Dressed in baggy, oversized clothes, shiny, red and black shoes, and a hat covering both their heads, the hip-hop group known as Subliminal and the Shadow stepped onto the flashing green and purple lights to greet their awaiting fans.

“What’s up, San Francisco!” they yelled, as the crowd screamed in excitement.

The Tel Aviv based group Subliminal and the Shadow and TACT (Tel Aviv City Team) Family is known for their controversial lyrics, touring the US, spreading their message: Peace in the Middle East, through the universal language of hip hop.

Kicking off their US tour on the West Coast, the Israeli group had their second show of the tour at Ruby Skye in downtown San Francisco, where they performed for about 400 people on March 3.
Although a majority of the songs they performed on Thursday were in Hebrew, they do have a few songs in English.

“I can’t understand what they’re talking about in their songs, but they sound amazing,” said Shimon Israel, 34, who attended the San Francisco show. “I think they’re like an Israeli Black Eyed Peas.”

The TACT Family consists of two main rappers, Kobi “Subliminal” Shimoni, and Yoav “the Shadow” Eliasi, as well as six other members.

Shimoni started working as a DJ at local night clubs in Tel Aviv 10 years ago. Soon after, he met Eliasi and started TACT, a team of rappers and R&B singers who work together performing and producing their music.

The last three years of conflict between Israel and Palestine is what fuels much of their lyrics. With lyrics like, “The country is rolling around like a cigarette in Arafat’s mouth/ everyone running around with a lighter,” and “A human heart cut off/ the blood flows to the sea/ it’s a shitty world/ a stunted reality,” Subliminal and the Shadow were first told by the Israeli media that they would never be played on the radio.

“We’ve been called fascists, Nazis, everything you can think of,” said Shimoni, the 25-year-old front man for the group.

However, Shimoni said not all the songs are political, and a lot are just about day-to-day life.

“The kids can relate to the music,” he said. “The older generation doesn’t like hip hop, but they show their support, and they love what we’re doing.”

Yoav “Shadow” Eliasi said that his number one love is his country. Born in 1977 in Tzfat, Israel, the 27-year-old rapper supported Israel first by joining the army, and now that he has left the army to pursue music, he supports his country through lyrics.

“We tell the truth,” he said. “Only nonfiction. No games.”

However, that is hardly a problem for the group now, with two albums certified platinum in Israel, and a third on its way.

SF State zoology major Blaise Waniewski understood a lot of what they said at the concert, and while a lot of the songs had a lot of meaning to him, some of them were generic.

“Some of the songs were just your run-of-the-mill hip-hop songs,” said Waniewski. “They were nothing special.”

Shimoni said that when the group first flipped the lyrics into Hebrew for people to hear, they got a huge reaction out of the Israeli people.

“(The lyrics were) linked to the people in Israel,” Shimoni said.

Kfir Mordechay, an international relations major at SF State who was at the concert, said the music was fun, but words didn’t touch him in any way different from other Israeli hip hop groups.

“It was a little too patriotic for my tastes,” said Mordechay. “They do have a lot of substance, and a strong political message, but it gets intertwined with the whole ‘bling-bling,’ bitches and hoes subculture that’s modeled off America.

“It’s kind of like a subculture of ignorance. The message that they’re trying to convey gets lost in the bling-bling.”

Gabe Salgado said he loved the raw energy and talent at Thursday’s concert.

“It was pure lyrical talent,” said Salgado. “The lyrics are brilliant, and the form was great. Each member of the band is just tremendously talented.”

Salgado described the political songs as nationalistic and Zionist, yet hopeful for peaceful coexistence.

“The lyrics are highly emotional, and charged with frustration and anxiety with the war in the Middle East,” said Salgado. “With each successive song and album, they have become better at sharpening and articulating their messages and feelings.”

David Levy, co-owner of TACT Records, describes the Israeli music industry as nothing like the mainstream music industry in the U.S today.

“The message they (Subliminal and the Shadow) represent is so in tune with reality,” Levy said. “Everyone wants a part of it.”

Salgado said that he doesn’t know of any other Israeli artist who has been successful in marketing a nationalistic message to the mainstream.

“Even with a radically different message they are truly fluent in the language of hip hop,” said Salgado.

“They definitely have good beats,” said Mordechay. “They rhyme, they flow with it, and I can feel what they say. But I’m not sure what progress they’re making as to peace.”