Matisyahu Shirts

Matisyahu Shirts

Matisyahu Beatbox Jam

Matisyahu Beatbox Jam

Matisyahu - Youth - Indestructible - lyrics

Matisyahu - Youth - Indestructible - lyrics

Fear nobody but His majesty
My spirit
You retrieve
For you I wait
Silently
It seems that you believe in me

Indestructible
Digging through the rubble
Bubbling
We don’t need no more trouble
Double hub telescope vision
Hut hut blitzing like I’m running amok
Up on the rhythm

Stay on the path so you don’t lose the vision
Stay sizzling
Pitter patter from my prayers
Drips like drizzle from the ceiling
Feeling it, you’re breathing it
You put on your glasses and see through it

Some of them run run running
Like a rat on a wheel
Trying to find a new deal
Who is their ticket for a meal?
This world is real
On the heals of the final generation

I remember that day in November
Standing on the roof
And I’m feeling so tender
All shook up
Like I’ve been in the blender
Fend off the demons in the park after dark

Lend me your hand I want to be a member
Spent too much and now I’m rendered
Dead
Mend these wounds
Got to find a common thread
Want to fly in the sky
But you’re heavy like lead

Just a tool
In the hands of the builder
Fill them with the strength to go further
Digging deep for eternal treasure
Stay away from quick sand and false pleasure
Their mouths speak with arrogance
Appearance like a lion lurking in the mist
They surround and they gaze their fix
Grab the rope of G-d’s heritage

Release me from their schemes
My distress you will relieve
Guide me on the path that’s dark and slippery
They seek deception and futility
I stand with integrity
Sneak to the roof of that building
Don’t want nobody here to see me
They’ll say that I’m living in a fantasy
But I believe if I dig deep and I plead in sincerity
Won’t you utterly remove the cloud hanging over me
Won’t you waive the decree in the shade of your wings
Shelter me from the wicked who have plundered me
From my mortal enemies won’t you shield me

Matisyahu - King Without a Crown - Live

I guess this is how the live version looks like....

Matisyahu for mtvU Woodie Award

Matisyahu VH1 News Interview This Weekend!
Catch Matisyahu's VH1 News interview which airs this Saturday, September 23, at 8am and again on Sunday, September 24, at 7am. Check your local listings.

Matisyahu Nominated for mtvU Woodie Award!
Matisyahu has been nominated for an mtvU Woodie Award in the category of Streaming Woodie. He needs your help THIS WEEK to win! So visit mtvu.com to vote for him! The 2006 mtvU Woodie Awards will be broadcast on Thursday November 2nd @ 8:00pm.

oh yeah, the official Matisyahu website has launched.

youth is the engine of the world

youth is the engine of the world

....The rest of the crowd certainly reacted to Matisyahu more than they did for either Gomez or the Spree, even if the first indication was the copious amount of pot smoke that wafted into the air the moment the lights fell. In a long shaft of white light encircled by his backing band, Matisyahu appeared onstage, swaying back and forth in his trademark wardrobe — longish black jacket and baggy jeans, white prayer shawl shirt and tennis shoes, and a black hat that was a cross between an Amish wide-brimmed style and a smaller fedora design (which was later revealed to bear a yarmalka beneath it). While I have little care for poseurs who sing old style reggae lyrics without being the slightest bit in touch with their meaning, it was a really powerful display to see the entire auditorium follow Matisyahu as he chanted “I say… Lord! Raise me up, from the ground! I’ve been here… far too long.”

SETLIST - SAN JOSE

1. Lost Dimension
2. Time of Your Song
3. Chop ‘Em Down
4. Fire of Heaven / Altar of Earth
5. Exhaltation
6. Close My Eyes
7. Indestructible
8. Beatbox
9. Jam
10. Jerusalem
11. King Without A Crown
12. Youth
ENCORE
13. Lord Raise Me Up
14. Warrior

SETLIST - BERKELEY

1. Lord Raise Me Up
2. Time of Your Song
3. Chop ‘Em Down
4. Youth
5. Exhaltation
6. Close My Eyes
7. Indestructible
8. Hama Ya, Hama Yo
9. Jam
10. Fire of Heaven / Altar of Earth
11. Jerusalem
12. King Without a Crown
ENCORE
13. Beatbox
14. Heights

Both sets, while very similar, were impressive in their differences. The emphasis on Matisyahu’s beatboxing — which is absolutely stunning, and I personally think he trounces even the great Rahzel in his performances — was more pronounced in the Berkeley show, as it kicked off the encore and was followed by the frenetic energy of “Heights”. Similarly, when the crowd was fully saturated with the amazement and energy of his show, the response for “Lord Raise Me Up” at the San Jose show was as intense, if not moreso, than that for when it opened the Berkeley show. “Youth”, for the way it is performed — with chaotic, prismatic lights, and another fellow dressed just like Matisyahu (though he looked younger) dancing back and forth with the charismatic yet quiet frontman — works better as a set closer than being thrown in midway; the same, however, can be said for “King Without A Crown”.

Matisyahu’s lights play a large factor in his set in two main areas. The first is for the band’s impressive jam sessions. The guitarist shreds like a metal maniac, but also jives and grooves like the speediest surf rocker you’ll ever see; the drummer and percussionist are both amazing in their agility and ability; and the keyboardist and bassist hold the foundations of the set strongly. The other times the lights are very wild and prominent are during his high-voiced, rapid-fire lyric blasts that come in as a final verse or bridge — and at those moments, the speed and intensity of the lights match his energy extremely well.

Here I am talking about all the effects and the structure of the set — how was the main man himself? To describe Matisyahu as “good” or “talented” puts too simple of a term on it. I would describe him as “flowing intricately”. The mood of each of his songs is amazingly well reflected in his movements — whether it be swaying back and forth like a mournful spirit while crooning out a fluttering, meandering series of long, deep, powerful tones, or perhaps his wild, pseudo-moonwalk spin dancing and spitfire vocal delivery; whatever the case, the moods of the songs followed the movements of their leader extremely well. The Berkeley show seemed to garner more direct attention to him (I still say it’s because the lack of the Spree!), to the point that in the middle of his beatboxing, he paused to sing lightly and whisper, and until he left the mic, the crowd was dead silent — almost as sincere in their quiet as the Sigur Ros crowd had been.

The diversity of the music in the two shows both made them extremely worthwhile experiences, and I am extremely glad I went to them. Matisyahu will be a return favorite of mine in the future — barring the likelihood that he will eventually be so big that he’ll just play arenas — and the Polyphonic Spree was downright epic. I’ve never seen a band carry that much power for such a long set, and I have yet to find a frontman like Matisyahu who brings out so much spirit and energy in his followers, while all the time remaining quiet and reflective as the music drifts from him like water.

(taken from lexiconnocturnum)

Cypress HIll and Matisyahu

Cypress HIll and Matisyahu

Matisyahu Free On Napster

Matisyahu Free On Napster

Now you can listen to the albums "Youth" and "Live at Stubb's" for FREE!

Napster's review on Matisyahu:

An orthodox Jew who kicks it dancehall style, Matisyahu may seem a gimmick, but he's the real deal. Unfortunately, he's struggling with the sophomore jinx on Youth, an album that expands upon his debut, 2004's Shake Off the Dust... Arise, without capturing its immediacy or excitement, thanks in large part to producer Bill Laswell.

No stranger to genre-combining -- he's remixed Bob Marley and Miles Davis and is always up for any world music versus electronica excursion he's offered -- Laswell treats Matisyahu like so many of his previous subjects. He can't resist adding a sound effect swoop and other studio trickery to most tracks, and he often makes Matisyahu's band sound gigantic and polished when they're really tight and free.

While the whole affair is great for showing off bass-heavy speakers, the live and exciting Matisyahu that makes the jam band crowd go crazy is hard to find and the tasteful studio touches of his home-brewed debut are absent. His material is also going through some growing pains, but there is growth and for every song that wanders a bit too much, there's a revelation that fleshes out the artist.

The spiritual message was always bigger than the man before, but the sparse "What I'm Fighting For" is a surprisingly intimate track while "Dispatch the Troops" flippantly quotes the Police, an unexpected twist from a man who always seemed stately to a fault, even when he was doing the human beatbox thing.

At the time of Youth's release, Shake Off the Dust... Arise was out of print and one has to wonder if Matisyahu's new label, Sony, was behind it. Arise's great "King Without a Crown" appears again here and Sony decides to push the single as if this is Matisyahu's grand entrance. That's a total misrepresentation of Youth, which is really more about a talented artist struggling with the pressures of topping his brilliant first album. Even if he didn't, and even if he or the label chose the wrong producer for the undertaking, Youth is meaty enough to suggest this man is no gimmick but an artist with his eye on the long haul.

~ David Jeffries, All Music Guide

Relevant links:
Click here to listen to Matisyahu on Napster for FREE

Napster.com

Napster Canada

Matisyahu, Hammersmith Palais, London

Matisyahu, Hammersmith Palais, London

By James McNair (The Independent) Published: 25 May 2006

He has been called a "loveable oddball" and "the most intriguing reggae artist in the world." He is Matisyahu, aka Matthew Paul Miller, a bearded Hasidic Jew who performs wearing a black suit and a broad-brimmed black hat over a yarmulke. Matisyahu sings in English with bits of Yiddish and Hebrew, and cites Rabbi Simon Jacobsen's Towards A Meaningful Life as an inspiration. There's something pleasantly jarring about seeing someone who looks like an anxiety figure in a Woody Allen reverie fronting a band the kids are "down" with.

Strictly speaking, Matisyahu is not a "classic reggae"-type artist, though, for while he and his band clearly know their King Tubby from their queen Marcia Griffiths, they are also partial to rocking out in a style reminiscent of the Red Hot Chili Peppers jamming with the Grateful Dead.

The 26-year-old, Pennsylvania-born Matisyahu has confessed to being a Deadhead in his youth, but that was before he embraced Orthodox Judaism and began studying Torah in earnest. It was also around this time that he began listening to Bob Marley and Shlomo Carlebach.

All of this has had a wonderful, cross-pollinating effect on Matisyahu's music. Tonight, selections such as "Jerusalem" and "Exaltation" are a winning mix of devotional song, dancehall reggae, and sticky dub impasse, our host switching between a toasting vocal style, and gesticulating, syllable-crammed raps.

It is fortunate that his look is so strikingly incongruous, because his band mates are without discernible charisma. You can't fault their chops, though, and the moments when guitarist Aaron Dugan plays fluid, African-style arpeggios are exhilarating. Like bassist Josh Werner and drummer Jonah David, Dugan is also agreeably fluent in the earthy language of dub.

What's clear is that this is feelgood - and indeed be good - music. And you have to applaud the way that his sound seems to unite the ethnically and religiously diverse, as evidenced by this audience's mixed-bag of yarmulke, beanie hat and baseball cap wearers.

Musically speaking, the best moment comes when the band down tools, and Matisyahu showcases his fluent, rapid-fire beatboxing chops. Not quite Rahzel, perhaps, but kosher all the same. As the band encores with "Youth", the anthemic title track from Matisyahu's second album, a stranger taps me on the shoulder, then hands me a drink because I'm "working". It all adds to the "one city under a groove" mood.

Matisyahu and Roots Tonic - Chop Em' Down

Matisyahu and Roots Tonic - Chop Em' Down - Funk Box

Some more Matisyahu shirts

Check out these Matisyahu products I found. Click on the images to go to the site that sells them:

Matisyahu Ringtones

Get Matisyahu's ringtones and real tones:
	King Without A Crown
	Youth

Matisyahu: Very old school

Matisyahu: Very old school

As the world's most successful Hasidic hip hop-reggae star, Matisyahu is poised to bring the Torah to iTunes. Ahead of his tour dates with Madonna, he tells Barry Nicholson why he'll forego bling for his beliefs

As the world's only known platinum-selling Hasidic Jewish dancehall-reggae sensation, metaphysical MC and human beatbox, Matthew "Matisyahu' Miller cuts a distinctly awkward figure amongst the gallery of image-obsessed, MTV-endorsed, chart phenomena he's recently found himself rubbing shoulders and sharing airspace with. Standing at an imposing six-feet plus and sporting the traditional shaven head, unruly beard and long, flowing sideburns, or payoth, of the Ultra-Orthodox Eastern European branch of Judaism known as Hasidism, the 26 year-old Brooklynite is perhaps 2006's oddest - and most strikingly original - crossover artist.

His music - a heady broth of hip-hop beats and vibrant, accessible reggae-pop - is infused with unabashed lyrical celebrations of his faith and the Jewish condition ("3,000 years with no place to be/And they want me to give up my milk and honey/Don't you see, it's not about the land or the sea/Not the country but the dwelling of his majesty" he sings on "Jerusalem"), and has been variously dismissed as a novelty curio by some, and hailed as the advent of a truly original voice by others. The man himself remains ambivalent about suggestions that his success lies in the fact that no one's ever seen an Orthodox Jew beatboxing before, stating simply that, "This is me. If anyone thinks I'm a novelty, they should come to a show, close their eyes, listen, and decide on their own whether or not it moves them."


Whatever your take on his music though, there's little doubt that he's as compelling a figure as popular music has seen for some time. He's a fierce believer in the holiness of touch, and as such, has ceased stage-diving at his gigs, forbidding himself from making physical contact with any woman that isn't his wife, daughter, mother or grandmother, while his strict observance of the Sabbath means he will not perform on Friday nights. Yet it's not Matisyahu's religious beliefs and his strict adherence to them in the largely morality-free world of celebrity that mark him out as such a wonderful pop anomaly. Rather, it is his uncompromising, uplifting music and the force with which it has landed on the popular consciousness.

His latest studio album, Youth, last month entered the US Billboard Hot 200 at number four, whilst simultaneously topping both the iTunes and Digital Albums charts in its first week of release. Meanwhile, the record that initially generated the underground buzz around him, 2005's Live At Stubbs, has now sold well over half-a-million copies in the US alone, spurred on by the heavily-rotated radio hit of "King Without A Crown". He counts fellow Jewish New York MCs Mike D and Ad-Rock of The Beastie Boys as his friends, and last week told superstar Kabbalah-convert Madonna that he'd have to take a rain check on making her Passover Seder (though he's reportedly made time to provide tour support on her upcoming global jaunt).

An impressive portfolio of factoids and statistics, certainly, but it's all a far cry from his formative years spent as a Phish-loving pseudo-hippy in the late 1990s, when pitchers of magic mushroom tea and copious amounts of marijuana were the order of the day. Although he was born into a Jewish family and attended a strict Hebrew school from an early age, Miller nonetheless developed a taste for rebellion. ("Matisyahu" is an adopted name he was given at the school, referring to Mattathias, a Jewish high priest depicted in the Books of the Maccabees - the original Hebrew name his parents gave him was forgotten.) He dropped out of high school and was sent by his parents to a drug-treatment centre in the wilderness of Bent, Oregon where he was sent on "Vision quests" in the surrounding woods. Here, he honed his rapping and beatboxing skills by performing as MC Truth at open-mic nights in local coffee-houses, playing Rick James and reggae cover covers to limited acclaim. His own style was developing slowly, but something was still missing.

"We were playing in college bars in Eugene, Oregon," he recalled in a 2005 interview with a Jewish website. "I remember playing music and looking around. No one was really listening to what we were saying. One guy was talking to his girl, these other guys were getting drunk over there, and I'm jumping around on the stage like some kind of clown. It was hard to imagine that what I was doing had any meaning."

That meaning came with the rediscovery of his faith after relocating to his native New York in 2000. After enrolling at The New School college in Greenwich Village, a chance encounter with a Rabbi led him to an Upper West Side synagogue, the Carle Bach Shul, where the previously reckless and anti-authoritarian Miller learned to embrace the strict ethos of the Lubavitch Hasidic lifestyle, which in turn impacted upon his music.

"Before I was religious," he says, "to me music was soul. I always had headphones everywhere I went, and I looked at the world through the lens of whatever CD I was listening to. In Judaism, there's another type of food for the soul, another type of spiritual sustenance that comes through the mitzvahs and Torah learning. In Judaism, praying and learning what you love to learn changes the lens that you have, without using something external."

The result was his 2004 debut album Shake Off The Dust... Arise!, a promising if unspectacular record that failed to chart, although it did help establish a small cult following. It was last year's Live At Stubbs that really brought him to mainstream attention, though. Recorded in an Austin, Texas BBQ shack, it perfectly documented his renowned live show and became an unexpected chart hit. However, if he still sounds like a passing musical oddity, listen to Youth and stand corrected.

His second album proper, it perfectly marries pop sensibilities - from the title track's infectious, sloganeering chorus, to "King Without A Crown"'s frantic, exciting melodies - with the religious depth that's inherent in all the best reggae music. The sparse, plaintive "What I'm Fighting For" even manages to evoke the spirit of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song", with Miller pleading "Sons and daughters of Abraham, lay down to a higher command/Don't be tricked by the acts of man" over a lone acoustic guitar. If that's a little too ecclesiastic for your tastes, there's always "Dispatch The Troops", his moralistic re-imagining of Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone", relating the tale of a precocious "Princess of Zion" who runs away to the Metropolis, only to find it ain't all that. If the rock'n'roll bluster we're usually so accustomed to when it comes to Next Big Things is conspicuously absent, it's on purpose - and it makes for a strikingly refreshing album, unlikely reggae-rap hybrid or not.

"Part of the reason for the success," Miller himself muses, "Is just the music itself. It's good music! But the Hasidic thing definitely adds something and makes it even better. What I did notice a lot more was a feeling of respect I got from people. I think it's because they see that you're doing your thing. Hasidic reggae - I never planned it this way, but it works really well."

Of course, religion and popular music have always made for strange bedfellows. One need only recall Bob Dylan's ill-advised late 1970s evangelical Christian phase, culminating in the turgid Saved album and the subsequent alienation of much of his fan base. Yet Matisyahu's trick is to be able to convey his unwavering devotion to Hasidic life in easily-digestible three-minute pop nuggets without ever getting the fire and brimstone out. Indeed, as Miller himself notes, his gigs are populated by "Everyone from right-wing Christians to Rastas, frat boys to hippies and little kids to 80-year-old Jewish women."

Still, singing lines such as "To Zion we roll and we are not alone" and making reference to the Holocaust - "Burned in the oven in this century/The gas tried to choke, but it couldn't choke me" - places Matisyahu squarely in the Jewish tradition. But there's nothing exclusive about his music, in the same way that not everyone who owns a copy of Bob Marley's Uprising accepts Haile Selassie as Jah incarnate. The least-likely pop star of the year he may be, but Matisyahu's sold-out show at London's Scala last November suggests that mainstream acceptance can't be too far away now. Just don't expect to see him flaunting his success anytime soon.

"There's no law against making money," he insists, "So long as you spend your money in a way that you're helping out people and making a good life for yourself and your family. But you're not gonna see me driving a Ferrari."

'Youth' is released on 8 May on Sony BMG

(taken from The Independent)

Matisyahu - Close my eyes

Matisyahu - Close my eyes

Matisyahu - world's first Hasidic reggae superstar

Meet the man dubbed world's first Hasidic reggae superstar

by Jonathan Brown (The Independent)

Music fans for whom the words Jewish and singer conjure images of Barry Manilow, Barbra Streisand or even Theodore Bikel, may be in for a shock. A young man by the name of Matisyahu is being hailed by the likes of Madonna and Rolling Stone magazine as the world's first "Hasidic reggae superstar".

British audiences will be able to experience the curious blend of rabbi and rap when the singer arrives in the UK next month to promote his third album.


Matisyahu, who changed his name from Matthew Miller when he discovered the strict Lubavitch Hasidic tradition of Orthodox Judaism, has built up a fervent following among fans of New York's live music scene. But alongside the pounding vocals - sometimes in Yiddish - and foot-stomping rhythms, he maintains a lifestyle devoutly at odds with those in the music business around him. He refuses to play on the Jewish Sabbath, eat non-kosher food, or compromise his religious ideals by playing alongside female artists.

He has already turned down the chance to tour with Shakira, declined to advertise Burger King and refused to appear on shock- jock Howard Stern's show. Yet he has signed a major deal with Sony Records and is to embark on an international tour taking in London and Manchester as well as an appearance on the BBC's Later With Jools Holland.

Supporters of the crowd-surfing beatboxer in the black fedora and Talmudic beard insist it is wrong to characterise him as the "rapping rabbi" and say he has earned the accolades being heaped on him by a music press where critics routinely compare him to a young Bob Marley. Quiet, thoughtful and profoundly serious, Matisyahu, 26, who is married with a child, somewhat unfashionably puts his success down to his devotion to God. Currently declining media interviews because of the Jewish Passover, he recently told The Washington Post: "It's an amazing thing, a phenomenon, when a person is willing to give themselves over to something else. That's what real passion is."

While uncomfortable with undue emphasis being placed on his religious beliefs, he accepts it is an occupational hazard. Growing up in a non-religious, middle-class Jewish household in the New York suburbs, today Matisyahu lives among the religious community in the Orthodox enclave of Crown Heights.

He turned his back on his upbringing, but not his parents, after an adolescence that involved large amounts of drug taking, snowboarding and music. His religious awakening followed an encounter with a radical rabbi in Washington Square Park. It provided the "glue" for him to put "all the pieces of my life together in one common focus". He says: "I was looking for something more."

Such a positive role model is eagerly awaited by young British Jews, according to Samantha Paerse, a music writer with the web site Totally-Jewish.com. "There is a big need here for something a bit cool and Jewish. At the moment the only Jewish star we have is Rachel Stevens," she said.

Some see the singer's success as part of a larger revival in overtly Jewish musical acts. Matisyahu's New York management team JDub Records, promotes bands such as the LeeVees - "two nice young Jewish guys" who have just completed an album entitled Hanukkah Rocks. Another of its clients, Golem, has been earning rave reviews for highly charged interpretations of traditional Eastern European Jewish folk tunes.

As one famous Jewish singer, who changed his name to the all- together more Gentile-sounding Dylan, once observed: "the times they are a changin".

Orthodox rap:

"Young man, control in your hand
Slam your fist on the table and make your demand
Take a stand...
Got the freedom to choose
Better make the right move" (Youth)

"You're all that I have and you're all that I need
Each and every day I pray to get to know you please
I want to be close to you, yes
I'm so hungry
You're like water for my soul when it gets thirsty
Sometimes the world is dark and I just can't see
But I believe, yes, I believe, I said I believe" (King Without a Crown)

Copyright: Sony BMG Music Entertainment

Matisyahu and Roots Tonic - Exaltation

Matisyahu and Roots Tonic - Exaltation - Funk Box




NEW TOUR DATES JUST ANNOUNCED:
Oct 17 Levinstone, NY @ Albany Washington Avenue Armory
Oct 18 Rezak, NY @ Syracuse Landmark Theatre
Oct 19 Montreal @ Metropolis
Oct 22 Toronto @ Docks
Oct 24 Goldberg, CT @ Storrs Jorgensen Auditorium