I always said I had a little black in me...

NEW YORK -- They have baggy clothing, backward baseball caps, the "bling bling" and racy lyrics. And these days, rappers sometimes wear yarmulkes too. Hip-hop music, which grew out of black inner cities, isn't typically associated with Jews, but as the genre has grown more popular, some Jewish artists have embraced it as their own, while transcending theological and ethnic differences. New York-based Hip Hop Hoodios, whose name is a play on the Spanish word for Jews, is a Latino-Jewish group that has recorded in English, Spanish and Hebrew. Their lyrics include such sardonic lines as: "My nose is large, and you know I'm in charge." A popular 26-year-old Hasidic singer, Matisyahu, raps in a brimmed hat and dark suit over reggae beats. "Torah food for my brain let it rain till I drown, Thunder! Let the blessings come down," he says in "King Without a Crown." The growing genre has also seen artists like Remedy collaborate with mainstream acts like Wu-Tang Clan. "It's very much a representation of the cooperative state of Jewish and black relations today," said Rabbi Marc Schneier, president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, which is chaired by hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons. "I view cooperation, not conflict, as the defining element."

Has anybody seen Matisyahu on MTV? That guy rocks the mic like a vandal, lights up a stage and waxes a chump like a candle. That's him rocking out with Death Cab for Cutie above. I'll let you guess which one he is. My grandma lives in a predominately Hassidic area, and next time I visit, I'm expecting a Rabbi to start busting out with "Laffy Taffy." Hey, it's a kosher candy, yo.