Matisyahu
Matisyahu
Matthew Paul Miller, known by his Hebrew and stage name Matisyahu, is a Jewish American reggae vocalist, beatboxer, and alternative rock musician...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth30 June 1979
CountryUnited States of America
form inspiring keeping stand wearing whatever
When I started wearing a yarmulke, I wanted to stand out or take the form of whatever was inspiring me. But now I think there's something to not working it, to keeping it on the inside, and it just being kind of like a secret.
gifted material purchase sam turned whatever
As a kid, I was really into performing. I would do choruses, I would do musicals, whatever it was. And then, as a teenager, I got into an acting class at SUNY Purchase for gifted kids, and that really turned me on to material beyond musicals, Sam Shepard, and Christopher Durang plays.
actual chosen cut dressed ideas interact morning opposite people rules side
In Judaism, there are a lot of rules - everything from which fingernail you cut first to which side you sleep on in bed, to the way you get dressed in the morning, to actual ideas, like ideas about being chosen people or ideas about female/male and how to interact with people from the opposite sex.
beat expert people
I'm not an expert in instruments, beat programming, or electronics. For some people it's all about doing it themselves. But for me, it's all about find the people that can help make my vision come true.
music
I kind of think that music in general is a sacred thing, and that's what music has kind of always been for me.
believe mold orthodox truth
I still believe there is a lot of truth in Orthodox Judaism, but not the whole truth. Each person has his truth that he has to discover. You don't necessarily have to mold yourself to another idea of who you are.
came david lyrics material music musicians producers took worked written wrote
With 'Light,' I collaborated with a lot of different producers and musicians I respected, and we all wrote and worked on material which I then took to an old-school producer, David Kahne, and we put it all together. The lyrics came first - they were written before the music.
accept certain divine fall felt good goodness higher intuition level lots move needed order somehow submit trusting truth ultimate
At a certain point, I felt the need to submit to a higher level of religiosity... to move away from my intuition and to accept an ultimate truth. I felt that in order to become a good person, I needed rules - lots of them - or else I would somehow fall apart. I am reclaiming myself. Trusting my goodness and my divine mission.
bob hear powerful
There's something really powerful when I, for example, hear Bob Marley's 'Exodus' - we know where we're going. We know where we're from.
bought closed explored
I started out in the Chabad movement, and I started pretty closed up, with the idea of there being that 'this is it.' I bought into that fully. I really explored in depth the Chabad ideology.
home jackson kid local lots michael musicals parking performing phish played plays putting shops shows
I started at home as a kid putting on shows and lip-syncing Michael Jackson for the grown-ups. Then, in musicals and plays in school. At 17, I was performing in coffee shops and in parking lots at Phish shows. At 18, I had a band that played local shows in the Northwest.
belt christmas mention musical officially religious remotely songs
Songs that aren't even remotely connected to Christmas are now officially canonized Christmas tunes. 'Frosty the Snowman,' 'Jingle Bells' and 'Winter Wonderland' never mention anything religious but are still notches in Christmas' belt of musical dominance.
grew half hebrew jews knew major none public secular
I grew up pretty secular. I went to public school, and all the Jews that I knew, none of them were religious. While probably half of my friends were Jewish, they were all secular Jews. We went to Hebrew school, we knew we were Jewish, but it wasn't a major part of our existence.
became becoming fall music stopped
I did some acting in college. But then everything stopped when I was a junior, in the fall of 2001, when I started becoming religious. Once I became a full-on Hasidic, I stopped everything. I stopped music. I stopped acting.