In the vibrant world of Jewish music, few voices shine as uniquely as Nissim Black’s. An African American Ultra-Orthodox Jew, rapper, and Breslov chassid, Black has carved a singular path from the gritty streets of Seattle to the holy hills of Israel, blending hip-hop beats with spiritual depth. His latest offering, “Keep Going,” is more than a song—it’s a clarion call to persevere through adversity, rooted in the emunah (faith) that has guided him through a life of transformation. For a Jewish audience, this track is a gorgeous testament to the power of trusting in Hashem, no matter the odds.
Born Damian Jamohl Black on December 9, 1986, Nissim’s early years were steeped in chaos. Raised in Seattle’s Seward Park neighborhood, near a thriving Jewish community yet worlds apart in the drug-ravaged Rainier Valley, he grew up surrounded by hardship. His parents, Mia Black and James “Captain Crunch” Croone, were pioneers of Seattle’s hip-hop scene, but their home doubled as a hub for drug dealing. At age seven, Nissim witnessed an FBI raid that upended his family—his mother arrested, his grandfather imprisoned, and his childhood fractured. “The streets grew up in my house,” he once told the Jewish Journal, a haunting reflection on a youth where music became both refuge and rebellion.
That rebellion took shape as D. Black, a gangsta rapper whose early albums, The Cause & Effect (2006) and Ali’yah (2009), earned him a foothold in the hip-hop world. But beneath the bravado, a spiritual hunger gnawed at him. Raised Muslim by his grandfather, then drawn to Christianity as a teen, Nissim’s soul-searching eventually led him to Judaism. In 2013, alongside his wife Adina, he converted under Rabbi Simon Benzaquen at Seattle’s Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation, remarrying in a halachic ceremony that marked a new chapter. By 2016, the family—now with seven children—made aliyah, settling in Beit Shemesh after a stint in Mea Shearim, where they faced racial prejudice but refused to let it dim their light.
