b. Matthew Paul Miller, 30 June 1979, West Chester, Pennsylvania, USA. One of the more unusual musical talents to emerge in the early 00s, Matisyahu performs reggae toasts over dancehall beats while dressed in the full regalia of his strict Lubavitch Hasidic faith. Raised in California and White Plains, New York, Miller was brought up in a moderate Jewish household. In his early teens the lure of popular music bit deep, leading him to reject his faith and spend most of his time listening to modern jam band Phish. These early doubts were soon dispelled, however, and by his late teens Miller was both a practising Jew and a budding rapper, having been turned on to reggae and hip-hop during an enforced spell at a wilderness school for ‘troubled’ children.
At the age of 19 Miller converted to the Lubavitch school of Hasidic Judaism and renamed himself Matisyahu. He began performing his dancehall-styled raps around New York, dressed in his traditional black suit and hat and wearing a yarmulke. The full beard worn by followers of the Hasidic school topped off the bizarre image. Despite the incongruity of the ‘rapping rabbi’ persona, Matisyahu was soon attracting large crowds and a genuine buzz in the music press. His debut Shake Off The Dust … ARISE was released in 2004 by the JDub label. Performing in a mixture of English, Yiddish and patois, the devotional content of the album may not have been to the liking of everyone, but there was no doubting the skill and lyrical dexterity of Matisyahu’s toasting.
The live follow-up received wider distribution, initially through Or Music and then nationally through Epic Records. His major label debut proper, Youth, was produced by Bill Laswell and released at the start of 2006. Despite lacking some of the primal urgency of its predecessor, the album was a notable commercial success, debuting in the Top 5 of the US mainstream chart. A companion dub set was also released.
