Reggae Wonder?

Today, as I was wandering through the music section of Best Buy store in Chelea and I came across a live enhanced CD by this reggae artist by the name of Matisyahu [Live @ Stubb's]. Now for those in the know already know that this is no "ordinary" reggae artist. This artist is of the White-Hasidic Jewish persuasion. His star has been bubbling in recent months and I've been hearing a lot about how prolific this dude is. The CD only costs about $8 so I picked it up. Load it up on the good 'ol [or new...more on that later] Ipod and enthusiastically gear up my ears for some serious jammin'. Well...ah...as I type this blog I'm about 3/4 thru this CD and I'm still scratchin my head as to what the hub-ub is about.
Now dont get me wrong, I do think that this young man [24 years of age] is talented [he has a song on this album called "beat box" where his beat boxing skills are actually pretty nice], I just feel that a lot of his notoriety is not necesarily coming from the message in his music [part spiritual/part rude buoy chatter] but more fom the fact that there is a White Jewish dude pulling off what is a predominantly Black art form. Now some people might feel that I'm not giving this guy a fair shake because of his ethnicity. But in actuality, I listen to reggae quite frequently and I'm just judging him to the same standards that I would do any black artist and let me tell you...he aint doing anything more progressive than lets say..Sizzla has been doing for the last 6 years. It's like when Eminem was getting all of this shine when he signed with a major record label [& Dr. Dre], I held him to the same standards that any black rapper with that much hoopla would be held to and guess what ...to me he passed with flying colors...it was well-deserved. Other than being able to pull off what many black reggae artists have done in the past and still do today...and havin' a jammin' band, Matisyahu not super-impressive to me....time will tell though.