him. He knows how to deal with the hoods,
the criminal element."
Cohen, continued Rolling Stone, has broadened his musical base and "oversees
an empire that includes hundreds of artists performing in dozens of genres,
a roster that features PJ Harvey, American Hi-Fi, Shelby Lynne, Lionel
Richie, Bon Jovi, Melissa Etheridge, Saliva, Ludacris, Kelly Price and
Sisquo." Cohen's nickname is "Little Lansky" (after famed Jewish mobster
Meyer Lansky). He was born in New York City "where his father, an Israeli,
worked in the consulate." He was later raised on an avocado farm near
Tel Aviv. [COHEN, R., 6-21-01]
Cohen has also been active in trying to readjust Black consciousness of
Jewish exploitation of the African-American community. "In the late Eighties,"
notes reporter Rich Cohen,
"when [Public Enemy's] album It Takes a Nation of Milions to Hold Us Back
was topping the charts, the group's minister of information, Professor
Griff, made several anti-Semitic statements. As a Jewish exec working
with the band, Cohen found himself in the middle of a rough, formative
experience. 'When Professor Griff from Public Enemy said what he said,
and it caused this whirlwind, the whole industry asked me, 'What the fuck
are you doing?' says Cohen. 'Every president of every record company called
and said, 'Drop them: But I believe part of being Jewish is education.
And I believe I was instrumental in changing Public Enemy's views. I said,
"Your voice is being muted because you say Jews are this or that. You
can't make blanket statements. If you want your message out there" --
and it was profound, I think -- "stop generalizing." And I was the only
Jew in their lives. What if I resigned? They would only be more alienated.
I hadn't quite being a Jew. I can't quit being a Jew. Instead, I tried
to have an impact. I felt like I was doing the right thing. Not just as
a Jew, as a person. They had a big voice da nation of millions, to quote
their album I had the Holocaust Museum [the Simon Wiesenthal Center] shut
down, and we had a private tour. The first thing you see is a Jewish skull
plus a black person's skull equals a baboon. The last thing is a monkey
with enormous lips dressed with a Star of Daivd holding a trumpet and
a sign saying, 'It's these Jews that are bringing in this music call jazz.'"
[COHEN, R., 6-21-01]
Then there is former tax attorney Joe Weinberger who drives a Jaguar S-200,
wears a diamond-studded Rolex watch and "fat gold rings," and carries
a "9mm automatic pistol tucked in his pocket." As the Miami New Times
notes about his rise to power in the African-American rap music world,
"In the early Nineties, Miami's reigning booty-rapper, Luther Campbell,
hired Weinberger away from the carpeted hallways of a swash Brickell Key
law firm to help manage a growing musical empire and its attendant lawsuits.
Within five years Campbell was bankrupt and Weinberger had purchased the
rights to his music. Rather than return to the comfortable confines of
his former life, the 42-year old lawyer, who is single and childless,
opted to launch his own label, Lil' Joe ... In a post bankruptcy fire
sale overseen by Richard Wolfe [Weinberger's lawyer/partner, also Jewish],
Weinberger bought the rights to 2 Live Crew music for about $800,000,
plus the outstanding money he claims Campbell owed him." [KORTEN, T.,
8-10-2000]
Weinberger has even been accused of ordering a car bombing and directing
death threats against an employee.
Then there is Canada-born Bryan Turner, who founded Priority Records in
1985; he is also Jewish. [JEWHOO, 2000] By 1998, Priority had yearly sales
of $250 million. As the Los Angeles Times notes:
"When the pioneering gangster rap group N.W.A. was looking for its first
record deal, it found a distributor in Priority Records, which released
an album so obscene it prompted a letter of complaint from the F.B.I.
When Ice-T left Warner Brothers Records after police groups and the company's
shareholders objected to his song 'Cop Killer,' he found a new home at
Priority. When Suge Knight, the imprisoned head of Death Row Records,
who is known for his pugnacious business tactics, was looking for his
first deal, Priority gave it to him. Through all the violence and controversy
of hardcore rap music -- from its roots in N.W.A to its current resurrection
with Master P -- the Los Angeles label Priority Records has been a major
player." [STRAUSS, N., 9-3- 98, sec. E, p. 1]
And as the Times noted on another occasion: "When Time Warner first parted
ways with rapper Ice-T after the 'Cop Killer' flap and then with rapper
Paris over a song that portrayed an assassination fantasy of President
Bush, Turner wasted little time signing deals with both artists." [HOCHMAN,
S., 7-30-95, CALENDAR, p. 82]
Jewish entrepreneur Steve Rifkind has also become very successful in the
rap music field. In 1993, Rifkind founded and still heads Loud Records
(its president is Rich Isaacson). Earlier, Rifkind began the Steven Rifkind
Company, "a consulting firm specializing in Rap and R&B." Loud acts include
Wu-Tang Clan, Mobb Deep, Yvette Michelle, Funkmaster Flex, Alkaholics,
Raekwon, and Xzibit. The company's value is estimated at about $100 million.
[collegemusic.com/1-11-00] "Rifkind," notes the online magazine Entrepreneur,
"who trademarked the term 'Street Teams,' takes marketing to the street
-- literally -- by hiring youths to tell their communities about his artists'
music. 'My philosophy has always been 'You can't stop word-of-mouth, explains
Rifkind, who has street teams across cities, distributing free singles
to teenagers at housing projects and schools, and scrawling the names
of his albums in the dust on parked trucks, which then serve as mobile
billboards." [entrepreneur.com]
Yet another major Jewish rap entrepreneur is the aforementioned Rick Rubin,
who, says Jory Farr, found his "biggest stars were former gangsters who
used beats and rhymes to glamorize wealth, dope, and violence. Deciding
who to sign could be a moral quagmire ... but Rubin wasn't one to be bothered
by the trivia of social responsibility." [FARR, p. 126] "I could do anything
I wanted," Rubin once said about his own family life in New York, "We
were always upper middle class. We were wealthy for the community we lived
in. In a sense I was spoiled." [FARR, p. 119]
Rubin's record company Def American is now called American Recording;
at one time Geffen Records distributed Rubin's material. Earlier in his
career he had signed bands like Slayer (whose lyrics exhorted "everything
from virgin sacrifice and satanism to sadistic mutilations and the atrocities
of Auschwitz" [FARR, p. 109]) and the Geto Boys, who "pushed misogyny
and sadism to new depths." [FARR, p. 108] Rubin's own star rose so high
that he eventually produced albums for Mick Jagger and the Red Hot Chili
Peppers. Troubles, however, came from a lawsuit against him by Adam Horowitz
of the Beastie Boys and threats from the Meir Kahane-founded Jewish Defense
League. Outraged by Rubin's promotion of violently anti-Jewish lyrics
by Black ghetto groups, the Jewish group reportedly came looking to beat
him up. Rubin couldn't understand their anger. He told an interviewer
that
"They should've talked to me and found out what I felt before coming to
attack me, because I was a JDO [Jewish Defense Organization] supporter.
When I was at NYU I saw [right wing rabbi] Meir Kahane speak and he blew
me away -- he was amazing ... After hearing him speak, I wanted to pack
my bags and go to Israel ... I called the JDO several times, wanted to
join, but they never returned my calls." [FARR, p. 123]
Among the most controversial "gangsta rap" labels was Death Row Records
(including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, and Snoopy Doggy Dog). A noted earlier,
Death Row products were distributed by the Jewish-dominated Time-Warner
company until "pressure from stockholders after an outcry over the flagrantly
violent and misogynist lyrics" of its stars. Time-Warner dropped the label,
but eighteen months later it was picked up (for $200 million) by the Universal
Music Group, a subsidiary of the Jewish Bronfman family's Seagram company.
Universal too eventually abandoned the controversial label, only after
"pressure from stockholders and regulators." [HELMORE, E., 8-29-97, p.
10]
Still another Jewish push -- more recently -- into the rap world is Koch
Entertainment's In The Paint record label. Koch, one of the largest "independent
music distribution companies," is headed by founder and CEO Michael Koch
and President Bob Frank. [kochentertainment.com]
And lastly for the music scene, the president
and CEO of the Recording Industry of America -- a lobbying group (with
a staff of 72) for the big record companies -- is also Jewish, Hilary
Rosen, who was described in 1997 by the Washington Post as "a powerful
woman in an industry dominated by men. One of the most influential yet
least known players in the U.S. entertainment behemoth." [WEEKS,
p. C1] Rosen became the CEO when another executive, Jason Berman, stepped
down from the position.
C. Delores Tucker, the founder of the National Political Congress of Black
Women, has singled out Rosen's organization for special condemnation:
Lawyers
for Jewish Defense League Leader Want FBI Files on Alleged Scheme to Extort
Rap Stars,
TBO (Tampa Bay, FL), November 3, 2002
"In a bizarre twist to the case of a right-wing Jewish leader accused
of trying to blow up Muslim-related sites, defense attorneys have requested
records of an FBI probe into whether the suspect's group tried to shake
down rap stars Tupac Shakur and Eazy-E. Jewish Defense League leader Irv
Rubin is being held without bail along with group member Earl Krugel
on charges of plotting to blow up a mosque and the office of an Arab American
congressman. They have pleaded innocent. In papers filed this week in
U.S. District Court, Rubin's lawyers asked a judge to order prosecutors
to hand over records of the FBI probe, claiming it provides evidence of
government bias against the league. An informant outlined the alleged
extortion scheme during FBI interviews in 1996 about the murder of a figure
in the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Los Angeles
Times reported Saturday. The informant said the JDL planned to make
death threats against Shakur and Eazy-E, then offer them protection for
a fee, the Times said, citing documents obtained under the Freedom of
Information Act."
The following are quotes from Jewish author (and Contributing
Editor to Rolling Stone magazine) Neal Kaplan's book Babes in Toyland.
The Making and Selling of a Rock and Roll Band, Times Mirror/Random
House, 1994:
"In the 1990 film Mo' Better Blues, Spike Lee crafted an artful if blazingly
anti-Semitic portrait of the fictional Moe Flatbush, an avaricious Jewish
club owner intent on swindling black jazzmen. The ferretlike, Yiddish-spouting
Moe, played by John Turturro, was seemingly lifted straight from the pages
of the anti-Semitic scred The Protocols of Zions." [KARLEN, N., 1994,
p. 145]
"'I want everybody to try and find this book!' rapper Ice Cube said at
a 1991 press conference where he held up a copy of The Secret Relationship
Between Blacks and Jews, a bogus piece of Nation of Islam scholarship."
[KARLEN, N., 1994, p. 146]
"Easy-E, former leader of the gangsta rap group N.W.A., made a courageous
stand, going so far as to appear on a Jewish rap group's single entitled
'Niggaz and Jews (Some Say Kikes).' Easy-E was not long after lectured
by Omar Bradley, the mayor of his hometown of Compton, California, with
'I won't name the specific racial group that's using you, brother, but
they are destroying us and having lunch and a bar mitzvah at the same
time." [KARLEN, N., 1994, p. 146]
Def
Jam, Lyor Cohen Guilty Of Fraud; Ja Rule Fights Patrick 'Dirty Dancing'
Swayze,
MTV News, March 25, 2003
"Irv Gotti's business partners finished their latest round
of fighting Friday in a New York federal court. Music label Island/Def
Jam and company CEO Lyor Cohen were found liable for fraud, willful
copyright infringement and wrongful interference with a contract in a
$30 million lawsuit filed against them by TVT Records. At the eye of the
storm were claims TVT had made, saying that Cohen tried to hinder
the production and release of an album by Ja Rule's group, the Cash Money
Click (a.k.a. CMC). 'The verdict against Mr. Cohen, personally,
for fraud shows that there are some very serious problems confronting
Def Jam and Universal Music Group,' said Peter Haviland, a trial lawyer
for TVT Records."
Press
Release. Anti-Semitism-USA. ADL Says Record Label Response to Complaint
About Public Enemy Song 'Swindler's Lust' Unacceptable,
Anti-Defamation League, New York, June 22,
1999
"The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today said it found 'completely
unacceptable' the response of Atomic Pop Records to concerns the title
and lyrics of a new Public Enemy song issued on its label are anti-Semitic
and offensive to Jews. 'Denying the existence of anti-Semitism doesn’t
make the problem go away,' said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National
Director ... In a June 17 letter to record company executives, Mr. Foxman
said he was 'outraged and offended' by the title and lyrics to `Swindlers
Lust’ on the new Public Enemy album There’s a Poison Goin On, which he
said makes obvious references to Jews and the Holocaust. Mr. Foxman
said the song’s lyrics contain 'classic anti-Semitic code words and seem
to blame Jews for the plight of financially underprivileged Blacks.'"
Chuck
D Demands Apology For Charges Of Anti-Semitism Anti-Defamation League
leader stands by assertion, says Public Enemy frontman is out of order,
VH1.com, July 15, 199
"Outspoken Public Enemy leader Chuck D is demanding an apology from
the Anti-Defamation League, which last month accused the pioneering hip-hop
group of anti-Semitism in the song 'Swindlers Lust.'. 'I want an apology
now,' the 38-year-old rapper said Wednesday from Germany, where he is
promoting Public Enemy's latest album, There's a Poison Goin' On, which
contains the offending song. 'For me not to speak out on the one-sided
persecution by the music industry, not to use this platform ... that's
bullsh--.' A spare song that was initially released on the Internet in
January, 'Swindlers Lust' blasts unnamed music-industry executives for
what Chuck D (born Carlton Ridenhour) sees as 50 years of unfair compensation
for black artists. ADL national director Abraham Foxman criticized
the group in a June 17 letter to Al Teller, head of the Atomic
Pop music label, which released the album ... Speaking from Jerusalem
on Wednesday, Foxman said it was out of order for Public Enemy
to call for the leading Jewish advocacy group to atone. 'I don't think
there's anything to apologize for,' said Foxman, who was in Israel
to meet with leaders in the administration of newly elected prime minister
Ehud Barak. "Unfortunately [Chuck D] comes with some baggage. ...
It's not that we come out of the blue or that he is a total innocent in
this area.' Foxman was referring to a 1989 incident in which peripheral
Public Enemy member Professor Griff (born Richard Griffin) told the Washington
Times that he held Jews responsible for the 'majority of the wickedness
that goes on across the globe.' Griff was dismissed from the politically
charged group shortly after, but returned to the fold with last year's
He Got Game album. He appears briefly on There's a Poison Goin' On. 'Swindlers
Lust' contains lines such as 'Mo dollars, mo cents for the Big Six/ Another
million led to bled claiming their innocence.' Chuck D has said the 'Big
Six' refers to the six major music corporations — Sony, Time Warner, EMI,
BMG, Universal and PolyGram (now known as the Big Five after last year's
merger of Universal and PolyGram) — and Atomic Pop Vice President Liz
Morentin explained that the 'million' lyric was a nod to the Million Man
March of 1995. But Foxman alleged the proximity of the numbers
'six' and 'million' was a veiled reference to the 6 million Jews killed
in the Holocaust, and added that lines such as 'Dem own the banks' referred
to a conspiracy theory that Jewish people control the financial industry.
That the track appropriates the title of the celebrated Holocaust book
and film 'Schindler's List' adds insult to injury, he said."
