Jewish-World-Hop duo Darshan returns with their latest audio/video collaboration, this time featuring Indigenous multi-media conceptual artist and activist Cannupa Hanska Luger, as well as beatboxing diva Saywut. Hapax Legomenon, from Darshan’s latest album Raza (Chant Records), is an a capella beatbox driven rap exploration into the sacred ecology of Psalm 29, from the Kabbalat Shabbat liturgy. Through a swirling kaleidoscope of landscape drone footage, towering urban architecture, fast-cut performance clips, and futuristic regalia worn in performative actions of resistance in response to communities whose land and culture have been impacted by resource extraction, water rights, borders, and gentrification – Hapax Legomenon opens a portal into an alternate reality, existing alongside the world we think we live in.
The leap from esoteric liturgical tradition to gritty rap and world grooves may seem like huge, but it’s a natural one for New York’s Darshan. Jewish-soul singer, multi-instrumentalist, and recently ordained cantor Basya Schechter (Pharaoh’s Daughter) and neo-Hassidic underground rapper ePRHYME spent two years working on Raza (release this year). With oud and flow, with exultant choral arrangements and spitfire lyrics, Raza transforms the traditional prayers and mystical poetry recited on Friday night into a work of sacred pop art.