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When: 9 tonight
Where: Slowdown, 729 N. 14th St.
Tickets: Sold out
Information: ,a href=http://www.onepercentproductions.com target=_blank>www.onepercentproductions.com or 345-7575
Hasidic Jewish reggae hip-hop.
How’s that for a genre?
Matisyahu is known for mixing lyrics about his Jewish faith with various styles of music, from reggae to rock to hip-hop.
His song “King Without a Crown” became a surprise hit, earning high marks on the Billboard charts.
Right now, Matisyahu is on tour to support his album “Light” and will perform tonight at Slowdown. He checked in to answer a few questions while on the road in Des Moines.
Q. Your new album, “Light,” has a lot of different styles of music.
A. I’ve always been influenced by many genres. It’s never been one genre. My first two records, they incorporate those different genres.
For example, “King Without a Crown” is a hip-hop beat. It’s got a rock solo in it. It also has this reggae patois that I’m singing with a little bit.
In the years leading up to (“Light”), I was influenced by less reggae and more of a variety of styles of music. When I went in to write this record, I didn’t write it with one band or one take on the music. I wrote with different writers and different producers. I brought together these different people to bring together those different influences to create a sound for this record.
Q. In the past, you’ve been pegged as reggae. Does that ever bother you?
A. I think it was in 2006 and 2007, Billboard listed me as the No. 1 reggae artist for the year. I definitely got put in the reggae genre. That doesn’t really bother me. Realistically, my music doesn’t really fit into one genre.
Current music that’s out today is really a mixture together. Rock with electronic influences. Reggae music today is totally different than reggae music years ago.
Q. Living in New York, you must get to see a lot of cool shows.
A. Actually, not too many. You can get carried away going to stuff. Nowadays, I’m on the road playing a lot of festivals. (I) go to a festival that I’m playing and have the whole day to see bands that I’m hearing about and I’m interested in.
Q. Why name the album “Light”?
A. A big influence on me was Rabbi Nachman. He was a Hasidic rabbi (from the 1800s) who dealt with darker concepts and ideas, like the insanity of this world and of coming to terms with death. He wrote all kinds of things that are of a darker nature, but it’s all about serving a higher purpose: finding meaning in the world and in God and in humanity.
Torah is talked about in terms of light — wisdom with light and understanding with light. The faculties of the mind and the heart are often referenced as light. I felt that was an idea for the record.
I tried to strip it down to kind of intuitive ideas and lyrics. Light being very simple, but it has a lot of depths to it as well.
Q. On your albums, you have a lot of instrumentation that I would imagine would be hard to re-create live. How do you do it?
A. Actually, I don’t really try to re-create the stuff live. I create something in the studio and the live show is really something different.
We’ll take the same chord structure and totally sort of re-do the feel. I’ll be, like, “I’m not really feeling this. I want to try something new. In the year since I finished writing that song, the feeling has changed.”
Contact the writer:
444-1557, kevin.coffey@owh.com
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