I’ve started coming across reports on Jewlicious 4.0. Looks like a good time was had by all.
Here is one reporter, Sue Fishkoff, writing in the Jerusalem Post about Matisyahu at Jewlicious.
But there he sat on a Sunday afternoon, perched on a high-backed stool in his trademark black sweats and Nikes, blue button-down shirt and black hoodie, peering out through small, rectangular spectacles at more than 200 people who had crammed into the cafe at the Long Beach Jewish Community Center to hear him.
After opening with a niggun, or hassidic melody, which segued into his early hit “Close My Eyes,” Matisyahu addressed the crowd in his trademark quiet voice, which has lost the adult onset Yiddish inflection that marked it even a year ago.
“OK, so I was supposed to talk about spirituality,” he began, breaking into a sardonic half-grin. “But I realized I’m not so good at that, so I’m going to sing a couple more songs.”
Matisyahu, aka Matthew Miller, is still very much a work in progress. And he’s the first to admit it.
Now 28, he grew up Reconstructionist in White Plains, N.Y., and has only been frum, or religiously observant, for eight years. His meteoric rise to fame only began when he emerged from yeshiva four years ago in full hassidic regalia, incorporating hassidic melodies and references to Hashem and Jerusalem in his reggae and dance hall music.
“I know that in my life, when I really gave myself over completely to God, He really blessed me,” Matisyahu told the Jewlicious crowd.
NOTE from ck: Hey! You missed the Forwards Bintel Blog piece that featured Matisyahu’s haircut! Also the Jerusalem Post story you quoted originated in the JTA with a pic by… me! It was on the front page of the JTA blog yesterday and will be presumably picked up by many other Jewspapers. Monica over at the Jewspot must have taped the entire show because she has a full transcript of the Q&A session. I’m sure there’s more coming and we appreciate the Matisyahu-generated press but really the stuff I like the best is posts that mention the entire fest and what that was like – like the awesome coverage provided by Oy-Bay here and here.
Here is another reporter videotaping parts of the event:
Rav Shmuel singing “The Elders of Zion” live:
