By Bram Teitelman
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Of all the artist-development stories to emerge in 2005, Matisyahu's was perhaps the most unique. Not only was his breakout album, "Live at Stubb's," hastily recorded for $8,000 (4,600 pounds) at an Austin, Texas, club, but its first single, "King Without a Crown," is a modern-rock smash -- a nearly unheard-of feat for a reggae track. And then there is Matisyahu himself: a Hasidic Jew whose reggae- and rock-tinged sound celebrates his faith.
Yet while the 26-year-old artist is devoutly religious, he is not letting that stand in the way of getting his music heard. "Who doesn't want success?" he asks. "There's some artists that say they don't, and they're not looking for it, but I'm not one of those artists."
Clearly his music is resonating with the public. "King Without a Crown" is in the top 10 of Billboard's Modern Rock chart and is starting to make an impression on top 40 outlets. "Live at Stubb's" has topped Billboard's Top Reggae Albums chart for eight weeks. It has sold 340,000 copies so far and is No. 43 on the Billboard 200.
On March 7, his new studio album, "Youth," comes out on JDub/Or/Epic. Sources say the initial shipment for the album will be 400,000 units.
Is Matisyahu an artist with staying power or a novelty? Believers say he has longevity.
"Is it novelty? Of course it's not. It's too real to be novelty," declares Bruce Warren, assistant GM for programming at the influential non-commercial WXPN Philadelphia, which was one of the first stations to play "King Without a Crown."
"It was our sense that this was the kind of musical discovery our listeners listen to public radio for," Warren says. The song is "very spiritual, and it touches people regardless of what their race or religion is. It reminds me of Bob Marley in that Matis has a universal message and some great grooves to match."
KIMMEL CLIP'S THE CLINCHER
Matisyahu's debut album, "Shake Off the Dust ... Arise," was released with relatively little fanfare in 2004 on JDub, a nonprofit label and event production company. When Michael Caplan, co-founder and then-president of Or Music, first heard of Matisyahu, he wrote him off as a novelty. But several months later, "I watched a clip of him performing on the Jimmy Kimmel show, and my reaction was like most people's: The first 30 seconds, it's novelty, and 90 seconds in, you realise it's real," he says.
Caplan, who is now senior VP of A&R for Sony Music, got in touch with JDub and found out Matisyahu was playing at a Jewish high school the next day. Impressed by his live show, Caplan and his partner, Larry Miller, signed him to Or Music (now Or Media Group).
Caplan thought the studio album did not accurately represent Matisyahu's music, so one of the label's first moves was to have him record "Live at Stubb's."
There was a strategy to taping in Texas. "Austin was perfect because it screams 'goyim,'" Caplan says with a laugh. "It wasn't like taping it in Crown Heights (a Brooklyn, New York, neighbourhood with a large Jewish population). I wanted to show it works here too."
Indeed, Caplan says that so far, Matisyahu is playing well to the mainstream. "This is an informal observation, but secular Jews have more of a problem with it than (non-Jews). In the larger world, people are yearning for spirituality. Some people are going, 'Is this a Christian song?'"
The clip of Matisyahu performing on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" was circulated on the Internet. Digital success continued when mtvu.com embraced the live video of "King Without a Crown": The song ended 2005 as the Web site's most downloaded video.
After "Live at Stubb's" sold 20,000 units, it was moved from Or Music to parent label Epic.
THE RADIO HURDLE
With Matisyahu's jump to the majors came the difficult task of getting radio to view him as more than a gimmick. His appearance and beliefs never struck him as something that might hinder his success, however. "I became religious, and that was a very serious thing for me, and music was always a serious thing for me, so this was just an expression of my life -- the decisions I made and the music that I make," he says. "I was never worried about it."
At modern-rock KROQ Los Angeles, "We threw it on and it got immediate phone response," music director Lisa Worden recalls. "Lyrically, it's really striking a chord with people." For several weeks, "King Without a Crown" was KROQ's most-played song.
Considering that at the end of 2004 Matisyahu was doing a regional Hanukkah tour, he has enjoyed the past year. "I didn't know what to expect," he says of his success. "I've always been a lover of music, and I've always wanted to be able to perform and make music. When it's just an idea or a dream, you're not aware of the details of the process, what goes into it."
And there continues to be a fine line to tread between pushing the music and observing his beliefs. Because of his religion -- Matisyahu belongs to the Chabad-Lubavitch branch of Hasidism -- he cannot sing romantic love songs or touch women other than his wife, which means his days of audience diving may be over, unless there is advanced planning.
When he made the first low-budget video for "King Without a Crown," he asked his rabbi if he could jump into the crowd, Caplan recalls. "The rabbi said, 'Sure.' He tries not to jump on a woman. His wife says, 'I don't think you can do it.' The rabbi comes back and says, 'What? There's women in the crowd? No, you can't do that.'"
So, Caplan adds, for the "Youth" video, the audience that Matisyahu jumps into is all male. "His religion is the most important thing to him."
Reuters/Billboard
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