Artists
Artist Profile
Socalled
- Contact
Management: Dan Seligman, Pop Montreal
Booking: Phil Ballman, Mondo Mundo
European Booking: Philipe Levy, Run Productions
Publicity: Emily Goldsher, JDub Records
Label: Aaron Bisman, JDub Records
- Links
Artist Website: SocalledMusic.com
Welcome to the eclectic world of master mixer, cratedigger, musical continent-spanner Socalled, AKA Josh Dolgin. Looking beyond the usual pantheon of samples for hip hop artists, Socalled explores the shtetls of Eastern Europe and the Yiddish vaudeville stages of 2nd Avenue for inspiration.
Socalled is a musician, photographer, magician and writer, born Josh Dolgin in Ottawa, Ontario and raised just north, in Chelsea, Quebec. He wrote for the local newspaper, drew cartoons, did magic shows, sang in musicals and played keys in any kind of band - salsa, gospel, rock, funk - then discovered MIDI and hip hop. He worked with rappers, he made madd beats, he snuck into studios. He graduated from McGill and made films, wrote for a magazine and produced for local hip-hop acts, while getting into singing and performing Yiddish music. When the right folks heard his sound, he was immediately engaged in production projects for films, concerts and records. SoCalled performs and records widely with a crew of mixed-up freaks and geniuses from around the world, including C Rayz Walz, Killah Priest, Matisyahu, Fred Wesley, Susan Hoffman-Watts, Frank London, and Irving Fields. His Hiphopkhasene (Piranha) won the German Critics Prize for World Music Album of the Year in 2003; his Socalled Seder (2005, JDUB) and production work with David Krakauer’s Klezmer Madness! on Bubbemeises (2005, Label Bleu) also garnered critical acclaim.
“Hip hop is all about representing who you are, your crew. I’m this little white Jewish dude living in the country. It doesn’t make sense for me to rap about guns, cars, and hos. I’m not going to rap about hos,” comments SoCalled. “What should I make music about? I should try to represent who I am. When I began digging for samples, I found these old Jewish records, and they were a clue about this funky, old tradition that had been forgotten. Yiddish theater, Cantorial music...all kinds of weird sounds…and the records had the most amazing breaks! And I realized that I could make my hip hop - my music from them.”
Latest_news
“The SoCalled Movie” + Performance in San Francisco
JDub recording artist SoCalled, had a movie made about him called “The SoCalled Movie,” and the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival will be screening the masterpiece as well as hosting an exclusive live performance by SoCalled following the screening.
Shot partly in Socalled’s Montreal neighborhood, where Hasidic Jews and hipsters crowd the sidewalks, and following him on tour through New York, France and an emotionally spiritual trip back to his ancestral home of the Ukraine, The “Socalled” Movie is a dynamic, kaleidoscopic portrait of an iconoclastic artist at the peak of his powers.
Tuesday, July 27th at 9:15PM
The Castro Theatre
429 Castro Street, San Francisco
Special Live Performance Featuring Socalled and singer Katie Moore following Castro screening
Saturday, August 7th at 9:15PM
The Roda Theatre (at Berkeley Repertory Theatre)
2025 Addison St. Berkeley
For tickets and more information, click here
To view a trailer for the film, click here
Socalled’s Ghettoblaster and The Socalled Seder are available from JDub
The 2010 SFJFF runs July 24-August 9 in San Francisco, Berkeley, Palo Alto and San Rafael.
Tickets, passes and schedule at WWW.SFJFF.ORG.
Josh Kun Digs for Dawn
Author, musicologist and member of the esteemed Idlesohn Society for Musical Preservation Josh Kun has made a dope little mixtape in support of Dawn 2010, the Tablet Magazine sponsored, May 15th late night party in San Francisco, celebrating Shavuot.
Kun’s mix is a deep dig into the crates of vintage and archival recordings sitting right next to more modern dance tracks with a few more mind-blowing gems sprinkled in between, with all the tracks pulling from a different corner of the globe with a heavy pulse on that Jewish tip.
The mix includes tracks from the famed Barry Sisters, funked out Jewish soul music from Slim Gaillard, Musica de Latina, a ton of classic African tunes, some crazy Hava Negilah rendition and a bunch of JDub artists including Soulico, Balkan Beat Box and The Sway Machinery. The mix closes out with a banger from Mexican Institute of Sound, who happens to be homies with Kun’s beau.
All around worth a listen, head over to our friends at Tablet Magazine to listen to this exclusive mix.
92 year-old Irving Fields, who has a few tracks on this mix has been writing hit songs since the 1920’s. He recorded over 90 albums, including his biggest LP hit, Bagels and Bongos. JDub recording artist SoCalled suggested he write a song about Youtube, and he did. check it below
The Socalled Movie: Out Now
The Socalled Movie (trailer above) premiered this week at SXSW and is now available to rent on YouTube.
For fans who have never checked out Socalled’s crazy video for “You Are Never Alone” it can be seen here. The song is from the 2007 release Ghettoblaster.
A SoCalled Documentary
YouTube is premiering a documentary about SoCalled on March 16th. It looks absolutely wild — and features Katie Moore, Fred Wesley, C-Rayz Walz, David Krakauer, Matt Haimovitz, Arkady Gendler, Benjamin Steiger Levine, D-Shade, Gonzales and Irving Fields. You can check out the trailer above.
Sprite is Never Alone
We were really excited for Ben Steiger Levine, the director of SoCalled’s “You Are Never Alone” video, when we heard he was tapped to do the new Sprite commercial with JDub favorite Drake.
But when we finally saw the video, there was a little something we couldn’t ignore:
Look familiar?
Video
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500 lb. Planet Part 1
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500 lb. Planet Part 3
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(These Are the) Good Old Days
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500 lb. Planet Part 2
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500 lb. Planet Part 4
Photos
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Rooftop Roots Volume III
A JDub Mixtape - (v/a)
2007
Out Of Stock
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Rooftop Roots - Vol II
A JDub Mixtape - (v/a)
2006
Out Of Stock
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Rooftop Roots
A JDub Mixtape - (v/a)
2005
Out Of Stock
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Aug 7
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