The evolution of Matisyahu takes another turn

But while the music was evolving, life in Brooklyn was getting harder. Matisyahu had rebelled at becoming the poster boy for orthodox Jewish cool and an uneasy stand-off had developed between the artist and a community that both embraced and feared his unpredictability.

"I went through a lot," he says. "At a certain point, things just aren't working, they're not meshing together. There was moment where I definitely just felt, 'I think I can do whatever I want with my life. People will understand or they won't understand.'"

Once he'd made the decision in mid-December to shave off his beard, Matisyahu faced the next question: How should he handle it?

"The thought crossed my mind, 'Well, how am I going to do it? Am I just going to show up on stage? People are going to wonder who this is," he says.

"I really didn't plan to say anything to anyone. I don't even know if I called my wife or told anybody. I just walked into a Supercuts on the Upper West Side after a couple of days of agonizing over the decision. Then I realized that I had to do it. I realized I was making it into too big of a deal."

Why a Supercuts? Matisyahu explains: "I didn't own a razor."

Within a few minutes, a decade's worth of beard was gone. The next day, Matisyahu was scrolling through his Twitter feed when a fan, unaware of the change, quoted one of his lyrics, "At the break of day I look for you at sunrise/When the tide comes in I lose my disguise."

"When I wrote that lyric, I don't know if I knew exactly what it meant. But in that moment, that's what it meant," he says. "I realized that was prophetic to my life, to a certain extent."

Matisyahu stood in front of a mirror, snapped a photo of his new look with his smartphone, and sent it via Twitter, basically telling the world. He hopes his followers will understand.

"I think when you're a fan of music — at least the way I've been a fan to artists that have really touched me — you're with them for the long haul. They might do things that you don't understand or agree with, but I think I've always tried to hold my judgment and give them the space to do what they need to do," he says.

Online:

http://matisyahuworld.com/home

Mark Kennedy is on Twitter at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits