Late to the game, as usual

[sarahmichelef]

I'm clearly completely behind the times, but so what else is new? Anyway, on Friday somehow M came across reference to this new reggae artist named Matisiyahu.* He's a Lubovitch Hasid (although he wasn't raised as such) - one of the most conservative Jewish sects. He's also the artist behind the scond-most downloaded album on iTMS today. We picked up a live recording - "Live at Stubb's" - over the weekend and it's amazing. It's reggae... but it's partially in Hebrew... and it's about religion.

I highly recommend it.

Seriously.


*Just to add to our amusement, Matisiyahu (or, as he pronounces it, Matatiahu - the weirdnesses of transliteration) is M's Hebrew name.

Comments

[aethera.livejournal.com]

We were talking about him yesterday while my cousin shamelessly pirated a single of his. He does rock, it's true.

[greyhame.livejournal.com]

(Matisyahu the reggae artist was born Matthew and raised in a minimally religious household, and only took the name "Matisyahu" when he converted to Hasidism, actually.)

I liked "King Without A Crown" a lot when I first heard it, but the more of his music I listened to the more I felt like it did, after all, mostly tend to fall into the trap most religious rock does: taking "religious" too seriously, and "rock" not seriously enough. He doesn't have quite enough things to say to fill out an album, and he doesn't have quite enough musical chops to keep all (or even most) of the songs exciting beyond one or two listens. He's talented and earnest, but can't quite sustain the quality; the Globe recently reviewed his new album, Youth, by saying that its title was apropos.

It would be nice to see him get better, though.

[nenie.livejournal.com]

he was in lawrence a few months ago
a friend of mine had talked me into going
and at the last minute we pulled out
david figured that if you've heard one of M's songs you'd heard them all

right about now we're kicking ourselves for not going