JEWISH MC ROCKS THE MIKE AND KEEPS IT KOSHER
Matisyahu has Orthodox approach to reggae
By Joan Anderman, Globe Staff

Forgive Matisyahu if he doesn't make eye contact onstage. The 24-year-old beatboxer and MC doesn't wear his glasses when he performs because odds are good that a number of women won't be dressed modestly, and Matisyahu -- a Hasidic Jew who has spent the last two years living and studying in a Crown Heights, N.Y., yeshiva -- is determined to deliver his rugged dancehall reggae without straying from the strict requirements of his Lubavitch community.

It's not overstating the case to say that Matisyahu, who performs at the Lizard Lounge on Wednesday, is an original. The visual package is startling: Picture a young man in traditional payos (side curls), black hat, and long beard grabbing the mike and going off in front of a crowd at New York's hip Mercury Lounge, or the Knitting Factory, or Southpaw -- all rooms that Matisyahu has sold out. The music is a fairly mind-boggling fusion as well: strains of Bob Marley and Shlomo Carlebach combine into a fluid, flawless flow of Torah-inspired rhymes.

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