Berklee College of Music Professor Attacked Jews as 'Vile Predators' and Blamed Them for Slavery
A top official at the Berklee College of Music has a years-long history of posting anti-Semitic and historically inaccurate claims about Jews, accusing them of oppressing black people and blaming them for slavery, a Washington Free Beacon review found.
In September 2024, the Massachusetts music school made a splashy announcement that Nicholas Payton would become chair of their brass department. In a gushing press release, Berklee, the largest independent contemporary music college in the world, called Payton a "child prodigy" and "a leading voice in American popular music."
"We are looking forward to Nicholas Payton's contribution to the Berklee community by engaging faculty, supporting students, and developing curriculum," Sean K. Skeete, dean of the Professional Performance Division at Berklee, said in the release. "I believe his experience as a world-class artist and educator will further advance Berklee's reputation as a leader in arts education."
Left unsaid were some of Payton's less glowing contributions to public discourse.
"All these so-called Jews mad, because how dare I make them face the facts of their sordid past and present," Payton said in a video posted to Instagram in July 2020. "So you want to help liberate black people you want to help free us, then free us from amongst yourselves ... expose how Jewish people have exploited us. Apologize for it and atone and do better."
Many of Payton's most incendiary comments came during the fervor of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.
"Amazing how Jews always have a 'negligible' role in every historic horror that they’ve been irrefutably associated with it. What an amazing coincidence! ALL the other races contain plenty of monstrous psychopaths, but Jews, magically, are clean as a whistle! INCREDIBLE!" read another post Payton shared to his Instagram that same month.
"They still control a large portion of the media and entertainment industry. And I maintain their history in the music business has often been oppressive," he warned in a comment on the post.
In a third video also from July, Payton shared a video claiming that "Jewish slave dealers operated in every place slavery existed" and featured a speaker condemning the "synagogue of Satan."
"Racial tensions, segregation. It is all part of the synagogue of Satan's plot for Yahweh's people to fight amongst themselves based upon the color of our skin," a speaker continued in the video shared by Payton. "That is what they want, so that we keep our minds off of them as the true slavers."
"You see, they're obsessed with blood. They're obsessed with their own blood, and they're obsessed with your blood!" the speaker said. When Payton was called out on social media shortly after sharing the video, he defended his actions.
"It's a quote from the Bible," Payton tweeted. "He does not call out every Jew or even every other Jew out. He's speaking on those who claim to be Jews, but are not."
Though Payton expressed his animosity toward Jews more aggressively during the summer of 2020, his anti-Semitism predates the emergence of Black Lives Matter. In 2010, he spewed invectives at the Jewish owner of Preservation Hall in New Orleans. The owner Ben Jaffe's family created the institution to preserve and celebrate traditional New Orleans jazz music, but in a 2010 blog post, Payton griped that Jaffe had made too much money off the hall's success and that his behavior was "endemic of those who have controlled things in the music industry since its inception," the New York Times reported in 2022.
"From my vantage point, he’s nothing but a vile predator who sucks the life blood out of the artists whom he uses to help maintain his wealth and status. None of whom receive a fair percentage of the wages which they work so tirelessly to earn," Payton said.
Berklee is among the most prestigious music schools in the country. Past students have included Quincy Jones, Melissa Etheridge, and Howard Shore. Tuition and related costs can run students up to $82,302 per year.
Gideon Dabi, a New York City-based voice teacher and opera singer, said he was not surprised by Payton's history of hate.
"I wish I had something profound to add except that the music world—which is usually behind trends—is often a monoculture where anti-Semitism is explained away while other types of hate are swiftly punished," Dabi told the Free Beacon.
Neither Payton nor Berklee responded to requests for comment.
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