Orthodox Jewish rapper Nissim Black has been a lot of places in his life.
He’s originally from Seattle, where he grew up with connections to Islam before converting to Christianity at 13. Seattle is also where Black first got involved with a street gang and began his music career as (per his website) a “gangsta rapper.”
An altercation with another artist eventually took him to a place of soul-searching, which, in turn, led him to Judaism. Black and his wife both converted to Judaism and eventually they and their children moved to Jerusalem.
Now, Nissim Black and the story of how he became a Hasidic hip-hop star are going to television.
On Monday, Deadline announced that HBO Max is in the process of developing a comedy show about Black’s life called “Motherland Bounce,” named after one of his iconic songs. It will be written by Jewish comedian Moshe Kasher, with story from Nissim Black, and produced by “The Gilded Age” executive producer Salli Richardson-Whitfield.
Though little else has been revealed about the show, Black took to social media yesterday with a screenshot of the article, commenting that he “hope[s] this series brings Joy and dispels a lot of the misinformation going on out there.”
Mazel tov on this accomplishment, Nissim! We’ll just be listening to “The Hava Song,“The Hanukkah Song 2.0″ and “Mothaland Bounce” while we not-so-patiently wait for this show.
