In his electronic music compositions, Dr. Israel melds urban concrete structures with the dry deserts of the Middle East and the lush hills of Jamaica -- musically.
On his latest album, Inna City Pressure, released last week on Mutant Sound System, Dr. Israel wires his distinctive, socio-political consciousness with mystic Rastafarian rhetoric, deep electronic grooves, and good-time dancehall reggae.
Dr. Israel is one of the more recent descendants of the toasting tradition, a rap style born in Jamaica in the late 1960s. His version of the so-called illbient genre has a wider appeal than some of the experimental music in the genre.
Illbient is a blending of traditional reggae and electronic dub music with the drum programming of modern dance genres like jungle, drum 'n' bass, and hip-hop. Israel is rapidly emerging from Brooklyn's critically lauded illbient music scene into mainstream music circles.
In a telephone interview from Brooklyn's Bassmind Studios following a photo session with the punk-ska group, Rancid, Dr. Israel extolled the virtues of living and working in Brooklyn.
"Brooklyn has been a real eye-opener for me, because it's a real international city," says Israel. "I grew up in Philadelphia, which is a cool place, but very segregated. In Brooklyn, you get a mash of the whole world and it's all reflected in the different styles of music.... You get a nice crossover."
Besides the outrageously upbeat collaboration with Rancid on the song "Coppers (Brooklyn Version)," Israel also draws artistic inspiration from a diverse set of sonic sources that include heavy-metal heroes, Black Sabbath, and British punk icons, The Clash.
Israel likes to collaborate. He is an innovative studio technician, and his talents have afforded him a variety of musical opportunities. In recent years, his skills as a producer and sound engineer have graced a number of Brooklyn projects including WordSound Recordings' Crooklyn Dub Consortium (Vol. 1 & 2) and Trumystic Sound System's Project Three.
Dr. Israel says his heady moniker is a byproduct of fate and humor that reflects his reverent personality and his talents in the recording studio. Friends and admirers named him "Doctor." He chose his surname.
"The 'Doctor' is just about what I do with the tracks and the mixing process. Somehow, 'Israel' just got stuck on the end. I wanted to take on a good family name, and Israel worked because of my history with the Bible and discovering Rastafari. To me, Israel represents a spiritual place that is home."
While Israel's rocking collaboration with Rancid may seem somewhat out of place in lieu of his Rastafarian leanings and progressive dub science, the song "Coppers (Brooklyn Version)" is actually just what the Doctor ordered.
A wildly commercial opportunity that also celebrates diversity, the creation of "Coppers" was a fluke that resulted in a meeting of the music: Rancid's punk-ska and Israel's drum 'n' bass and reggae perspective.
"I think the idea about music is that instead of being locked in a certain spiritual foundation and trying to talk to people that are only into the same foundation, I'm having fun exploring different foundations," said the Doctor.
"That's where the real positivity is going to come from."
