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Socalled

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SOCALLED

genre-bending multi instrumentalist from canada

Socalled is a pianist, producer, composer, arranger, rapper, singer, journalist, photographer, filmmaker, magician, cartoonist and puppet maker based in Montreal, Quebec. The subject of "The Socalled Movie", a feature documentary produced by the National Film Board of Canada, he has been making records and touring the world with his own band and as a "sideman" for over a decade. Socalled was forced to take piano lessons as a young child and won classical piano competitions, but eventually convinced his mother to let him study jazz. As a teen, he played salsa, funk, gospel and rock, until he started working with rappers and making beats. He moved to Montreal and then started collecting vinyl records in earnest. At Salvation Armies and in the garbage bins of the city he started to find "Jewish" records, Hassidic, Israeli, Klezmer, Synagogue cantorial music and music from the Yiddish theatre. he started to mix these new old sounds from his own history into the sample-based beats he was creating, and started to find his own voice. He began to play more live, learning more about Klezmer and Eastern European Jewish music, and starting to sing and rock the accordion.

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