“Meilech is a very funny guy,” says Schwarcz. “He knows that I’m English, right? I’m from London. He liked coming in and doing my accent. He used to do it better than me. So we were in the recording studio and I had the microphone on, and I said, ‘Meilech, are you ready?’

“And he said [revving up the Cockney accent], ‘Yes, I’m ready!’ and then he said, ‘ ‘ello!’

“When he heard it on the final track, he loved it, people loved it. I took a video of him lip-synching to his original recording, and it went viral.”

“We always try to keep it fun in the studio, before anything else,” says Kohn. “One of these days I’m going to have kids, b’ezras Hashem, and I’m going to tell them, ‘You can go as far in life as you want.’ I don’t want them to say to me, ‘Oh, really, so how come you never did anything with your music?’ So with the ‘ ‘ello!’ in ‘V’nahafoch Hu,’ a friend told me to take it out, and said no serious singer would do that. I said, ‘No, no, no, that’s the point — I’m not selling myself as a singer, we’re having fun. Who’s to say this is going anywhere?”

One person who saw where it was going was Zevi Fried, a member of the Shirah Choir. He came on board the Meilech bandwagon about 18 months ago, and is now effectively serving as Kohn’s manager — although he demurs at such a description.

“We’re basically friends,” Fried insists. “and I love his music, I love his different kind of music. People are saying I’m his manager, producer... He doesn’t need a manager or a producer, he can do everything by himself.”

Managing Kohn’s schedule has lately become a busier task. The singer now makes enough appearances to support himself from his craft, performing at chasunahs, bar mitzvahs, and kumzitzen, as well as davening from the amud at shabbatonim. He’s been fortunate to receive the support of his audience in another way as well: a GoFundMe campaign to raise the funds for the CD has achieved $28,099 of its $35,000 goal.

“It’s amazing,” says Kohn of the amount raised so far. “I didn’t expect people to respond like this. I had a bochur stop me in the street and give me $10. People have given all the way up to $1,800… Baruch Hashem, it’s been unbelievable.”

The draw of Kohn’s music is undeniable, exerting a pull even on those ears that don’t quite know what to make of it on first listen. His voice is supple, covering great range and negotiating rapid changes with ease, but it also has a rough-hewn quality that suggests a certain grit. His songs resist easy classification; no two sound the same, none of them really fits a ready-made category. The first two singles, “V’nahafoch Hu” and “Ein Trop Vasser,” brought him attention, but the third, “V’uhavtu,” brought him prominence.

“The first time I heard the song and saw the clip, I didn’t chap that it was going to be a hit,” says Radio Kol Chai’s Menachem Toker of “V’uhavtu.” “Usually I know how to catch the hits, baruch Hashem, very quickly. Meilech Kohn came to me a bit later, because he’s very much a mixture — of Israeli and American, frum and a bit modern, of Sephardi and chassidish, young and old… he brings a little bit from each.”

That cachet was in evidence on a recent Friday afternoon outside a Jerusalem mikvah, where an ad hoc committee of young men could be found discussing Meilech Kohn. As one bochur recounted seeing Kohn sing at a chasunah, an American yeshivish yungerman cut in and regaled the group about attending a concert where Kohn performed. All the while, a more sheltered chassidish bochur interjected eager questions — where’s he from, what chassidus is he? An outsider’s inquiry as to the root of Kohn’s appeal brought a thoughtful pause to the give-and-take.

One of the bochurim, Yanky Hill — son of musician Yonason Hill — offered to help clarify: “His music is so… derhoibene [elevated].”

Aryeh M., another American chassidish boy learning in Jerusalem, put it this way: “With most music, usually the more klalusdig it is, the less chassidish it is, but that’s not the case with his songs.”