Music has always been such an amazing tool for me to access self and emotion. Matisyahu More Quotes by Matisyahu More Quotes From Matisyahu I don't think you could pull one Bob Marley song that didn't have quotes from the Torah or the Old Testament. Matisyahu bob song thinking You're looking for help from God, you say he couldn't be found. Looking up to the sky and searchin' beneath the ground. Matisyahu get-well sky helping For me now, what I've come to is, we don't know anything. Matisyahu knows When a person listens to a good song, and they can look out at the world and their lives and see the dark and the light, the negative and the positive, all the different elements, all come together in one holistic poem, that is a very healing and very reductive thing, and that's what my music is about. Matisyahu good music light positive The No. 1 best-selling Christmas album of all time is from Kenneth Bruce Gorelick, the Jewish smooth-jazz legend Kenny G. American Jews have always produced a lot of holiday music, just not Hanukkah music. Matisyahu holiday music christmas time When people feel a certain religion claims to have all the answers, that's what turns them off. Matisyahu feel answers people religion I kind of think that music in general is a sacred thing, and that's what music has kind of always been for me. Matisyahu think me always music I felt a real strong connection and still do with Hanukkah. So it started out by doing concerts on Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights tour, and then, yeah, let's make some Hanukkah songs. Let me make a Hanukkah song that kids can listen to, party to and get the spirituality of it, because it is not just about dreidels and having fun. Matisyahu lights me strong song I started at home as a kid putting on shows and lip-syncing Michael Jackson for the grown-ups. Then, in musicals and plays in school. At 17, I was performing in coffee shops and in parking lots at Phish shows. At 18, I had a band that played local shows in the Northwest. Matisyahu band coffee home school The best part of touring is the opportunity to make the music. You get to do what you love and have the ability to go out on stage every night and create. Matisyahu best you music love As a kid, I was really into performing. I would do choruses, I would do musicals, whatever it was. And then, as a teenager, I got into an acting class at SUNY Purchase for gifted kids, and that really turned me on to material beyond musicals, Sam Shepard, and Christopher Durang plays. Matisyahu beyond whatever me class I did some acting in college. But then everything stopped when I was a junior, in the fall of 2001, when I started becoming religious. Once I became a full-on Hasidic, I stopped everything. I stopped music. I stopped acting. Matisyahu everything music college fall The place that I'm trying to come from and where I'm trying to make music from is when I feel like I'm able to somehow, like, transcend it all and just speak right to God. Matisyahu feel music speak god There's something really powerful when I, for example, hear Bob Marley's 'Exodus' - we know where we're going. We know where we're from. Matisyahu going something know powerful Songs that aren't even remotely connected to Christmas are now officially canonized Christmas tunes. 'Frosty the Snowman,' 'Jingle Bells' and 'Winter Wonderland' never mention anything religious but are still notches in Christmas' belt of musical dominance. Matisyahu never now christmas winter The real reason Jews don't have more Hanukkah music is that, historically, American Jewish singer-songwriters were too busy making Christmas music. 'White Christmas,' 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,' 'Silver Bells' and 'The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting)' were all written by Jews. Matisyahu music christmas busy song I think my music has always been a mixture, depending on whom I'm working with - what band, what musicians, what producer. Matisyahu musicians think always music I enjoyed coming home to Crown Heights. There was a certain order to life there. You know, Shabbos, spending time with your family, eating and being in 'shul.' Prayers at nighttime, prayers in the morning. Everyone knows everybody; you walk your kids everywhere. Matisyahu family time morning life I don't really know if I would consider myself anything in particular. I would say I'm inspired in a Hasidic way, but I certainly don't keep all the customs and rules I once did. Matisyahu rules myself know way My mother's sister married a man from Barbados, and my cousins were raised in Barbados. So we traveled down there, they came up every summer for camp, and I started paying attention to their music. And that was the first place I ever remember hearing reggae and liking it. Matisyahu man sister music mother
