Customer Reviews

This Is Babylon

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Y-Love has raised the bar for revolutionary hip-hop and the New Jewish Music scene. "This is Babylon" is one of those albums that changes the game completely.

Y-Love attacks Western materialism, promotes interfaith unity and religious growth, and makes us dance all at the same time, with the aid of a multilingual vocabulary and beats flavoured with a post-modern cyberpunk aesthetic.

Lyrically tackling social and spiritual issues comes naturally for Y-Love, making this album equally suited as a conversation piece and a soundtrack for your next block party (or protest rally).

"This Is Babylon" puts Y-Love in the same league as such greats as Mos Def, Immortal Technique, and Common and makes him possibly the most talented and relevant Jewish poet alive.

In a world of negative, degrading hip-hop, Y-Love is a shining beacon of hope. He's the Barack Obama of hip-hop - his mission being to bridge the gap between our differences that threaten to pull us apart as human beings. His lyrics are so real, so fresh, so creative that you often have to pause the music and go - "Holy ****! He just totally blew my mind!" If you're looking for intellectual hip-hop that will enlighten you rather than keep you down, this is the album to get.

I am not a fan of hip hop. In fact, it's probably one of the music genres I like least. However, I decided to give Y-Love a shot because I enjoyed his story.

Though I'm not Jewish, I feel I have a lot in common with Y-Love. Though I wouldn't consider myself a Left Winger (I'm not a Right Winger either), I share his strong dislike of the system today. Like Y-Love, I also don't feel the solution is to be negative. The solution is to turn to something greater in life. To Y-Love, that "greater thing" is positivity through spirituality.

When you first listen, it sounds like typical (and I don't mean that in a bad sense) hip hop you would hear on the radio. It doesn't sound like some religious dude trying too hard to fit in a genre where he doesn't belong. And when you pay close attention to the overall message of music, you'll develop a great appreciation for it.

As far as I can tell (and I don't listen to hip hop much, so I could be wrong), his music is completely original. A lot of the stuff my kids hear on the radio rip off songs that played on the radio back when I was a kid. I've heard all of the songs on the album several times and couldn't indentify any parts that were ripped off of other songs.

Here are some faults I think some people might find with this album:

1. Many of the lyrics are in Hebrew, Yiddish, Aramaic, and Arabic. To me, the overall message is clear and still understandable. It doesn't affect the music at all.

2. The lyrics are very much Left Wing. Most religious folks I know are Right Wingers. And so if you purchase this album because it is religious, you might be turned off by the "liberal" message. Y-Love deals very much with issues such as American greed and modern day racism. He throws more than one shot at former President George W. Bush with statements such as, "tell me you think Bush likes black people", "what does it take to remove a dictator from office", and "let's see Bush tried for his crimes live on Al-Jezeera". However, I think he does a great job knowing the difference between his political views and spiritual views (meaning, he doesn't preach that if you REALLY love God, you would share his religious views).

3. The lyrics are Jewish and religious. This is the part I like most about the album. However, if you aren't down with Judaism, you probably wouldn't be down with Y-Love (or perhaps he would change your mind).

This is definitely one of my favorite albums! I hope to hear more from him in the coming years!

This is an album for anybody who is sick of dumb-ed down hip-hop with the same old beats recycled from cheesy rappers. If you are looking for intelligent lyrics, original beats, and an alternative to the crap being release by the record companies today, buy this joint.