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The Yeshiva rebel who is now the singing soul of London
Chazan Pini Brown has travelled from tradition to a modern sound
A hipster coffee shop come co-working space in Old Street is probably not exactly where Pini Brown thought he would end up. It is certainly not what was meant to happen. But that is where I meet with the chazan and singer. He is an intense figure, fidgeting in his leather jacket and fielding phone calls from a shul whilst telling his rollercoaster of a life story – from Yeshiva rebel to musician. “I was a bit of an outsider,” he says.
Just days before we met, Pini was in the crowd watching fellow Israeli singer Noga Erez perform in London. Such shows have become something of a “safe space” for Jews and Israelis in the city, as they come together to find some peace and escapism through music.
Pini comes from an ultra-Orthodox background in Jerusalem but was later sent to London. “I remember my first time coming here, it was incredible,” he recalls. “I was in a big van, from Luton Airport to Stanford Hill.” He was soon set up with woman who he became engaged to on the day that they met.
The expectation, of course, was that they would remain married forever. However, the marriage did not last long, and it does not appear to be something Pini is keen to talk about. It “wasn’t my thing… I think it just was a bit too much”, is all he will say on the subject.
Unlike many in the community he grew up in, music is foundational to Pini. “I think if you’re a musician, you’re f****d up, you just wake up in the morning thinking about it. Going to sleep thinking about it, then dreaming about it. It’s just part of your life,” he says. The cantor David “Dudu” Fisher is one of his key inspirations. Pini “grew up listening to his music.”
Pini reveals that originally, he was shy about singing, “but then I got to like 17 or something, I was like, f***k it, I’m just going to do it. I want to study music.” At that time, being a chazan was the only real way to balance music and religion. Again, that made Pini an outsider. “It definitely wasn’t a cool thing to do.”
In Yeshiva, he got himself a small melodica, although the boys were not really allowed musical instruments. When in the UK, he would sneak out to Dalston in a hoodie and go into jam sessions.
Indeed, Pini still loves being a chazan in shuls, but he also brings together the past and the future in his other music. He is working to combine Aramaic, Yiddish, Hebrew and English with electronic backing and increasingly wants to focus on original work.
From weddings to bar mitzvahs, and even in times of tragedy, music hasalways brought Jews together. We saw that just recently, as videos emerged of Israelis dancing in bomb shelters during Purim as the latest war with Iran escalated in the skies above them. For Pini Brown, it has brought him into the heart of communities here in the UK. No longer the outsider.
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