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Matisyahu pumps out the Hasidic reggae

Comments (0) By Jay Webb Thursday, Mar 9 2006

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The first time this Southern Baptist white boy from the outskirts of Dallas heard the live version of "King Without a Crown" pounding from his car stereo, he said to himself, "Wow! This Modest Yahoo guy is great! I'm going to look him up on iTunes and see if he's got any more of this great reggae-infused hip-hop with an inspirational message available for download!" OK, so the dialogue running through my head wasn't quite that Gee-whiz-Wally, but needless to say I wasted a lot of time Googling "Modest Yahoo" only to get a bunch of useless results for Yahoo! and Modest Mouse. I'd actually seen the name Matisyahu in print before but dismissed it as some New Age act somewhere between Yanni and Yo-Yo Ma. So if you haven't been to temple in a while or you don't know your shalom from your schlemiel then here's your Hebrew lesson for the day: Matisyahu is the Hebrew equivalent of Matthew. And he's scheduled to be the "next big thing" through about mid-June. Matisyahu performs with opening act Balkan Beat at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Nokia Theatre, 1001 Performance Place in Grand Prairie. Tickets are $25.50. Call 214-373-8000 or visit ticketmaster.com.
Wed., March 15, 8 p.m.