Not too many people can honestly pen “Chassidic reggae superstar” as their occupation on a 1040 tax form.
But, then again, Matthew “Matisyahu” Miller isn’t like too many people.
At first glance, the soft-spoken 25-year-old former yeshiva bocher looks no different from the bearded, black-hatted Orthodox Jews one would see answering the phones at the annual Chabad telethon.
But toss a band behind him and a put few hundred folks grinding, sweating and grooving to his reggae beats in front of him, and you’ll find looks can be deceiving.
“I got into music, I became religious and this time around I have a beard and a black hat,” said the musician, who will appear at San Francisco’s Cafe Du Nord on Sunday, Feb. 13.
“Reggae music represents something to me that when I try to put it into words, it just doesn’t go into words. When you’re attracted to something, it touches on a place above the intellect. It’s that meditative, zoning type of music you can just look out at the world and feel a kind of unity.”
The notion of a reggae Chassid is a novel one, but Matisyahu doesn’t consider himself a novelty act — with good reason. A recent New York Times article recounts black reggae musician and producer Sterling Bailey exclaiming, “Does he sound like he was raised in the ghetto or what?” after watching Matisyahu rap.
Don’t let the stage skills fool you: Matisyahu was raised in White Plains, N.Y. He fell for reggae in a big way at age 14. A trip to Israel at age 16 made an impact — the images of Chassids wrapped in their tallitot and praying at the Western Wall did more than just provide fodder for the rap and beatbox tunes he wrote.
But by age 17, Matisyahu was hungry and hurting and wandering up and down the East Coast.
“I was living in Burlington, Vermont and was hanging out in the park and traveling around and stuff. And I heard this Rastaman beating a drum and chanting out this song. And it turns out the words of that song came from the Tehillim, King David wrote the psalms. And the Rastafarians took the psalms and put them to a tribal heartbeat and claimed them as part of their ritual,” he recalled.
And in the park that day, these words echoed out:
One bright morning, when my work is over, I’ll fly away home, fly away to Zion. If I had wings like a dove, I’d fly away.
“These words made sense to me. At that time in my life, I was really struggling. I was just a kid, and I was basically living on the street and a little unhealthy, and, to me, those words were the essence of what I was going through,” he continued.
“There was something very powerful and spiritual in those words. And I knew they were coming from a Jewish origin. And to me, that’s what Judaism should be. Something spiritual, something sensual, something right from the gut — like the homeless kid in the park, singing lyrics from a real place of pain and rising above it.”
Matisyahu grew more and more religious, eventually gravitating toward Chabad. And, though he’d always wanted his own band, during his college years, he let it go.
Until, that is, he met the Chabad rabbi at New York University, who hit him up to sing at Shabbat dinners.
The rabbi figured “here’s a Chassidic guy who can rap,” said Matisyahu with a laugh. “The kids will like that.”
From Shabbat dinner, Matisyahu moved on to menorah lightings. For a big one in Union Square Park in Manhattan, he asked his old guitar player, Aaron Dugan, to play a few licks behind him. And then, something very special happened.
“I closed my eyes and started singing. And it was the first time I’d held a microphone in a while. And when I opened my eyes, hundreds of people were there with video cameras and cameras and they were just losing it!” he said with relish.
“When I was in college, I’d always wanted to have a band. I used to perform at open mic night in coffee shops and college bars. But when the time was right, it just kind of happened.”
Along with Dugan, bassist Josh Werner and drummer Jonah David (the only Jew in Matisyahu’s band), the group hits San Francisco in the midst of a seven-week tour.
He says the tour is going great, and he’s getting large and diverse crowds. And now, he can tell:
Earlier in his career, Matisyahu opted to leave his spectacles backstage, lest he see too much of a, shall we say, immodestly dressed woman.
Nowadays, however, he’s willing to make the sacrifice and don his glasses.
“I want to see my audience. I want to see who’s there and try to connect with them.”
But, while he’s willing to spot the occasional halter-top, don’t expect him to spend his time in the city drinking and carousing through North Beach or the Mission.
After a big show, “I go back to the hotel. I go to sleep. I have to daven the next day and you need to get a good night’s sleep.”
Matisyahu plays 8 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 13, at Cafe Du Nord, 2170 Market St., S.F. Tickets: $12. Information: (415) 861-5016 or www.cafedunord.com.