Matisyahu originally aimed to mix Orthodox Jewish style with reggae, hip hop, and beatboxing. His target audience includes observant and non-observant Jews who enjoy his blend of Jewish themes and modern music styles. While the video celebrates Hanukkah through decorations and customs, Matisyahu also incorporates other elements like traveling on a train with people of various backgrounds, perhaps to convey a message of inclusion and acceptance of other religions and cultures during the holiday.

1. Matisyahu
Music Video Analysis

2. Genre
As an artist, Matisyahu originally aimed to mix Orthodox Jewish style and theme with Reggae, Hip
Hop and Beat boxing. From 2004-2012, Matisyahu was observing Hasidic Judaism and often
incorporated Orthodox themes and ideas into his songs. The genre itself is very festive, for
obvious reasons, but with help of mise-en-scene and green screen elements, Matisyahu
successfully conveyed the idea of Hanukkah, and matched the conventions of a novelty genre
even though it was an original composition. For example, he put the lyrics of the chorus in large
text so that the audience would find it catchy and know the words to sing along with it. He also
used animation to create a Star of David image that looks drawn on with a neon/yellow colour,
and he used props such as a Menorah, candles, dreidels, decorations chocolate coins and wine
glasses.

3. Target Audience
Matisyahu’s target audience is essentially split into primary and secondary targets. Primary target
consists of a Jewish audience, regardless of Jewish sector (e.g. Orthodox, Reform, Liberal,
Hasidic etc.) who enjoy listening to an artist who can preach Jewish beliefs in a current musical
format, which is what Matisyahu does through his Reggae, Hip Hop and Beat box blend.
Throughout this music video, Matisyahu is seen as moving graffiti along a wall; wearing his
typical Hasidic clothing reflecting the image to the audience. Matisyahu can also be considered a
novel artist to Jews who do not share the entirety of Matisyahu’s beliefs, (i.e.) “we like him
because he’s a Jewish musician”. Another section of the target audience are those who enjoy
the Reggae/Hip Hop/ Beat boxing genre and aren’t really concerned with the Orthodox influence
(Non-Jews/Non-Observant Jews). They might just enjoy the artist in general, the positive
messages behind the songs and Matisyahu’s particular style. Although Matisyahu’s lyrics and
image are primarily themed with Judaism, we cannot say his target audience is only Jews; rather
anyone who wants to listen to him. His update of image suggests he is trying to appeal to a
larger scale audience; on the other hand, his songs and lyrics still contain Orthodox themes
which register with the Jewish audience dynamic.

4. Other Conventions
Although Matisyahu has spent the majority of the video matching conventions of Hanukkah
celebration, he has encorporated other elements that either are not relevant to or subvert
expected conventions of the Hanukkah theme. He may have done this for artistic reasons or
maybe as a way to show that on Hanukkah, all religions can come together and celebrate and be
happy rather than just one. Location in particular doesn’t have much relevance to the theme of
Hanukkah, but it seems that he spends quite some time in the video in an independent record
shop, promoting Spark Seeker. Matisyahu is also seen on the train interacting with other people
of different races and cultures, possibly to show equality and his acceptance of others. In one
way, Matisyahu subverts expected conventions by walking past a sign for Chinatown, which you
wouldn’t normally expect in a video about Hanukkah. He features in many random locations but
for the majority of the video uses green screens and effects, possibly to show that this video is all
about having fun and celebrating.

5. Star Image
This song was released in 2012, which was one year after he re-modelled his image from a Hasidic
Reggae artist into a non-Hasidic Reggae artist. Although his image changed, his musical style
remained the same and was exemplified with the release of Spark Seeker before Happy
Hanukkah was released. We could therefore suggest that Matisyahu may have used to have an
organic image as a Hasidic Jew, as he created it himself. However, since 2011 we could say that
he has become more synthetic, scrapping his old image for a newer and ‘cleaner’ one. This may
be hinting some industry input, that Capitol Records might have inspired this decision, but
according to Matisyahu’s social media, he claimed that the image change, like his Hasidic image,
was entirely his choice. In the video, he aims to convey himself as a kind-hearted Jewish man
trying to bring all races and cultures together to celebrate Hanukkah, whilst at the same time, he
aims to focus the most of the video on close-ups of himself, his products and his artistic ability
rather than completely addressing the celebration of Hanukkah.

6. Organic/Synthetic Audience
Matisyahu’s audience is mainly a synthetic one because although his music does aim to reach out
to a primarily Jewish audience, he is the type of artist to have gone viral, with songs such as One
Day, Sunshine, Searchin’ etc. He has accessed the mainstream, meaning that possibly any
audience type may have heard his big hit songs, or at least know of him. The way he solidified
himself as a mainstream, synthetic artist, was by redoing his song One Day, but this time it
featured African-American rapper, Akon. The interesting part of their collaboration was that
Matisyahu is Jewish and Akon is Muslim, and they tried to prove that by doing a song together
that “music can bring groups together”. Due to Akon already being a mainstream artist, his target
audience had now become familiar with Matisyahu and may have started listening to his music
as well. However, just like his old image’s conveyance, Matisyahu has now returned to an
organic audience type, possibly because he is no longer talked about as much as he was during
his mainstream period. His music still sends the same messages, but his videos are no longer
too focused on his image, rather his artistry and his journey as an artist still trying to make music.