A Jewish emcee that'll always stay true! I put the "man" in Maneschewitz, I thought you knew!

Chutzpah

What does it take to leave your mark as an entertainer in Jewish music and culture? A great deal of chutzpah, that’s what! Kid Kosher certainly has a great deal of chutzpah in his witty and entertaining delivery of Jewish holidays and life told in a hip hop format.

Kid Kosher is a Jersey guy with a stage presence similar to that of Clark Kent and Superman. At first glance one might consider this mild mannered man the last person to expect an enormous stage presence from, but many people have been pleasantly surprised.

The Kid Kosher project began as a fun holiday diversion with CCQ frontman and jazz
musician, Chris Colaneri in September 2002. Chris had mentioned while looking over
a display of holiday music that it was all them same songs, just sung by different artists. The kicker to all this was the fact that all the recycled holiday music sells every single year. Why wasn’t there any Hanukkah music that people could readily identify with?
With this in mind Kid Kosher sat down to write 2 original Hanukkah songs while Colaneri arranged the music.

With an excitement growing with the potential of this project, Kid Kosher added a third song to the debut CD titled, “Hip Hop Hanukkah”. Once there were solid recordings of the first 2 tracks Kid Kosher used a summer talent show hosted by WKXW NJ 101.5 radio host, Big Joe Henry, as a spring board to let the public hear the new music concept.

The response was so overwhelming in fact that Big Joe Henry invited Kid Kosher to perform at his station’s annual holiday charity show, The Holiday Extravaganza. The Holiday Extravaganza features many popular NJ acts, including Holiday Express, Southside Johnny, and Pat Guadagno and the Candle Brothers. In addition to the Holiday Extravaganza appearance, Kid Kosher also made several appearances on the Carton and Rossi Show, also on NJ 101.5. A feature article in a local newspaper, The Brick Bulletin, also helped spread the word that thankfully Hanukkah would never be the same. It was also around the same time that Kid Kosher performed his first synagogue performance at Temple Rodeph Torah in Marlboro, NJ.

A full length CD and a year later, Kid Kosher came back to the Holiday Extravaganza to a sold out crowd and a large number of fans. Another appearance on the Carton and Rossi Show announced the official Kid Kosher website www.kidkosher.net as well as the online merchandise store at www.cafepress.com/kidkosher. CD sales for the new CD, “8 Nights of Hanukkah.” tripled sales from the previous year’s CD “Hip Hop Hanukkah.” Additionally, a new synagogue performance at Congregation Beth Chaim helped expand
an ever growing fan base. There was also a new feature article in the Brick Bulletin confirmed that Kid Kosher was here to stay.

The 2005 holiday season Kid Kosher kept up his Hanukkah momentum by holding not one, but two shows at two different synagogues in the central NJ area. Congregation B’Nai Israel and Congregation Beth Chaim both invited Kid Kosher in to help entertain and educate various audiences about the Festival of Lights. Additionally, the NJ Jewish News ran a CD review of “8 Nights of Hanukkah” in their December 13, 2005 issue calling the CD “an unexpected pleasure”. Fans from across the United States have bought CDs as far away as Europe. The independent artist online CD store at www.cdbaby.com now carries both “8 Nights of Hanukkah” and the new “Live from the Tanakh” for both CD sales and digital distribution through Apple iTunes and Rhapsody. Kid Kosher’s versatility brings Jewish music to the mainstream year round now!