Aha Moment: Matisyahu

Friday, October 17, 2008

Reggae music often draws on Old Testament mythology about the exodus and the promised land, but in America its fans are usually pretty secular. A singer named Matisyahu is changing that. He's a Hasidic Jew, and his shows are packed with young Orthodox men as well as dreadlocked hippies. Matisyahu explains how he got on the roundabout path from suburban high school dropout to devout Jewish wailer.

    Music Playlist
  1. Sea to Sea
    Artist: Matisyahu
    Album: Live at Stubb's
    Label: J-dub
    Purchase: Amazon
  2. Rastaman Chant
    Artist: Bob Marley and the Wailers
    Album: Burnin'
    Label: Tuff Gong/Island
    Purchase: Amazon
  3. Lord Raise Me Up
    Artist: Matisyahu
    Album: Live at Stubb's
    Label: J-dub
    Purchase: Amazon

Guests:

Matisyahu

Contributors:

Michael May

Comments [1]

Lisa Ramaci from Manhattan

You asked for people to write in and tell you if a song, book or movie had changed their life, so here goes. In October 1982, in a Times Square movie theater showing the Mel Gibson post-apocalyptic funfest "Road Warrior", I was smoking a cigarette in the lobby while waiting for the film to begin. At one point an attractive young man, also smoking, struck up a conversation with me (this despite the fact that he was there on a date with not one, but two women - they had gone to ground in the ladies room so he was cleared to chat). We bonded almost instantly, and for the next 23 years, until he was kidnapped and murdered in Basra, Iraq in 2005, that young man, the journalist Steven Vincent (who in 1992 became my husband), was the joy and center of my existence. Were it not for George Miller and his astonishing film, I would never have met the absolute love of my life.

Oct. 19 2008 08:16 PM

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