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The few times that Kosha Dillz has been featured on this site, it's resulted in mixed (to say the least) reactions to his support of Zionism and his place in hip hop. When we interviewed Kosha this past winter, he offered up a fairly coherent defense of his beliefs. Not everyone bought his argument that hip hop, as a community, should support Israel, but at the very least his responses showed that he was well aware of how divisive the subject can be, and he seemed intent on generating further positive discussions on the matter.
Knowing, then, that Kosha is pretty sharp, and certainly not naive enough to think that shouting out Israel in a hip hop song wouldn't draw some sort of reaction, I was left wondering about the thought process behind the lyrics to his latest single, Cellular Phone off of his upcoming album Beverly Dillz. In the chorus, Kosha says, "I don't need to talk no politics, I leave that stuff alone," and then follows that up with a decidedly political line about, "Jerusalem, yeah you know the city that belongs to the Jews and them." Given the 3000 years of bitter fighting over the ownership of said city, which continues to this day, it's disingenuous, to put it mildly, to drop those two lines in the same breath. Particularly within the context of the song itself, an upbeat track about nothing in particular, it's an odd verse:
Kosha Dillz - Ceullular Phone (produced by Belief)
I do think Kosha's a talented emcee, and I continue to think that he has the potential to make some interesting contributions if he ever decides to cut out the coy references to Israel and the baggage that comes along with that. Hip hop's been missing a voice to act as a counterpoint to the anti-Zionist rantings of Immortal Technique and his followers, and simply by being the sole emcee of Israeli heritage (that I'm aware of) Kosha Dillz is certainly in position to become that voice if he decides to embrace the role and put out songs that more directly address the issue. It's hard to take him seriously on the subject, however, when he goes from being a vocal proponent of Zionism one moment to dancing around the subject the next. Perhaps he just wants to be the type of rapper that puts out joints for the radio, but if that's the case he'll find more success if he cuts out the references to his homeland and sticks to the party raps.
06/23/2009 08:30:01 PM posted by Fresh