The Living Wells – The Process

The Living Wells is made up of “two students of wisdom on a quest to revolutionize music and the world. With a dynamic blend of powerful melodies and profound hip-hop lyrics, this team will capture your heart while energizing your soul.” Moshe Friedman and Rick Fox look like the kinds of Ba’al Tshuvah Yeshiva students you pass on the street in Jerusalem every day. They first met in college and reunited when both came to Israel to study in 2014. The boys have flow but beyond that, they have a mission “to change music from a medium of mindless entertainment, to a vehicle for inspiring others towards personal growth and thinking deeply about the world.” When I see it written down, it sounds kind of saccharine but when said mission is manifested musically, one can’t help but be impressed and even moved.

Friedman, the first person to successfully use JewTube’s “ADD A VIDEO” button there on the top right of every page, wrote about this video:

I grew up as an unaffiliated Jew in an affluent neighborhood of Manhattan. So of course I gravitated towards hard-core rap music! Then I started writing, and wrote some more, and released a really inappropriate album in college. Then I graduated and went to yeshiva in Israel. This song is about my journey. We shot it in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem. We asked dozens of random Israelis to lip-synch the chorus, because this song is not just about my “process” – it’s about everyone’s.

These guys aren’t the rap version of the Maccabeats. Not that there’s anything wrong with the Maccabeats – but there is nothing kitschy or hokey here. There are no jokes and the band derives inspiration and messages from heavy duty Jewish sources while maintaining an eminently listenable groove. Check out more of their stuff on their site thelivingwells.com and let us know what you think.

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