The Garden Island Billboard Reggae Artist of 2006, Matisyahu, the New York- born musician who deftly fuses reggae sound with traditional Jewish themes, arrives on Kaua‘i to play his second show in a world-wide tour with over 50 destinations planned.
The Garden Island
Billboard Reggae Artist of 2006, Matisyahu, the New York- born musician who deftly fuses reggae sound with traditional Jewish themes, arrives on Kaua‘i to play his second show in a world-wide tour with over 50 destinations planned. Noah Evslin of Ohana Productions invites all of Kaua‘i to attend the show “which opens the door to Kaua‘i getting on the all-island circuit,” and putting to rest the assumption that our island can’t support major performances that would normally go only to O‘ahu and Maui, he said.
Matisyahu, who’s given name is Matthew Miller, embraced Hasidic Judaism after a long journey from his home town of White Plains, N.Y., to Israel, Colorado, Oregon and New York City. Finding his ‘spiritual calling’ and ‘artistic voice,’ Miller became a member of Chabad-Lubavitch, the Hasidic group, and claimed his Hebrew name ‘Matisyahu’ while adhering to other Hasidic traditions of dress and observance.
While the young musician was embracing tradition in one sense, his creative style pushed the very definition of tradition by appropriating the genre of reggae and making it his own. Described on his Web site as “a revolutionary way to share his discoveries and reflections, via the reggae and hip-hop sounds that had long been an integral part of his day-to-day soundtrack,” Matisyahu’s work reflects the need for culturally complex artists to express their roots in a musical language of their own time and place.
Bamp Productions is overseeing the world-wide tour, but has sub-contracted local Ohana and Torchlight productions to produce and promote the show here on Kaua‘i. The locally based production groups have hired AV Kaua‘i to do production for the show itself. “This is really gigantic for us,” said Evslin. “It’s going to more than anyone has seen on Kaua‘i before. The Damien Marley show was 2,300 but looking at the ticket sales for Matisyahu, I think we’ll exceed those numbers.”
Evslin feels this is an opportunity for Kaua‘i to step up to being a venue for big acts that would skip Kaua‘i and normally go only to O‘ahu, Maui and the Big Island. “Ohana and Torchlight are doing this show together to hopefully get Kaua‘i on the map for hosting word-class popular acts,” he said.
With over 400 shows under the Ohana Productions belt in the past seven years, Evslin’s experience tells him Kaua‘i is ready to invite more artists of this caliber.
Kaua‘i Community College has offered to be the outdoor venue for a concert that will cap at 2,400 people. “We are so grateful to KCC for doing this, without a stadium venue, this is the best alternative,” said Evslin. “With a show like this, everything is bigger, including the artist fees. We are really changing leagues now and opening the door for more possibilities in the future like this,” he said.
Matisyahu has released three records in three years, with the most recent in 2006 — “No Place To Be.” On his previous album “Youth” released in March of the same year, Matisyahu’s Web site states, “He seeks to serve as a conduit for the messages of peace and unity that flow through him, to improve the world by sharing his music, and without letting ego or worldly desires interfere in that communication.”
On Matisyahu’s Hasidic Jewish connection that has become both a media curiosity and popular obsession, “Regardless of religious affiliation, most artists will tell you that the creative force is a special type of divinity that moves through them,” states the artist on his Web site. And clearly, the popularity of his music reaches beyond any specific identification in ideology, and instead unites common causes among the world’s major religions, that are so often entangled by conflict and division.
Root reggae and true hip-hop have always spoken to this higher value system, one of the reasons the music has been embraced by people of so many places and times. Matisyahu continues in this tradition of speaking to the highest values of the Jewish religion: peace, unity and freedom from prejudice and exclusion.
“Hopefully people take advantage of this great concert,” said Evslin. “Ticket sales are moving, so we encourage people to buy them early. We don’t know if we will even have tickets at the door because they’re selling so quickly.”
The show will feature a beer garden and outdoor performance.
