New York to host Sephardic Music Festival

Organizers aim to promote Jewish-Sephardic culture, traditions. Special album to be released in honor of event featuring Jewish, Israeli artists

Yoav Friedman|Published: 11.18.10 , 17:19

The United States has long been a home to a flourishing Jewish music scene whose most prominent figure is Grammy-nominated artist Matisyahu. As part of efforts to promote the Mizrahi culture, the 6th annual Sephardic-Jewish music festival will be held in New York in early December with a special compilation being released in its honor. The opening track was naturally contributed by Matisyahu.

Jewish production company and record label Shemspeed is organizing the event and said it is aimed at promoting Sephardic culture including various Mizrahi traditions from Yemen and North Africa, among others."Our goal is give the audience a chance to learn and enjoy a rich and sensual tradition which has the power to get your hips shaking and your soul transcending," one of the organizers said.

The album will be released a day before the festival is launched on December 1. The CD will contain 18 tracks influenced in melody, theme and style from Mizrahi music and will feature various popular music genres such as hip-hop, dance and electronic music.

Matisyahu's contribution is titled "Two Child One Drop."

"I collaborated with a Yemenite friend of mine on this song. I loved the idea of combining the Middle-Eastern-Sephardic style with reggae and other musical genres," he told Ynet.

Other Jewish artists from the US scene featured in the album include rappers Y-Love and DeScribe, the Moshav band, Electro Morocco and Diwan Saz. The album also includes contributions from Israeli artists such as Yasmin Levy, Yair Dalal and Michal Cohen.