Introducing Y-Love

"Using hiphop to elevate, not to tranquilize", that's Yitz Jordan motto. I mean, Y-Love. Wondering about the weird name? Here's his explanation:

Cels-1 initially gave it to me. When we very first went on stage together in 2001 we went on as David Singer and Yitz Jordan and I was like “we can’t go on like that and you already have Cels-1,” because he had already been doing reggae under that name. So I was like “well what am I going to be?” and he was like “oh, well you’ll be Y-Love.” And I was like “Y-Love? Why Y-Love? Why not Y-Murder or Y-Thug or Young-Y or something? Why does it have to be Y-Love?” And he was like “nah, it fits you, just stick with Y-Love until you come up with something better.”

I was not familiar with Y-Love until I read an interview just days ago and I then suddenly realized that there's a lot of buzz around him right now. Check out his slick MySpace page, Twitter page and his official website, where you can hear some full songs featured in his album This is Babylon ("because this world has become like Babylon - confused"), which is coming to stores in April, but already available in iTunes. The guy who produces Timabaland's videos is in charge of Y-Love's video clip, which will be out very soon.

With songs like Mehadrin Rhyming and Purim Freestyle, Y-Love has a mainstream message, very much in line with Matisyahu's, but instead of Reggea Y-Love is the Hip-Hop man. To be honest, I was quite intrigued with Y-Love's rap music, which mixes rhymes from Hebrew, English, Yiddish and (yes,) Aramaic. He is talented but it remains to be seen if he will fly high like Matisyahu.

Since Purim is almost here, it's worth it to check out the Purim song in Y-Love's MySpace page. I didn't find a way to link it directly, but it's easy to find. It's a great song.

Y-Love just wrote a post about his experience in South by Southwest Festival 2008 (SXSW). Oh, and he also has his own blog. The guy is all over the place.

What you all think?