Matisyahu

Matthew Paul Miller (born June 30, 1979), known by his stage name Matisyahu, is an American reggae singer, rapper, beatboxer, and musician.

Matthew Paul Miller was born on June 30, 1979, in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

His family eventually settled in White Plains, New York.

He was brought up a Reconstructionist Jew and attended Hebrew school at Bet Am Shalom, a synagogue in White Plains.

He spent much of his childhood learning the tenets of Judaism, but by the time he was a teenager, Miller began to rebel against his upbringing.

In autumn 1995, Miller attended a two-month program at the Alexander Muss High School in Hod Hasharon, Israel.

The program offers students a firsthand exploration of Jewish heritage as a way of solidifying Jewish identity.

After he finished Muss, he returned to New York, where he subsequently left high school after the first day of his senior year to travel throughout the United States.

A stint in a rehabilitation center in upstate New York followed.

Miller then attended a wilderness expedition trip in Oregon for teenagers.

Since 2004, he has released seven studio albums as well as five live albums, two remix CDs and two DVDs featuring live concerts.

Throughout his career, Matisyahu has worked with Bill Laswell and reggae producers Sly & Robbie and Kool Kojak.

He has also appeared as an actor in films.

In 2004, after having signed with JDub Records, he released his first album, Shake Off the Dust... Arise, under the name Matisyahu.

Known for blending spiritual themes with reggae, rock and hip hop beatboxing sounds, Matisyahu's 2005 single "King Without a Crown" was a Top 40 hit in the United States.

At Bonnaroo 2005, Trey Anastasio of the band Phish invited Matisyahu for a guest spot on his set.

In 2005 and 2006, Matisyahu toured extensively in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.

Matisyahu also opened for a few Dave Matthews Band shows during their mid-2006 tour, including guesting on the song "Everyday" at the June 14, 2006, Darien Lake show.

Matisyahu's second release, Live at Stubb's, was recorded in Austin, Texas, and produced for Or Music by Angelo Montrone.

It was distributed to Or Music by Sony/RED, and later upstreamed to Sony/Epic.

He made a number of stops in Israel, including a performance as the supporting act for Sting in June 2006.

The live version of the song "King Without a Crown" broke into the Modern Rock Top 10 in 2006.

The song was also included on Matisyahu's second album, Youth, which was produced by Bill Laswell and released on March 7, 2006; it features minor contributions by pop producers Jimmy Douglass and the Ill Factor.

On March 16, Youth was Billboard magazine's number-one digital album.

In 2006, Matisyahu once again appeared at Bonnaroo, this time performing a solo set.

In late 2006, he released No Place to Be, a remix album featuring re-recordings and remixes of songs from his three earlier albums, as well as a cover of "Message in a Bottle" by the Police (written by Sting).

On March 1, 2006, right before the release of Youth, he informed JDub that he no longer needed its management services.

"It was not necessarily for drug rehabilitation, but that was part of the reason I was out there," he explained to a journalist of The Jewish Daily Forward in 2008.

He finished high school at a wilderness program in Bend, Oregon.

In Oregon, he identified himself as "Matt, the Jewish rapper kid from New York."

Miller has contrasted this time in Oregon to his life in New York City.

"I was suddenly the token Jew. This was now my search for my own identity, and part of Judaism feeling more important and relevant to me."

At the rehab facility in Oregon, he first began playing open mic sets.

He returned to New York, began attending The New School, and started developing his reggae style, spending hours in his room, writing and practicing to the accompaniment of hip-hop tapes.

At the same time, he started going to The Carlebach Shul, an Orthodox Jewish synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and bought a prayer book and prayer shawl.

He began attending religious services every Sabbath at the synagogue and started to wear a yarmulke (head covering) and tzitzit (a fringed undergarment).

One morning after getting drunk the night before, Matisyahu encountered Rabbi Dave Korn of the Chabad House at NYU, later moving into Korn's house to study Torah all day.

Miller performed for over a year as MC Truth in Bend, Oregon.

At one Phish concert, Matisyahu dropped acid for the first time, an experience he recounted in 2016 "changed my life."

He started taking drugs and dropped out of White Plains Senior High School, becoming a self-professed "Phish-head" (also known as Phish "Phans"), taking hallucinogens and following the rock band Phish on tour.