Matisyahu

Literally, there is a lot of talk about sparks in the Kabbalah. It talks about when God created the world initially, there was an explosion that happened like a Big Bang but based on vessels and light.

Some artists are bound to an image: Bob Marley has dreadlocks, Matisyahu has a beard. But that's a reminder that the whole thing is not about style. It's about music.

I still believe there is a lot of truth in Orthodox Judaism, but not the whole truth. Each person has his truth that he has to discover. You don't necessarily have to mold yourself to another idea of who you are.

When I was 17, I listened to reggae music. I loved Bob Marley. I started growing dreadlocks. It's always been my way, that the outside matches what's going on with me inside.

When I started wearing a yarmulke, I wanted to stand out or take the form of whatever was inspiring me. But now I think there's something to not working it, to keeping it on the inside, and it just being kind of like a secret.

In 2004, when I started recording my first CD, I was coming right out of yeshiva. So I had spent two years completely immersed in the Hasidic culture, disconnected completely from the secular world - movies, music, people.

I always knew I was different and that people had opinions about me. I guess I learned as best as I can to shield out a lot and live my life from within.

The best part of touring is the opportunity to make the music. You get to do what you love and have the ability to go out on stage every night and create.

Music is my first love and the thing that I feel extremely connected to. I feel like I still have a long way to go within that in terms of being able to perform and write songs. But, yeah, I really hope 'The Possession' opens doors for me to do more acting, because I really enjoyed it.

I think there is a tendency for people to get rigid and caught up in their beliefs of what is right and wrong, and they lose sight of humanity. Being human has to come first before right or wrong.

My music is not really about one ideology. It's not about one truth.

There was a time when I was fighting with the decision as to whether or not a Hasidic man could go out and have a music career in the world and be involved in pop culture. For me, I was able to bring those two things together for quite some time.

With music, you're working with a producer, and you walk out of the studio six hours later with a track that's almost completely finished. There's an almost immediate payoff.

I was into acting as a kid. There was a time when I was 18 that I played the boy in a production of 'Equus' in Oregon, and I thought that was going to be my life.

When I first started reading about the kabbalists, I would hear about them being seen in strange places. It would turn out that they were doing some kind of spiritual work to elevate the sparks. In my life and career, I've had the opportunity to find myself where I could make some spiritual moves, to do some work that is spiritually important.

Growing up, the way that I looked was very important to me. I was always trying to impress people, and when I grew my beard there was a certain freedom, a separation, getting past this the way I looked, identify myself as a spiritual seeker.

It's a holistic process for me during a show. I'm always focusing on the technical aspects of my voice. I try to make my voice do what I want. One big thing I do to improve on each show is to listen back to performances on CD while on tour.

I'm not an expert in instruments, beat programming, or electronics. For some people it's all about doing it themselves. But for me, it's all about find the people that can help make my vision come true.

When I listen to music, there's usually some aspect of that music that I like, and that's what I take and try to bring into my own music. Bringing in other musicians to collaborate with is a good way for me to test out new ways or make music that I might have not discovered on my own.

Every record I do is a learning process for how I want to do the next one.

I do what I love, thank God. I get to make music and get inspiration through Judaism. I can see why people might be surprised, because it's not been done before. It's certainly not typical. People are always trying to wrap head their around it. But it's probably simpler than everyone thinks.

The world that I come from is the world of raves, hip-hop clubs, and rock and roll.

When I became religious, it was full-force for me. And, through the lifestyle of being out on the road with non-Jewish musicians, in non-Jewish nightclubs and going all over the world - getting out of the shtetl - opened me up to having experiences that other religious men might not have to think or worry about.

With 'Light,' I collaborated with a lot of different producers and musicians I respected, and we all wrote and worked on material which I then took to an old-school producer, David Kahne, and we put it all together. The lyrics came first - they were written before the music.

I would say that as I've gotten older, I trust my intuition more; I allow myself more freedom both musically, creatively and my own life existentially.

It was a really strange way that I came into music. Once I gave voice to it, the pit of emotions that I guess I knew was inside of me for a long time, the stream never really stopped.

When I'm meditating on an idea, I try to let the idea completely saturate me to the point where I feel like I'm covering myself in it or totally immersing myself in it, so that everywhere I'm looking, everywhere I'm going, it's through the lens of that idea. And that's sort of what I do with the music - I try to lose myself in it.

When I'm onstage, I'm not thinking about ideas. I'm not in my head at all. It's a more physical experience.

I have a whole regimen to my day: my vocal warm-ups, my prayers, my meditations... I pray three times a day. I try to have a real experience praying, not just do it. I really get deep into the idea and really try to get somewhere with it, to have an in-depth understanding of the idea.

I get on a real serious health kick when I'm on the road, because as a singer, you can't really get sick. If you get sick, your whole instrument stops working. I've done all these different vitamin drinks. I drink coconut water, and I run. I eat food. I juice.

When I went to see certain shows when I was a kid, they changed my life. They made me tap into that place inside myself that I was unable to get to, so music is that tool, that bridge, and that's the kind of music I'm interested in making.

Judaism is my life. Everything I do is through the lens of Torah.

People aren't religious because it's easy not to be. Like anything, it's habitual, and once it's a habit it's no longer hard.

I feel there's a lot of anti-Israel sentiment in the world and a lot of ignorance about what Israel is and does. But it's not for me to speak on Israel's behalf.

When there's light shining on a tree, that tree takes on different meaning. If there's no light at all it just looks dead. If you look at light as godly meaning, the world comes alive in a certain way.

When people feel a certain religion claims to have all the answers, that's what turns them off.

Reggae music isn't Jewish, but a lot of the ideas are.

I think when you're a fan of music - at least the way I've been a fan to artists that have really touched me - you're with them for the long haul. They might do things that you don't understand or agree with, but I think I've always tried to hold my judgment and give them the space to do what they need to do.

The idea that God's mercy is connected to whether or not I shave is ludicrous, and I need to just trust myself, and that, you know, if I'm deserving of God's mercy, I'll get it, regardless of, you know, my beard.

Most of my life wasn't about knowledge from books, but experiential knowledge.

Songs that aren't even remotely connected to Christmas are now officially canonized Christmas tunes. 'Frosty the Snowman,' 'Jingle Bells' and 'Winter Wonderland' never mention anything religious but are still notches in Christmas' belt of musical dominance.

In Judaism, there are a lot of rules - everything from which fingernail you cut first to which side you sleep on in bed, to the way you get dressed in the morning, to actual ideas, like ideas about being chosen people or ideas about female/male and how to interact with people from the opposite sex.

I started out in the Chabad movement, and I started pretty closed up, with the idea of there being that 'this is it.' I bought into that fully. I really explored in depth the Chabad ideology.

Whenever I approach a record, I don't really have a science to it. I approach every record differently. First record was in a home studio. Second record was a live record. Third record was made while I was on tour. Fourth record was made over the course of, like, two years in David Kahn's basement.

My mother's sister married a man from Barbados, and my cousins were raised in Barbados. So we traveled down there, they came up every summer for camp, and I started paying attention to their music. And that was the first place I ever remember hearing reggae and liking it.

I don't really know if I would consider myself anything in particular. I would say I'm inspired in a Hasidic way, but I certainly don't keep all the customs and rules I once did.

I enjoyed coming home to Crown Heights. There was a certain order to life there. You know, Shabbos, spending time with your family, eating and being in 'shul.' Prayers at nighttime, prayers in the morning. Everyone knows everybody; you walk your kids everywhere.

I think my music has always been a mixture, depending on whom I'm working with - what band, what musicians, what producer.

The No. 1 best-selling Christmas album of all time is from Kenneth Bruce Gorelick, the Jewish smooth-jazz legend Kenny G. American Jews have always produced a lot of holiday music, just not Hanukkah music.

The real reason Jews don't have more Hanukkah music is that, historically, American Jewish singer-songwriters were too busy making Christmas music. 'White Christmas,' 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,' 'Silver Bells' and 'The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting)' were all written by Jews.