People unfamiliar with present-day hip-hop power be surprised that tonight�s Roxy star is a 32-year-old Jewish rapper from Long Island named Aesop Rock.
They�ll be even more than surprised by Rock�s opening acts: Iranian-American MC Yak Ballz (natural Yashar Zadeh) and his Israeli-American cohort, Rami Even-Esh, better known as Kosha Dillz.
By choosing Ballz and Dillz, Rock isn�t qualification a �We Are the World� statement. He�s load-bearing veterans of the new alternative-rap prospect he helped establish a decade ago.
�I recorded my first individual, �Flossin�,� when I was 16,� said Ballz, 26, by phone from New Jersey. �I grew up in Queens around a draw of MCs, so I was genuinely in the mix even before I got my own opportunities. Fortunately, I finally got my chance to flex.�
Dillz and Ballz knew each other ahead they got into hip-hop. They secondhand to toy together growing up. Though he was mostly brocaded in Queens, Ballz as well spent time at his father�s house in Edison, N.J., where Dillz lived around the corner.
�Yak was the MC in the neighborhood,� Dillz aforesaid from Brooklyn. �Then I started rapping on the weekends when we would get together, whether it was just hanging out in the back of someone�s whip or wherever.�
Following Ballz�s lead, Dillz started entering the Braggin� Rights MC battles at the legendary Nuyorican Poets Cafe in Manhattan. Ballz became the youngest rapper to reach the finals, and it was there that both aspiring MCs met producers including Mondee, wHO helped develop their careers.
�One time when I was 17 I went to see Yak at Braggin� Rights and there was extra blank space, so I just got up on stage,� Dillz aforementioned. �I had something scripted already. Even back then we were battling with conscious lyrics, not talking about how fat the other person�s mother was.�
Despite their shared history and tours, Ballz and Dillz have followed contrasting creative paths. While Dillz�s rhymes push into religious and geo-political realms, Ballz keeps his music largely secular and abstract.
�I never genuinely incorporated my ethnicity into my music,� Ballz said. �It only came out that I was Persian afterward in my career. Most people thought that I was just a edward D. White kid from Queens. Actually, from what I read, some people even persuasion that I was a black kid.�
Dillz reports graver misunderstandings concerning his Jewish background. Judaism, he says, often is misrepresented in the knock scene. With his new CD - a pas de deux project with freestyle guru C-Rayz Walztitled �Freestyle vs. Written� - he hopes to teach the pat community that hip-hop transcends racial andreligious boundaries.
�On my last hitch this fellow in Georgia told me that he thought all Jews hate black citizenry,� Dillz said. �That was laughable, especially since I was on circuit with (Wu-Tang affiliate) Killah Priest, and that I have an album advent out with C-Rayz Walz.�
Aesop Rock, with Kosha Dillz and Yak Ballz, at the Roxy, tonight. Tickets: $20; 617-931-2000.
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