Matisyahu

Matisyahu My name is Matisyahu and I live in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. I've been making music for a few years and I'm apparently starting to blow up in the United States. I just recorded an album last summer with Bill Laswell which should come out in Europe in February… ("Youth", on 7 March, editor's note).

Matisyahu My music is a real mix of different musical styles. I think the main styles are reggae, dub reggae mixed with conscious dancehall, with little touches of hip hop and sometimes rock… Some songs can be in 6/8 like African rhythms, others are ballads like indie rock. It's really very varied, the music takes very different forms.

Matisyahu As a band, we all work together. We have a bass, a drum kit and a guitar. We write the music as we go along, all together. That's why our music is so varied. Everyone has very diverse influences. Most of the time, I listen to their music, then I sit down with them and write the lyrics.

Matisyahu Hasidism is an orthodox form of Judaism. It means that Jews believe the Torah and the Old Testament come to us directly from God. We observe the laws of the Torah very strictly. Hasidism was born in Europe a few hundred years ago, at a time when Judaism was starting to be more or less tolerated. A mystical wave came with Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, the Master of the Good Name, who began to spread this new idea of Judaism that followed the laws to the letter. Judaism was meant to become something omnipresent in life, in energy… And that is what I express through song, dance, understanding God as much as possible and having a true emotion for him. God is not something distant. He is your father, your brother, your love… God is close to the person and tries to open their eyes to reality. That's how I see Hasidism. So I live in Crown Heights, in a Hasidic community. It's a place of contradiction between respect for the laws and barriers everywhere. It also involves a lot of devotion, and it's a real struggle to achieve a certain spirituality in daily life.

Matisyahu No, I go to the synagogue every day, we pray three times a day. But it's true that I find it harder to connect with God at the synagogue than through music or simply by being out in Nature. There is nothing external, everything is based on the internal, individual work and the spirit. So yes, it can be boring and difficult, but for me it remains the way to reach God.

Matisyahu The laws include, for example, that from Friday evening to Saturday evening we don't use electricity, we don't drive, in general we don't go to the cinema, we don't listen to the radio, we eat only kosher and a certain type of food… We pray several times a day, men and women are not allowed to touch unless they are married…

Matisyahu Bob Marley influences me a lot, Sizzla, Buju Banton, Capleton, Damian Marley. In hip hop, it would be Outkast, Nas, The Roots, Common, and in rock, Fish of the Grateful Dead, Neil Young, Flaming Lips…

Matisyahu As of today, the album has sold more than 100,000 copies in the United States. That's really not bad…

Matisyahu Absolutely, it's the first time we've toured in Europe. I'd come once to Paris for a single show. That was a little over a year ago. I wasn't with my band but with a backing band from Paris. We're just starting to take on Europe and the rest of the world.

Matisyahu We first signed a deal for all our albums with a smaller label called Or Records. The head of the label (Michael Caplan) had worked for a very long time for Sony's Epic label. He'd had the group Lonely Boys, who sold hundreds of thousands of albums and ended up at Epic. For us, the connection happened well before our 100,000 albums sold. Epic was already interested in our music and signed us on good terms. That's how we ended up at a major company.

Matisyahu Oh yes, that has always been my wish. To be known and to have my music heard in every corner of the world…

Matisyahu It's not really a choice. In America it happened quite naturally. It was the Jewish community that came to me first. And from there, we began to spread out and, in the end, reach a mostly non-Jewish, very mixed audience. It will surely happen the same way in Europe. At the start, the community will come to me first. The Jews will be proud to see someone making music that's good, and I hope that afterwards the rest of the country will follow…

Matisyahu Yes, I think people who listen to reggae appreciate our music. We have a very strong mix. I remember a concert in Amsterdam where I saw in the crowd a tall black rasta dancing next to a brother in traditional dress wearing his kippah. You never see that, it's really very rare!

Matisyahu Yes, that's absolutely true. It's about expressing your faith, expressing all sorts of ideas. Whatever the idea, as long as it's in tune with the times. That's how ideas find their place in songs. For example, in Chop 'Em Down the chorus says: "From the forest itself comes the hand for the ax". It's an idea I read in a Hasidic Jewish book called the Tanya. It's a foundational book of the Hasidic movement. And it's also written in the Torah. What does it mean? The axe comes from the tree, it's made of wood. But it's the axe that will end up cutting down the tree. That ties in a bit with the idea people have of me: "how can you be religious and be in show business at the same time!". Show business, the media and unfortunately all these things are used in a negative way. They have only one interest, which is to flatter your ego, to feel big by making lots of money… That's what it's about, the song is about not doing that and putting your trust in God. I think we could use the media for a positive purpose.

Matisyahu When I was at college, I listened to Bob Marley and I felt a very strong connection with him and his music, his words… And like all teenagers, I identified with him and wanted to be like that person. I knew nothing about Jamaican customs and all that… I identified more with Bob Marley's music than with school or my friends. I let my dreads grow, yes. Then I remember the moment when the time came to cut them. It was an incredible experience for me. It was really a period of transition where I was letting go of that image of myself. Because when you're young and you wear dreadlocks, you convey a certain image of yourself. I must have had them between 14 and 18. I cut them because I told myself I no longer needed to use that image to be proud and strong. I re-evaluated myself. Otherwise, yes, I've met many figures from Jamaican reggae, from rasta culture. People support us a lot.

Matisyahu For example, we did this festival this summer on Red Rocks Island, Carifest. It was the first time we'd played that festival and the organisers really pushed us forward, on the bill alongside Capleton, Buju Banton and Luciano. And there were others like I-Wayne and established artists, but we were headlining, the organisers put their trust in us.

Matisyahu Quite well. People are a bit suspicious at first: "Who's this guy? Where's he from? etc…" In that community news travels fast, so from the moment people saw us on the festival line-up, they knew us. And when we play our tunes, it works.

Matisyahu Yes, we've done a lot of opening slots. Recently, with Damian Marley, Luciano, Sizzla, we also did the Bob Marley festival in California, Miami. We'll see what happens in the future, on certain chosen tracks I think we'll do it. Certainly the next album. The future will tell…

Matisyahu No, there are features on this one, but by little-known artists. There's a childhood friend of mine who's a very good rapper. We did a song about our shared history. And another collaboration with Sufi Muslim, who plays the kora accompanying a beatbox.

Matisyahu It comes from college, I had nothing better to do (laughs)…

Matisyahu In the near future, I'd like to come back to Europe in March and play in front of 1,000 or 2,000 people every night. Then come back in the summer for the festivals. The CD will be out soon, I hope we get radio play and that it works, God only knows…