Josh Dolgin is a Montreal-based music producer, piano player, and accordionist who makes eclectic hip-hop under the stage alias
Socalled. Klezmer, folk music, and funk are among the styles and genres
Dolgin incorporates into a lively mix of singing and rapping.
Socalled's debut album was a collaboration with British composer
Sophie Solomon titled
HiphopKhasene, released by Piranha in 2003. Clarinetist
David Krakauer was a featured performer on the album, and
Dolgin returned the favor by appearing with on
Krakauer's
Live in Krakow (Label Bleu) the same year.
Socalled contributed to
Beyond the Pale's album
Consensus: Live in Concert in 2005, the same year he released
The So Called Seder: A Hip Hop Haggadah for JDub Records.
Ghettoblaster followed in 2006 on the French label Bleu Electric before it received a U.S. release in 2007 by JDub.
In 2010,
Dolgin was the subject of a documentary entitled The Socalled Movie for the National Film Board of Canada. Lorber Films oversaw the U.S. theatrical release. His album
SleepOver arrived in 2011 with guests including rapper
Roxanne Shante, vocalist
Katie Moore, and then-95-year-old pianist
Irving Fields. Two years later, Dare to Care Records released a cast recording of his puppet musical The Season. In addition to
Dolgin, it included performances by
Moore,
Yves Lambert, Rich Ly, and Yassin Alsalman, aka
Narcy. The same label issued 2015's People Watching, which featured over two-dozen guests (including
Narcy,
Moore,
Lambert, and Ly), and 2017's Tales from Odessa, "A Socalled Yiddish Musical." ~ Marcy Donelson