About a year ago, I had dinner with some guys from Microsoft before they headed out to a local concert by an artist doing Jewish reggae. Huh? They tried to explain about this Orthodox Jewish singer who did reggae. I couldn’t get his name right. Matsimoto Yahoo? Yabba Dabba Doo? Totally intrigued and completely exhausted, I asked about the artist but didn’t join them for the show.
Too bad.
March 10 Entertainment Weekly has a spotlight on the artist, Matisyahu, who has a new Hasidic Reggae album coming out (as of my posting, the story wasn’t available online but only print; in its place see this NPR story). This afternoon, I downloaded Matisyahu album “Live at Stubbs” from Yahoo, and I’m hooked.
I’m a latecomer here, when I used to be trendsetter. Sigh. I don’t have time or access for discovering good artists like when I was younger.
Sidebar: Yahoo’s music service is a great way to sample new music. I signed up when the price was a cheap (and promotional) $60 a year. The service is worth way more than I paid. Now, I tend to buy only what I rent, when working on Windows PCs anyway. Real’s Rhapsody is a good sampling alternative for Mac users.