Biblical Story Re-Worked Into Hip-Hop Musical

A new hip-hop musical is drawing praise from audiences and critics alike, based on the biblical character, Job. Job: The HipHop Musical, started in Canada and recently had a successful five week run in New York, earning a four month run off Broadway for the spring. The musical’s creators, Eli Batalion and Jerome Saibil, said […]

A new hip-hop musical is drawing praise from

audiences and critics alike, based on the biblical character, Job.

Job: The HipHop Musical, started in Canada and

recently had a successful five week run in New York, earning a four month run

off Broadway for the spring.

The musical’s creators, Eli Batalion and Jerome

Saibil, said that they have never taken any theatre classes.

"At first we really didn’t think that people

would like the show at all. We just thought it was going to really bomb,"

Saibil told Canada’s Star Phoenix.

Batalion and Saibil star as MC Cain and MC Abel

and re work the biblical story of Job into a metaphor on the evils of the music

business.

The musical characters include a record label

president named J. Hoover (Jehovah) and finance VP Lou Saphire (Lucifer). The

theme of the musical and the original biblical story is the concept of bad things

happening to good people.

A sequel to the play is already in the works

and according to Saibil, "we’ve got not just a full plate but several plates."