Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" I started out in the Chabad movement, and I started pretty closed up, with the idea of there being that 'this is it.' I bought into that fully. I really explored in depth the Chabad ideology. "
Matisyahu
Up
Movement
Pretty
Related Quotes:
" With music, you're working with a producer, and you walk out of the studio six hours later with a track that's almost completely finished. There's an almost immediate payoff. "
Matisyahu
You
Producer
Out
" 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
Strong
Having Fun
Doing
" I think when you're a fan of music - at least the way I've been a fan to artists that have really touched me - you're with them for the long haul. They might do things that you don't understand or agree with, but I think I've always tried to hold my judgment and give them the space to do what they need to do. "
Matisyahu
Me
Space
Long
" I feel there's a lot of anti-Israel sentiment in the world and a lot of ignorance about what Israel is and does. But it's not for me to speak on Israel's behalf. "
Matisyahu
Feel
Ignorance
World
" There are so many rules in Judaism, and if you get into them and you get obsessed and you have the kind of life that I have, it can make you a very unhappy person. It can make everything complicated and more stressful than it needs to be, so I kind of loosened the knots a little bit. "
Matisyahu
Unhappy
Kind
Life
" 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
American
Time
" For me, it's always this constant battle and search when I'm out on stage as to where and when do I really open myself up to the people that are there. How do I let myself feel present in the space, and how do I allow myself to get into the music and interact with the band members. "
Matisyahu
Space
People
Myself
" 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
Powerful
Going
Hear
" What is it to keep kosher? Is it eating kosher potato chips? Kosher is a bigger idea. I think it's about being healthy. But according to some people, it's about not eating this food because it's forbidden by the Jewish law. My view of the halachah changed a little bit. The laws are there hopefully to be a tool. "
Matisyahu
Think
Law
Healthy
" When I'm meditating on an idea, I try to let the idea completely saturate me to the point where I feel like I'm covering myself in it or totally immersing myself in it, so that everywhere I'm looking, everywhere I'm going, it's through the lens of that idea. And that's sort of what I do with the music - I try to lose myself in it. "
Matisyahu
Me
Looking
Music
" I don't think you could pull one Bob Marley song that didn't have quotes from the Torah or the Old Testament. "
Matisyahu
Torah
Song
Think
" I think there is a tendency for people to get rigid and caught up in their beliefs of what is right and wrong, and they lose sight of humanity. Being human has to come first before right or wrong. "
Matisyahu
Humanity
People
Lose
" 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
Morning
Time
Home
" I think my music has always been a mixture, depending on whom I'm working with - what band, what musicians, what producer. "
Matisyahu
Always
Band
Think
" When I'm onstage, I'm not thinking about ideas. I'm not in my head at all. It's a more physical experience. "
Matisyahu
More
Thinking
Ideas
" 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
Music
Place
Speak
" When I went to see certain shows when I was a kid, they changed my life. They made me tap into that place inside myself that I was unable to get to, so music is that tool, that bridge, and that's the kind of music I'm interested in making. "
Matisyahu
Life
Me
Music
" I would say that as I've gotten older, I trust my intuition more; I allow myself more freedom both musically, creatively and my own life existentially. "
Matisyahu
Life
Freedom
Trust
" I get on a real serious health kick when I'm on the road, because as a singer, you can't really get sick. If you get sick, your whole instrument stops working. I've done all these different vitamin drinks. I drink coconut water, and I run. I eat food. I juice. "
Matisyahu
Water
Sick
Run
" Literally, there is a lot of talk about sparks in the Kabbalah. It talks about when God created the world initially, there was an explosion that happened like a Big Bang but based on vessels and light. "
Matisyahu
Light
God
World
" When I was 17, I listened to reggae music. I loved Bob Marley. I started growing dreadlocks. It's always been my way, that the outside matches what's going on with me inside. "
Matisyahu
Loved
Growing
Always
" Some artists are bound to an image: Bob Marley has dreadlocks, Matisyahu has a beard. But that's a reminder that the whole thing is not about style. It's about music. "
Matisyahu
Bound
Image
Music
" I'm not an expert in instruments, beat programming, or electronics. For some people it's all about doing it themselves. But for me, it's all about find the people that can help make my vision come true. "
Matisyahu
Doing
Vision
True
" I do what I love, thank God. I get to make music and get inspiration through Judaism. I can see why people might be surprised, because it's not been done before. It's certainly not typical. People are always trying to wrap head their around it. But it's probably simpler than everyone thinks. "
Matisyahu
Music
God
Love
" With 'Light,' I collaborated with a lot of different producers and musicians I respected, and we all wrote and worked on material which I then took to an old-school producer, David Kahne, and we put it all together. The lyrics came first - they were written before the music. "
Matisyahu
Light
Music
Musicians
" My music is really about people connecting with their identities, even if they aren't Jewish. "
Matisyahu
Music
Jewish
Even
" Music is my first love and the thing that I feel extremely connected to. I feel like I still have a long way to go within that in terms of being able to perform and write songs. But, yeah, I really hope 'The Possession' opens doors for me to do more acting, because I really enjoyed it. "
Matisyahu
Acting
Hope
Music
" I remember the moment when it hit me. I was walking down Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side, and it felt like I was literally walking out of a jail cell that I had been in. At that moment, I realized I could shave if I wanted. It was up to me and no one else. "
Matisyahu
Moment
Remember
Walking
" 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
Kid
School
Coffee
" Judaism is my life. Everything I do is through the lens of Torah. "
Matisyahu
Life
Lens
Everything