Matisyahu says he felt threatened during Spain gig

30 August 2015, 5:45 pm

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The Jewish reggae singer Matisyahu says that his performance at a recent music festival in Spain marked the first time in his career that he felt physically threatened by the audience.

“People were standing on each other’s shoulders with flags giving me the middle finger,” Matisyahu tells The Daily Beast in an interview. “It was intense. It was not peaceful. It was like ‘Fuck you, Matisyahu.’ I’ve never had the experience of anything like that, as a Jew or anything in my life.”

Matisyahu performed at the Rototom Sunsplash festival after a public backlash prompted organizers to rescind their initial insistence that he sign a statement in support of Palestinian statehood as a prerequisite for his appearance.

Read the full interview here.