From Hip Hop to Klezmer

As a kid growing up in Ontario, Josh Dolgin was obsessed with the poetry and the freedom of hip hop. As he got older, he experimented with the DIY approach that he loved in hip hop, sampling the new kinds of music he was discovering, including klezmer, Yiddish theater songs, cantorial music, and nigunim.

In this video, recorded at the Yiddish Book Center during the 2008 Paper Bridge Summer Arts Festival, Dolgin—known to fans around the world by his stage name, Socalled—gave the audience a peek at his creative process. He's since returned to the Center twice to take the stage at Yidstock: The Festival of New Yiddish Music.