Author

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.

From Matisyahu

I think that listening to music or creating music is a spiritual undertaking, so the process of creating music, you know, involves listening. It involves sensitivity, it involves humility, you know, and then also it's something which is higher than words.

From Matisyahu

I always had a love of music, from the time I was a little kid, dressing up and singing along with Michael Jackson songs.

From Matisyahu

I grew up pretty secular. I went to public school, and all the Jews that I knew, none of them were religious. While probably half of my friends were Jewish, they were all secular Jews. We went to Hebrew school, we knew we were Jewish, but it wasn't a major part of our existence.

From Matisyahu

I don't partake, really, of any of the typical rock-star-lifestyle things you could think of. I try to be responsible when I'm out on the road. I take it pretty seriously, what I'm doing, as something that's good for the world, and my family, and everyone.

From Matisyahu

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.

From Matisyahu

The Jewish world is becoming fully integrated with the ideas of the normal world. They feed off each other.

From Matisyahu

One of the first places where I started to respond to song lyrics was in reggae music. A lot of what I was responding to were references to the Old Testament. It was not that I had to adapt the lyrics to the sound. Reggae and the Old Testament are bound up together. There wasn't anything that I had to do.

From Matisyahu

The religious lifestyle keeps you focused. It's helpful when trying to manoeuvre through the music scene.

From Matisyahu

My music is really about people connecting with their identities, even if they aren't Jewish.

From Matisyahu

Matisyahu

Notable Quotes

Authors with Similar Views

Gil Marks

Theodore Bikel

Trey Parker

Richard Dawkins

John Oates

Authors with Opposing Views

Alicia Vikander

Amos Lee

Brian Eno

Calvin Trillin

Carole Bouquet