Culture, Mishegas, Religion

Mediocre Musician Rids Self of Success Promoting Shtick with Schick

New York — Matisyahu, a Jewish kid who “found” Torah Judaism through reggae and lost his ability to trim his facial hair, reported today via Twitter that he shaved.
Jewish News services the world over sent news alerts, alerting their followers that the “musician” who has made a fortune “utilizing” another culture’s music for the “benefit” of the Jewish people shaved.
It would appear that by cleaning himself of his facial hair he has lost his magical powers to assume the musical styling of the Islands as well as his ability to be a role model for other lost Jews.
This modern day Samson story doesn’t end well for this mediocre musician. While reaction is mixed, his blatant abuse of his religion and the plagiarizing of another for his career is most likely over. Few are upset about this, yet there will be many who use this as further proof that young American Jews do not have the same connection to their traditions as previous generations.
[Editor’s Note: We cut the rest of this article because it isn’t news. For the sake of the holiness code move on. This guy made bad music with lame ass messaging based in a lack-luster Jewish indoctrination education.]

15 thoughts on “Mediocre Musician Rids Self of Success Promoting Shtick with Schick

  1. This is incredibly mean-spirited.
    Seven years ago, before Mattisyahu was wildly popular, I watched him perform with a Muslim Kora player at a multi-faith event for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim teens. He was sincere and open-hearted. He spent hours speaking with a small group of teens after the concert in a genuine and sincere conversation.
    The history of Caribbean music and religious life and the Jewish narrative are intertwined and have been for four centuries. The overlap explored by Alpha Blondy and Mattisyahu is a product of that history.

  2. Matisyahu was cool, and still is. Haters gonna hate. Granted, I liked his first album better than the newer stuff cause I preferred the lo-fi production and the 70s reggae feel, but still, y’all are drinking way too much haterade.

  3. Frankly, I was never that into Matisyahu and when he dumped the Jdub guys who got him where he is, that soured me further.
    Part of the post seems to address the ongoing, over-obsessive attention to Matisyahu’s every move. Okay, he’s longer Lubavitch. Okay, he’s no longer with jdub. Okay he’s shaved his beard. Okay, he ate cholent. Big deal. Enough ink spilled.
    The noise the media made about this latest non-news was astounding. The Jewish paper in Chicago picked up the JTA story in its print edition. Here’s what gets me: there were 6 other local concert performances that week the paper should have covered or previewed, but didn’t.
    The non-news attention matis got from the Jewish media sucked the air from the room for everyone else. And so instead of learning about 6 other quality artists performing Jewish music in my town that week, we learned about a man shaving his beard.
    If Matis is the generous kind spirited soul Rav Brenner says he is, he should not have posted the self-serving, attention starved twitter post about his beard in the first place. He should instead have used that tweet to showcase someone else’s work.
    You know, to make up for the lost press those six artists suffered thanks to his antics. Mean-spirited? Callous? Hardly.
    There are other deserving artists out there and our communities should long ago have developed a cohesive Jewish cultural policy for supporting them and their work. Instead they have to vie for attention with JTA stories about beards.
    Find me a line item budget for culture in a local Federation allocation or at the JFNA and you’ll see what lip service we pay to such artists. We sure don’t payu them much else).

  4. Matisyahu had something, his lyrics spoke of the love of G*D his new album speaks of and for no-one but himself, but that is the way of a musician, he is following his own path and now his path has seemingly has also turned him away from G*D.
    Reggae culture, indeed Rastafari has its roots or lineage deep within Jewish culture (ethopians being of Dan one of the lost tribes and ethopia being the spiritual home of Rasta culture)not forgetting though that jamaican culture owes alot to hinduism and the highly religious saddus – (the reason why Rasta smoke marijuana was from influence of religious indians working on plantations in Jamaica).
    Matisyahu found an avenue for his love of reggae music, and also a great schtick to promote it, though I am though not for one minute, saying he used an Orthodox persona to make it through the harsh barriers of the music industry- it was just the music industry saw a great marketing/sales opportunity when promoting the artist formerly known as Matisyahu.. i say this as Mr Millar he can no longer claim this name as he performs now as a middle of the road beat box/rapper/singer..
    to return to the new album, there are many artists who have embraced the ‘world music’ vibe and made a success of it, but in reality it is a marginal music market and Mr Millar best get used to lower record sales (and sparingly attended concerts), if the quality of his output is going to continue on the same lines as Spark seeker, his next album should be titled ‘flame dampener’

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