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" My music is really about people connecting with their identities, even if they aren't Jewish. "
Matisyahu
Music
Jewish
Even
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" There was a time when I was fighting with the decision as to whether or not a Hasidic man could go out and have a music career in the world and be involved in pop culture. For me, I was able to bring those two things together for quite some time. "
Matisyahu
Together
Culture
Man
" 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 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
" Growing up, the way that I looked was very important to me. I was always trying to impress people, and when I grew my beard there was a certain freedom, a separation, getting past this the way I looked, identify myself as a spiritual seeker. "
Matisyahu
Past
Myself
Freedom
" 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. "
Matisyahu
Sound
Music
Together
" Whenever I approach a record, I don't really have a science to it. I approach every record differently. First record was in a home studio. Second record was a live record. Third record was made while I was on tour. Fourth record was made over the course of, like, two years in David Kahn's basement. "
Matisyahu
Science
Two
Live
" 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 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 always had a love of music, from the time I was a little kid, dressing up and singing along with Michael Jackson songs. "
Matisyahu
Kid
Singing
Time
" 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
" At a certain point, I felt the need to submit to a higher level of religiosity... to move away from my intuition and to accept an ultimate truth. I felt that in order to become a good person, I needed rules - lots of them - or else I would somehow fall apart. I am reclaiming myself. Trusting my goodness and my divine mission. "
Matisyahu
Rules
Fall
Good
" The Jewish world is becoming fully integrated with the ideas of the normal world. They feed off each other. "
Matisyahu
Normal
Feed
Jewish
" 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
" I was into acting as a kid. There was a time when I was 18 that I played the boy in a production of 'Equus' in Oregon, and I thought that was going to be my life. "
Matisyahu
Thought
My Life
Life
" Is it possible Hanukkah doesn't inspire folksy songs? Plot lines may be a part. The Christmas story has a lot of material to work with. There's Jesus and his birth, the wise men, their gifts and tons of frankincense. "
Matisyahu
Birth
Wise
Story
" 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
" In 2004, when I started recording my first CD, I was coming right out of yeshiva. So I had spent two years completely immersed in the Hasidic culture, disconnected completely from the secular world - movies, music, people. "
Matisyahu
People
Movies
Culture
" I always knew I was different and that people had opinions about me. I guess I learned as best as I can to shield out a lot and live my life from within. "
Matisyahu
My Life
Me
Best
" 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
" It was a really strange way that I came into music. Once I gave voice to it, the pit of emotions that I guess I knew was inside of me for a long time, the stream never really stopped. "
Matisyahu
Emotions
Voice
Time
" 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
" 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
" When there's light shining on a tree, that tree takes on different meaning. If there's no light at all it just looks dead. If you look at light as godly meaning, the world comes alive in a certain way. "
Matisyahu
Tree
Light
World
" 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
" The world that I come from is the world of raves, hip-hop clubs, and rock and roll. "
Matisyahu
World
Rock
Hip-Hop
" Judaism is my life. Everything I do is through the lens of Torah. "
Matisyahu
Life
Lens
Everything
" When I started wearing a yarmulke, I wanted to stand out or take the form of whatever was inspiring me. But now I think there's something to not working it, to keeping it on the inside, and it just being kind of like a secret. "
Matisyahu
Now
Me
Kind
" 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
" 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
" 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
Busy
Music
Song