{"id":10099,"date":"2006-06-15T16:55:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-15T16:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/production.ou.org\/life\/other\/matisya_who\/"},"modified":"2015-10-21T12:23:42","modified_gmt":"2015-10-21T17:23:42","slug":"matisya_who","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/arts-media\/matisya_who\/","title":{"rendered":"Matisya-Who?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We were on the first day of a two week car trip through Europe. My wife Jody and I and our three kids had packed the rented Nissan Almera full of our gear and were settling in for the three hour drive from the Milan airport to our bed and breakfast in Italy\u2019s picturesque Lake Garda area.<\/p>\n

We hit the Autostrada and, after the initial excitement of all those \u201cforeign\u201d road signs ( \u201cWhat does \u2018Uscita; mean?\u201d and \u201cCan we really go 120 on this road?\u201d ), everyone quieted down as we realized that a highway is a highway\u2026even in Italian.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan you turn on the radio?\u201d fourteen-year-old Amir commanded and I readily complied.<\/p>\n

Now I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve ever tried to listen to the radio in Europe, but it is a truly dreadful experience. Nothing but station after station of Euro disco garbage, pardon my snooty American\/Israeli attitude.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes this car have a CD player?\u201d Amir asked. \u201cBecause I have a disc that Safta gave us. Some guy named\u2026\u201d (he looked at the disc)\u2026\u201cMatisyahu.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amir and his twelve-year-old sister Merav had spent the summer in California with their grandparents before meeting the rest of the family in Italy for our vacation together. The Matisyahu disc had been a parting gift from Jody\u2019s mom.<\/p>\n

\u201cHand it over,\u201d I said excitedly. But as I took a look at the cover of \u201cLive at Stubb\u2019s,\u201d I quickly lost my optimism.<\/p>\n

The man going by the very Ashkenazi-sounding name \u201cMatisyahu\u201d ( with the \u201cs\u201d in the middle rather than the more Israeli pronunciation of \u201cMatitayu\u201d with a \u201ct\u201d ) was decked out in traditional ultra-orthodox attire: black hat, black coat, bushy beard. A little experience told me that the music on this CD would more likely lean towards old world cantorial-style or the type of bubbly \u201csimcha\u201d music heard at weddings and bar mitzvahs rather than hipper, more modern Israeli world music we generally favor: Idan Raichel and HaDag Nachash, that sort of thing.<\/p>\n

I steeled myself for an hour of \u201coy va voys\u201d and \u201cwe want Moshiach now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Imagine my surprise as the first track started to play: a reggae and rap-influenced number inspired more by Bob Marley and 50 Cent than Dudu Fisher or Tevye the milkman. The next track, \u201cChop \u2018Em Down,\u201d had us rocking in our seats with its mix of religious lyrics and jam band riffs. Matisyahu, it seems, has traded in the \u201coys\u201d for some authentic reggae \u201cyo\u2019s\u201d<\/p>\n

Or as Matisyahu might say, \u201cyiggy-ay-ay-yo.\u201d<\/p>\n

By track five \u2013 \u201cKing without a Crown\u201d (which I later learned had been released as one of the singles from the CD) we were hooked.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne more time,\u201d Merav begged when the disc concluded.<\/p>\n

Why not, I figured. We still had another hour until we got to our destination.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the next two weeks, we must have listened to that Matisyahu CD at least 35 times. Through three European countries, past the craggy peaks surrounding Lake Como and the snow-covered Alps towering above Grindelwald, over more than 600 miles of road tripping from Venice Italy to Freiberg Germany, we had the continuously repeating soundtrack of Matisyahu innovative rhymes:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you’re cup’s already full then it\u2019s bound to overflow<\/p>\n

If you’re drowning in the waters and you can’t stay afloat<\/p>\n

Ask Hashem for mercy and he’ll throw you a rope\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and…<\/p>\n

\u201cExaltation, my G-d of salvation<\/p>\n

The field and there in will be filled with jubilation<\/p>\n

The lord’s name will be proclaimed amongst the Nations<\/p>\n

We don’t have no time for patience\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not surprisingly, when we got back home to Israel, I felt like I had a very intimate relationship with this mystery man. But who was he? I only knew his lyrics and the one black and white stencil drawing on the album cover. Was he frum \u2013 that is, religious \u2013 from birth? If so, where\u2019d he learn his rock and roll chops?<\/p>\n

The first website I surfed to when I booted up my computer after a two week absence was HasidicReggae.com where I learned that Matisyahu was born Matthew Miller in 1979, that he grew up in Berkeley CA and White Plains NY, attended Hebrew School a couple of times a week but had a penchant for disrupting lessons and was frequently threatened with expulsion.<\/p>\n

By the age of 14, he fell in with a \u201cDead-Head\u201d crowd, grew dreadlocks and played bongos in the lunchroom. He also started \u201cbeatboxing\u201d \u2013 a type of musical street smarts involving a sputtering of seemingly inhuman noises that lie somewhere between imitation of electronic percussion…and spit \u2013 that is a highlight of his musical performances to this day.<\/p>\n

A trip to Israel and a stay at the Alexander Muss High School in Hod HaSharon when he was 16 opened him up to learning more about Judaism in a positive way. \u201cThey took us to Mount Scopus to look at the view of Jerusalem,\u201d Miller said in an interview last week in Ha’aretz. \u201cIt sounds a little corny, I know, but it totally does the job. You stand up there, overlooking this incredible city, and you sing `Jerusalem of Gold’ and something big moves in your heart. It was the first time that I felt my soul, that I really felt it. I felt God.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few years later, Miller was studying at the Chabad yeshiva in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. But his restlessness and his life-long passion for music convinced him that he needed to be on stage. He had already performed at a few clubs before his yeshiva stint. Now he was back with a vengeance.<\/p>\n

He hooked up with Aaron Bisman, co-founder of JDub Records (and a friend of ours) and now has two CDs out. With the latest, \u201cLive at Stubbs,\u201d selling over 100,000 copies, Matisyahu is considered the most successful Jewish recording artist ever to \u201ccross over\u201d into the mainstream. He’s even got his own fan club. Now Sony has picked up the enigmatic Charedi reggae-rapper and is investing six figures in a music video alone. His third disc is due out next month in January.<\/p>\n

Despite all the success, the cynic in me still couldn\u2019t help wondering if Matisyahu is for real. I mean, if he weren\u2019t a black hatter who inexplicably sounds Jamaican, would anyone take notice? There are plenty of wannabe American Idols clamoring for their chance in the spotlight. And it wasn\u2019t that long ago that Matisyahu was a drop out searching for a purpose.<\/p>\n

Could the whole religious shtick be just a well crafted \u2013 albeit highly effective \u2013 publicity stunt?<\/p>\n

Matisyahu doesn\u2019t blame his critics. \u201cIf I were them, I\u2019d think that I\u2019m some sort of gimmick too,\u201d he said in the Haaretz interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a gimmick until he opens his mouth,\u201d his producer Bisman added. \u201cBut he doesn\u2019t stand on the stage like an idiot in some nonchalant pose. He goes nuts. He\u2019s there because of the passion and the hat and the beard can\u2019t hide that.\u201d<\/p>\n

So when I heard Matisyahu was coming to Israel to give a series of performances last week, I really didn\u2019t have a choice\u2026I had to be there, to check this guy out live and on stage.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/div>\n

Matisyahu\u2019s show at the avant-garde Jerusalem performance space The Lab last week didn\u2019t disappoint. The club was sold out and tickets were reportedly being scalped outside for up to NIS 500 ($110) each. Inside, the singer rapped, jumped and gyrated (modestly of course) his way through an hour and half of old and new material. But it was the audience that ultimately won me over.<\/p>\n

Matisyahu\u2019s fan base spans an extraordinary spectrum: girls in trashy spaghetti strap tank tops; yeshiva boys with their tzitzit (ritual fringes) flying as they tossed each other in the air as part of a decidedly unspiritual mosh pit; a goodly sprinkling of middle aged hippies; and a twelve-year-old friend of Merav\u2019s \u2013 all of them jumping and grinding on the packed dance floor together, shouting out \u201cMat-is-ya-hu, Mat-is-ya-hu\u201d at the Rabbiniclal-looking figure on stage as if he were Paul McCartney or Axl Rose in a tallit.<\/p>\n

Regular readers of this blog know that there is just about nothing I value more than Jewish unity. On this end Matisyahu scored an unquestionable home run.<\/p>\n

A few days later, I was listening to one of my favorite Internet radio streams \u2013 99X, Atlanta\u2019s home for \u201cEverything Alternative,\u201d by no means a religious station ( it vociferously promotes its irreverent holiday \u201cMistle Toe Jam\u201d ), and there was the DJ mumble-mouthing \u201cMa-sit-ya-su\u201d or something similarly tongue-twisted, and then playing \u201cKing without a Crown\u201d with its \u201cwe want Moshiach now\u201d refrain.<\/p>\n

And I thought: forget about Jewish unity, can world peace be far off?<\/p>\n

Does Matisyahu make extraordinary music? Absolutely. Is he the real deal? After 35 listens across Europe and a tour-de-force<\/i> performance in Jerusalem, I\u2019m still not sure. But he and his cross-generational multi-faith fans certainly seem to believe it. And that\u2019s good enough for me.<\/p>\n

Brian Blum is a journalist and entrepreneur based in Jerusalem. He writes the weekly column This Normal Life (www.ThisNormalLife.com). His latest startup Bloggerce (www.bloggerce.com) provides online publishing solutions for budding bloggers. Contact him at brianblum@gmail.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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