Behind The Scenes WIth Nissim Black

[Music] oh [Music] i am [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] oh [Music] me i feel the cold in the rain i wanna get [Music] [Applause] [Music] upon [Music] king david's rock your honor we give our luck the stronger we clean you drop the blessing the brother success the world is yours [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome everybody we have listeners from all over the world today it's an amazing program that we have before we begin and speak to nissam i want to thank ace.com project inspire and hinani for coming together in this time in this world right now what do we need we need unity because in unity there is strength so here we are together listeners from all over the world coming together as one family strong and we have to stay strong my friends who are listening from all over the world from all these three incredible organizations what are we going to do today we're living in an upside down world what's normal anymore we don't even know is it normal to go to school or is it normal not to go to school is it normal to go to work or is it normal to stay home is it normal to give a hug to grandparents or is that not normal anymore so what do we do we need to have faith we need to have strength and we need to have hope and light which brings us to our guest today nissan black because nissam is a man who has had such a courageous courageous journey in this world and nissim has brought us to a place where we can see that somebody can stand for something can be passionate for something greater than yourself today we're going to hear nissim's newest hit hava we're going to hear the story behind the story we're going to learn from nissan what makes him tick what's his story how did he come to judaism and we're going to hear this newest hit along with a great message for bar and bot mitzvah kids who are listening today with their families because it's been a year of a lot of disappointment a lot of confusion a lot of chaos so nissan we're going to hear from nissan in just a few moments and before we do what we want to do is we're going to surprise nissan nissan you have given us so much in our audience today there are some very special fans of yours and we want to tell you how much you mean to us so before we get to all your story we're going to dig deep we want to hear from our very first fan our fan before we hear from you from nissan in jerusalem we're going to hear from our fan sam who's going to speak to you nissan today and give you a surprise from us all let's hear from sam to nissim i love your music especially motherland bounce because it conveys a passion for judaism that is through a rap song which is something i've never seen before it has a great beat great lyrics and it's just an amazing song all together thank you so much for all of your hard work nissan i didn't know you didn't know we were going to do that we have more in store for you but we want you to know that your journey has touched souls all over the world and fans out there that you don't even know about and you've inspired us so let's start with this i imagine that when you were a little boy you didn't exactly have this hat on your head or a kippah right or it says right tell us something how did you come to this what made you choose judaism we're listening from all over the world right now we're coming together we want to hear from you i think you know before one jumps into an awesome and great light the spiritual principle is that there has to be a little bit of darkness and uncertainty so i did find myself in that place as you said you know i did not grow up this way i grew up in a home of unfortunately drug dealers i was involved in that myself as a kid a gang violence a lot of a lot of drug abuse is as you know was going on around me um so there was there was no way that if i would have wrote the book back then that i would have had this type of ending or our period at all so it's most definitely right but i experienced you know as being a rapper in the secular world uh conflict with another rapper um that led me to a situation that was either you know to take a person's life or to have my life taken and that was a very very scary and um moment for me at that time and i think the biggest thing for me during that is it made me remember that you know i did have certain time periods in my life where i was very connected to spirituality um at the time before was christianity uh so it made me start to think like how did i get to such a place a person like me who knew about prayer already i knew about having a relationship with how can i get to such a place where you know i find myself in this darkness long story short that situation was able to be you know subsided and put behind me and looking forward i said to myself that you know what if i allow myself to stay in the same circles and continue with the same actions then it's very likely that i'll be faced with the possible repeat of the situation if not worse so i stayed home and i prayed a lot and i prayed and i prayed and i asked god for direction along with that i started picking up the bible again when i started looking at the bible start to notice things that i had never noticed before one of the biggest things that i noticed was that a lot of different verses that were used inside of you know christian circles to talk about god's beautiful relationship with people were actually talking about the jewish people i wasn't talking about the churches so i started to look deeper into things um i started to study you know the the the roots of christianity um and and even the roots of islam and underneath you know both boxes you find judaism so i realized you know as a kid i had asked a lot of questions you know when i was in different study groups and now this was my opportunity to look up all those answers for myself nobody was around i grew up in a jewish neighborhood very very very close to the jewish neighborhood i didn't have so many friends that i could call and ask so i asked rabbi google and i started searching and researching and i ended up here and there at a messianic temple for a couple years and then i discovered chabad and i started going to chabad and i think the most beautiful thing about about it for me was is that when i read the bible i didn't look for um anything academic i didn't look for instance let me ask you something when you give us this journey of yours you did it really all by yourself you know nobody was around nobody around i mean yeah i think there are so many of us who are listening to you and feeling like that you know even if you're born with it it doesn't mean that you have the education or you have the school and you really had that courage i know that the last time that we spoke you gave us a moment that was a turning point in your life i'm going to remind you because after our interview a lot of people who are listening said hello what did nissan just say why did you ask him about that more and i have to ask you you told us that there was a moment that you found the fbi in your home as a little kid and that was a turning point that was awful right can you tell us about that moment and about overcoming fear in life you know yeah that was a very scary moment for me your first job thank you okay can you share that with me sure for sure it a lot of my family you know was involved in um criminal activity drugs being uh the main thing i would say and uh we had noticed the family that sort of picked up the you know the phones were clicking in and out they were glitching a little bit and as it got closer to the morning uh people started to hear a little bit of commotion whispering around the house uh so there was a lot of stashes things got stashed and and before you knew it there was a raid fbi raid on my house and and i remember waking up to my mother with the gun on her back and every single person in the house and inside of handcuffs and i was there even startled as a kid and and i remember the fbi agent getting me dressed and they sent me off to school and i had no idea who was going to be there when i got back home i left with everybody in handcuffs very very traumatic and very very scary uh situation uh for me as a kid most definitely so how how would you think it's a good journey for a person listening today because right now the world is filled with fear you know and you overcame something huge what do you think just one thought that you can give us listening today how to overcome fear in life you know i think one of the biggest things is that you know i heard once if you take a fish out of water and the fish becomes almost insignificant you watch it flapping there's no no genius anymore seen to that fish but once you put the fish back into water you see it do amazing things for us is the jewish people our water is our relationship with the shim and the more and more we are in that water we're swimming we see an amazing genius the jewish people the more more we move away from that we start to feel cold it's almost like you know i figured what the last planet is and maybe switches every few years if there's pluto venus whatever the last one it's further away from the sun so it's the coldest right and when we go away from the sun when we go away from our source right then we automatically end up in a place that hashem does it or something is making us do that it's the fact that we are not in our water we're not and where our genius uh failures meaning that and he hold on to our faith you know is that what you're saying like to i'm saying the faith faith is built yes the faith is built on that relationship right it's hard to have faith if you don't have the relationship so we need a relationship the relationship with our people and our god so let me ask you this listen your relationship is strong i mean it's obvious you're connected and you've had such a journey how do you stay strong in that relationship in the music world because you're known as a hasidic rapper i mean what a dirty you've had and the music world is not exact i mean you're dealing with anti-semitism you're dealing with prejudice you're dealing with values look at you i mean you stand strong with your dre i mean one of the things that got us out of egypt was we stayed strong with who we were with our identity how do you do that in the music world what do you face in the music world you definitely face that a lot um you know just even recently he he spoke about motherland bouncing people knew the battles that i had to have with the record label to be able to put out that song tell us about that give me a gold medal they give me a gold medal you know i in the video you know i was dealing with a guy who i genuinely respect and look up to i've honored his work in the secular world for many years um but for him it's a different world to not sell you know half naked women in a rap video was like almost something unheard of for him and he comes from a different world and and for him for me to have that type of value was very very hard for him another that's why we're so inspired by you it's not just your journey in the past it's your journey today and yet absolutely yet you're able to stand strong and be successful and stay true to your values how do you do that i'll tell you what it is it's exactly what i said the relationship i speak i spend a lot of time in the day that i speak to hashem from my own words no prayer books no no conference calls no nothing directly to hashem and i speak to them every single day on every single issue that i'm having if i have a small headache if i have a belly issue if i have anything i'm speaking to hashem and that's the way to build that relationship that keeps you strong that's number one number two is i have an amazing uh you know uh group of people that i could speak to and not group of people i would say really my wife and my best friend have one good friend and i have not only one in the world but i have one good friend that i know i could talk to and i have my wife that i can speak to that's also very very uh strong she your relationship with god meaning it doesn't matter who you are and what you know anyone can speak to god and that is so empowering i think for myself for all of us listening here today it's not a matter of knowing hebrew or knowing certain prayers it's just a matter of knowing who you are inside and trying to get that was my biggest discovery of judaism you know when i was reading the jewish bible i didn't see anybody have amazing problems or go through struggles and then so they read arashi or toast supposed to start learning gemara what i see everybody started crying out they were praying to god and that was the that was the answer for everything even if we look at the great torah scholar of ezra right you read the story of ezra what does he do he resorts to prayer he cries out he encourages the whole entire nation to cry out to god so that was the judaism that i come to know to love and i think that without that it's impossible to have a niece in black that's amazing we're we're coming soon to your newest hit hava and i know this is going to be a hit amongst and bat mitzvah kids listening and their families it just gets you on your feet and you want to sing and you want to dance what's your story behind hava how did you come up with that it's a very interesting thing because there was a producer um who was making music with me and mine and he didn't really have a way to connect with me um directly so somehow someway he got an old business line that has been taken over by my wife for you know school pta meetings or whatever and he sent it uh he sent the message there with you know with his work and the first musical you know composition that he sent was a and everybody knows having a gila right everybody knows having a gamer i love it so i i i said to my wife i said this is minister mine because there's no way i have a very strong uh system of how music gets to me you know um and he somehow bypassed it that song gets there and i was coming from uh the grave of you know shimon natsarik simon the just in jerusalem i was just coming from there with my wife and you know i have an amazing time speaking with god over there and i get over there and this and this song starts playing my wife puts it on halfway through the card and i said oh my goodness it's amazing so i go home and i start singing it to my kids and start realizing my kids grew up in a hasidic school they never even really heard of havana so i could teach it to my sons i had to speak to my sons because they never heard it so i taught it to my son and then i told him i said you know what i want you guys to sing him so basically we want to share it we're going to hear it just a few few seconds because i know this is going to be one of your biggest hits in us really but before we get to that we have another surprise for you you have given us so much we're giving back to you i want you to hear from another one of your fans who's listening today and her name is maggie and listen to the message of maggie nessum because you're going to be touched as is everybody listening right now let's hear from maggie now we want to give back to you nissan thank you hi museum it's maggie i've had the privilege of meeting you on multiple occasions and you inspire me because your music your journey and your story have taught me that even if i'm not put in the right time or place hashem has a plan for me and hashem will take me to where i need to be and even if the journey gets hard hashem will hold my hand throughout the entire time and take me to where i need to be you've inspired me to try my hardest in everything i do and just know that there's a plan for me out there thank you this is oh that's amazing you you're so busy giving everybody else and we want you to know that you've given us we want to give back to you because not always when you performed you hear back you know and it's important to hear back that your work in this world has really touched so many of us so amazing we we want to thank you with that and we're going to come now to our clip about hava and i know that everybody listening right now is just going to want to sing and dance along with us because you're starting a revolution so to all our listeners all over the world let's hear now from hava [Music] oh then i get down how we do oh i see how did you read molly on twitter but this a brand new [Music] wow amazingness um i mean i could see every kid and every family wanting that at their celebrations you've really inspired us because you've taken a song that has been a forever song and you've updated it and made it current and right everybody wants that to be able to celebrate nissan there's so many kids listening today who have had disappointments this year you know we've wanted to have celebrations we've wanted to have our bar and mitzvahs and we're frustrated you know what would you tell a bar and bot mitzvah kid who's listening today about their disappointment that's my first question to you you know when you're missing celebrations in life what could you tell us i think one of the biggest things is to know that you know and and i've said this to someone else and i also you know have waited for a whole 12 years to to give a bap mitzvah for my daughter and it happened to be that it was you know last nissan which was at the beginning i was here she's uh yeah it was last nissan already she's be 13 this year so we also did about mitzvah that was a corona about mitzvah um and and i and i want to say that although you know your parents may be jumping for joy that they don't have to spend as much money this year i want to tell you not only did you do them uh big mitzvah i want to tell you this that hashem knew from the beginning that god already knew from the beginning of time that you were so special and so important that your bot mitzvah or bar mitzvah was going to be in this year there's no mistakes and no accidents or anything and to know that i think and i feel that it is at a time where i feel overall that god is calling for everyone to draw a little bit closer come closer to me come closer to me has been an answer that this has been a time of if one taps into this time of uncertainty and what we don't know that at the same time you could feel this this major groom on the world it only comes because it's the time of the greatest light it's the time of the greatest light that if you're able to tap in and hone in on this and you'll be able to realize that your bar about mitzvah comes at a time with great intimacy with god that he wants all of us to be close to him so i think that the biggest thing is christianism that's sometimes it's more than it's biggest in life it is it's that sacrifice right that you know okay everybody's gonna who's not gonna make a party when this whole thing blows over god right but with alva right exactly but i think the biggest thing is is to hone in on not so much as oh why did this happen right but why do i get to why do i get to have so much attention and i feel like it's it's people that had to have major events which were supposed to be grand parties whether it was a bar bot nets for a birthday that happened during this time isn't really a punishment it's really a blessing to be able to hone in and concentrate on that i'm building that relationship that we were speaking about before so i think that people are very so you're taking take you're saying take this disappointment and take this challenge and use it to better your relationship with your god understand a little bit about yourself and your people absolutely absolutely i think i want to tell you something is a very very important spiritual principle that even i take upon myself anytime i find myself in a place of constrictedness or or i feel very challenged or that i have to overcome something great the way that i'm able to flip it around on its head is not to say woe is me look what happened to me but rather say look at how much god believes me that he thought that i could be able to bear such a thing that i can go through such a thing so it increases my love for god because now i see my great importance to him because the bible says that he chastises those who he loves so the ones he loves he'll put him in these places so that means you get an extra sweet sweet love from god that on the outside it may look like another thing but you'll if you tap into it you'll you receive such the greatest joy that you could ever pass it and everything will flip around to a way that you will also understand its greatness also it's like climbing a mountain and you're getting to the top through this challenge instead of having a pity party for yourself because what does that do right right i'm sure you could have had many pity parties for yourself you know all of us right but that's not what god wants us here for god wants us to be able to have a purpose in our life and find meaning even in the challenge and even in the disappointment and make a difference in this world i love that right i love that so just if you would tell a bar about mitzvah kid in one line what can you do to make a difference in this world at your stage at your age if this would be your own child you said that your daughter she missed her celebration what can you do to make a difference in this world to all of us listening from all over the world today because we're from all over the world listening it's very very beautiful question i wish i would have had time for this one so i would say you know i think if i was talking to my daughter one of the biggest things that you know that i did it i always feel so good to have things but i think most people if they're really honest and able to reflect that it's almost it's almost no comparison to what it feels like to give right to be able to give joy and i think that the understanding and having to empathize with other people another you know struggle story just really quickly shortly after we converted to judaism me and my family ended up homeless and we didn't have we didn't have where to stay we're staying from place to place hotel vouchers from this state we're on different food programs i'm talking about from one whole year of just complete uncertainty and unrest of staying from place to place to place shortly after i got out of this situation i ended up i applied for a job and i ended up getting a very you know very very nice job it was not that height but it was a good job and what was the job that i didn't even know really what i was applying for but i applied for the job i was helping other homeless people now if you can understand that helping people with you know with homes that i was able to flip around my situation have so much empathy and you can't understand the joy of being able to house a person who was unable to get housing because of different restrictions so can you imagine the joy that you would have from planning and helping put on bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah parties you know from for generations to come because you know what it's like to not not be able to have habits right you love that take your loss take your loss and use it to help others who experience loss instead of just looking at yourself and feeling bad nissa you are a gift to the jewish people and we're going to hear one more fan of yours max okay a great fan of yours and before we hear from max and then we're going to go to another clip and hear some thank yous to i have to thank unison because you have shown your light in this world you have taken a fire inside of you and you have just ignited hearts and souls just listening to you today i know that all of us are on fire from you i mean thank you and keep shining that light and keep having that courage and that strength and make music in this world because we need music to bring us up and faith so here we have another fan that i want you to hear and to all our listeners don't go away because we have another incredible clip from nissan nissan you're awesome god bless thank you thank you here's max hi nissim my name is max and i'm a huge fan from new york your music has inspired me and people all over the world to be comfortable and confident in who they are and your jewish journey has shown me that when you put your mind to something there's really no limit listen no limit no limit no limits you're loved and you're cherished by your by the jewish people thank you for giving us your time nissan you're awesome thank you we're going to be watching another clip of yours and i hope we see you in jerusalem very very amen that's it everybody shining that lightness and you have courage and what a journey you have god bless you nissan thank you so much as well thank you i want to thank i want to thank today our co-sponsors i want to thank right now i want to thank our co-sponsors rabbi cooper smith and todd rosenblatt from h.com i want to thank rabbi yussi friedman and elisa sakowicz from project inspire i want to thank our hineni family we have come together what an awesome program this was to come together with unity in this time means that the jewish people are alive and we're strong let's remember what nissam told us to create this connection to never be afraid to hold on to our identity and to use any disappointment that we are feeling today to feel any of our loss and use it to make this world into a better place there are so many people in this world who can use your smile who can use your hello who can use your special magic that only you can bring into this world so say stay strong and bring your magic into this world and join us again i thank you from h.com i thank you from project inspire i thank you from hinani and here we come to nissan's final clip thank you all for listening this place is a dope we are royalty we must go back to our place in kiswana no we are staying right here this is the motherland [Music] since on had a on switch from seattle the rainy city where my mom lived in jerusalem that golden city that was conquered but still we moving on with motherland conquest smell me like an armpit [Music] been on my straight and narrow but my history is the hood thank god today that we could buy a box of cheerios or kicks i can even buy tricks i'm no longer on wic ebt car ripped in my passport like a notary from every country that i went in a country like this from the others you've been sent black is beautiful this gonna be the motherland hit [Music] still big up king d in the synagogue camouflage but i can't wipe the skin off i'm proud of it it's loud a bit but i'm not trying to crisscross i'd have made it this far hold it all in my heart i hope my breath embrace myself when they take they sucks off ain't no monkey business cause ain't no monkeys in here i know what you've been thinking the black abe lincoln just wanted you to be aware signing off is mr black hitler's worst nightmare yeah you gotta take your hat off man another one you got to take your hat off brother i can't cut your hair tell me y'all ain't from around here you need to leave them chains here you ain't gonna make it up the block okay you