Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Puff Daddy Protégé Prays at the Western Wall

Moses Levi wasn’t always an Orthodox Jew living in Jerusalem. Just last year, the 32-year-old Belize born rapper finished serving a nearly 10-year prison sentence for a 1999 shooting incident that took place in a New York City bar and involved Sean Combs, then known as Puff Daddy — his former mentor — and Jennifer Lopez. Levi was charged with assault, gun possession and reckless endangerment, but he doesn’t hold a grudge: “That’s the past, I got so much going on,” he recently told The New York Times. “We move on.”

And move on he did — to the Holy Land. Prior to his arrest, Levi, whose stage name is Shyne, was already studying Judaism. However, it wasn’t until he was behind bars and under the guidance of prison rabbis that he became a practicing Jew, keeping kosher and observing Shabbat. Today, you’ll find Levi at the Western Wall, not at the club, dressed in traditional Orthodox garb and Ray-Ban sunglasses. He spends his days studying the Talmud and preparing to re-launch his music career.

Levi credits what he calls the “The science of Judaism” for connecting him to God and helping him grow into a better person. But why Orthodoxy? “I want to know the laws. I don’t want to know the leniencies. I never look for the leniencies because of all of the terrible things I’ve done in my life, all of the mistakes I’ve made,” he said.

It’s been six years since Levi released an album, but that will soon change when Def Jam Records releases his two new albums, “Messiah” and “Gangland.” Levi is making up for lost time; three more albums are scheduled to follow. His plans to tour the U.S. are on hold since he was deported after his prison release and he does not have U.S. citizenship. Levi sees no conflict in bringing together his hop hop world with his life as a Torah-observant Jew. “There’s nothing in the Chumash that says I can’t drive a Lamborghini,” and “nothing in the Halacha about driving the cars I like, about the lifestyle I live,” he explains. See, he’s just your average Shlomo.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version