Matisyahu: from white suburban teenager to Chassidic reggae star

By Laura Rheinheimer and
Tomer Altman

Matthew Miller, a self-described “white suburban teenager,” grew up in White Plains, New York, to Reconstructionist Jewish parents. He describes his teenage years as being filled with drugs and treif, (non-kosher food) and listening to hip-hop and reggae.

Today, Matthew Miller is Matisyahu Miller, an observant Chassidic Jew and top-selling artist on the Sony-BMG label. He performs across the country to Jews and non-Jews alike. His most popular song, “King Without a Crown,” made it to number seven in the Billboard charts.
In early September, the artist walked onto stage at the San Jose Civic Auditorium in a black coat and fedora, singing to more than 2,000 fans of all ages and backgrounds. Some teenagers showed up just to hear good music and have a turn in the mosh pit. Others felt more connected to Matisyahu’s connection with G-d.

Elisa Becerra, who was raised Christian, says Matisyahu’s music moved her to seek a deeper connection with G-d, through Orthodoxy. “You feel like the music is speaking directly to you,” Becerra says. “He just has a way of making people feel good.”

Devorah Witt, an Orthodox Jew visiting from Jerusalem, says Matisyahu’s music goes beyond good tunes and inspiration. “I think his music is actively bringing Moshiach,” she says.

Eli Altschuler, a Modern Orthodox Jew from Los Angeles, disagrees. The music is sincere, Altschuler says, but it doesn’t further his own religious convictions.

“He has given the Lubavitch a lot of strength,” adds Avi Blumenstein. “As a person, he’s very inspirational to people worldwide.”

In the Bay Area, however, Matisyahu may be strengthening the religiosity of young Jews. The mere presence of the reggae superstar, whose songs fill teenagers’ MySpace pages and mainstream radio stations, has inspired impressionable youths to show their Jewish pride.
David Linder, a 16-year-old from Saratoga, dons a kippah “for respect” and proudly announces that he skateboards to Matisyahu’s music on his iPod.

“He’s like a role model to me,” Linder says. “You never see a Jewish guy getting up there and doing reggae.”

Linder and a group of friends buy Matisyahu T-shirts to wear at the show, and argue over who gets the title of “biggest fan.” Thirty young adults attended the show together with the Silicon Valley Young Adults Division, a group of the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley.

Matisyhau’s San Jose performace included his hit “King Without a Crown” and “Jerusalem.” Many of the words are difficult to understand because of the reggae style of singing, but some of the messages come across loud and clear.

Matisyahu performs “Youth,” a song without strong religious undertones that calls for young men to “make their demands.” Longtime friend and fellow Yeshiva student, Zalman Shimon Wircberg, who is accompanying the Millers on tour, jumps onstage and does Chasidic-style dancing with Matisyahu. The crowd demands two encore songs, and the concert ends well past midnight.

Shabbos
In the days preceding the show, Matisyahu spends Shabbos as any other devout Orthodox Jew, quietly finishing his prayers at the house of Berkeley Chabad Rabbi Yehuda Ferris, while dozens of loud Jewish fraternity members drink wine. During the meal, Matisyahu receives praise after praise about his music, and he accepts each compliment with a “thank you.” It’s hard to imagine this quiet, humble Chasid getting onstage and singing his heart out to thousands of fans.

On tour with Matisyahu is his wife Tahlia, who is due with their second child in November, and son Laivy Yitzhak, 1. The family travels with him when they can, and Tahlia has her own thing going on—she teaches a class on intimacy to young Jews. The Miller family travels from Chabad house to Chabad house while on tour, taking every effort to be observant. “It’s not hard; you just have to know what to look out for,” Matisyahu says.

“When you have your mind made up to do something, you can do it,” he says.

But Matisyahu wasn’t always so directed. For much of his teenage years, he pursued music under the alias “MC Truth” with the group MC Mystic’s Soulfari Band in the New York area. After years of listening to reggae, indulging in marijuana and following the band Phish, he was left feeling soulless and wanted to get out of a life that was “limiting.”

“I started thinking about the world in a different perspective,” Matisyahu says, and he started a gradual process of becoming more religious, which stemmed from a “yearning to go back and communicate with HaShem.”

It was a hard decision for Matisyahu, but he credits the friendly and funny Chabad emissaries for making the transition to being an observant Jew easier. His family took it hard, he says, and they thought it was just another youthful indiscretion.

“My mom was going through a mental breakdown—‘he used to be into drugs, now he’s religious. I don’t know which is worse,’” Matisyahu recalls.

Matisyahu took Halacha (Jewish law) head-on in 2001, and left music behind for a while.

“I made a break from everything in my past,” he says. He thought music would play a role in his life like any other Orthodox Jew, through traditional Jewish music.

“I soon stopped lying to myself and realized that Jewish music sucks basically,” Matisyahu says. “And if I wanted to hear Jewish music, I was going to have to create my own.”

He says his music is based on genres he knew from the past—hip-hop and reggae—but with some of the Jewish ideas and concepts, and found inspiration in Chasidic songs and Sephardic melodies. He says he heard hip-hop beats behind the traditional niggunim (melodies).

Some of the same phrases cross over from reggae. Lyrics such as “fire descends from on high in the shape of a lion/ burn the sacrifice of pride and ride on to Mount Zion” can easily be compared to Bob Marley’s words.

Perhaps it is the timeless themes, or the novelty of a man in a black coat, tzittzit (fringes) and a fedorah twirling onstage, but whatever the reason, Matisyahu quickly went from performing in coffee shops in New York to selling out shows in world capitals.

Two years ago, as he was building a following and grabbing some media attention, he met Tahlia, a New York University student who contacted him to do a video. He kept bumping into her around town, and was intrigued. He recalls skating to mincha together, and was impressed by her spunk dodging in and out of traffic.

“I never saw a girl rollerblade like that,” Matisyahu says. “After two or three dates, I said, ‘This’ll work.’”

While his popularity grows, and he continues to inspire and touch fans from all walks of life, Matisyahu says even though the crowd he attracts isn’t your typical shul-going bunch, his music is an outlet for his own expression; making tunes is something he felt he needed to do.

“I like being out there and saying, ‘This is who I am,’” Matisyahu says.