Vampire Weekend's Surprising Jewish Stories
7 min read
Nothing unites people like music.
Matt Dubb, née Mutti Weiss, began his music career at the age of 17. While in high school, he and some friends started jamming in the basement as a pastime. They formed a makeshift band called EvanAl and started booking gigs. It got serious pretty quickly, and soon enough they were playing at weddings several nights a week throughout the U.S. and Canada.
As their popularity started to explode, Matt began to dabble with electronic music. While traveling across Europe, he was exposed to more electronic dance music and found a deep connection to it.
“In Europe, electronic music is part of the culture. I would hear it everywhere and it just spoke to me. Maybe it should have been Carlebach, but I was in my twenties and traveling and experiencing new cultures and I felt a connection to it. I find it very spiritual. It talks to me like Carlebach.”
He began to DJ under the name Matt Dubb, as in the letter “W” for Weiss, and things began to pick up.
“I came back from Ibiza one summer and felt like I could do this. This music talks to me. I started watching YouTube videos on how to produce electronic music. With my background as a musician it made the process much simpler. I created my first song in a week.”
Matt put up a few remixes on YouTube, and released his first official single with Lipa Shmeltzer, a religious artist, and produced and wrote several other popular songs.
Matt was enjoying some success in the Jewish market, and was making connections. A well-known music manager overheard Matt’s music in the studio and said, “This is dope, what is it?” Someone at the studio said, “It’s some kid from Brooklyn and the lyrics are Hebrew.” The manager didn’t understand Hebrew but felt “this kid” could be successful with a mainstream audience. He approached Matt a few days later and said, “Why don’t you try to produce mainstream music? I can help you.”
“I started producing under a different artist name, MŪNTII,” he explained. Which is a spin-off from his Hebrew nickname Mutti.
His second record “Matter of Time” was signed to ARMADA, one of the largest international dance labels which was founded by Armin Van Burren, who Matt calls, “one of the biggest DJ’s on the planet.” And was featured on the Armada Today Ibiza 2022 collection alongside some of the most successful DJ’s in the world.
Matt’s music carries a very positive, spiritual message. “It doesn’t feel like I’m crossing over from the Jewish market. I’m producing popular music that’s clean and has good messaging and can appeal to all audiences. My song, ‘Matter of Time’ has a very positive message, but it’s also very current.”
After its first week of release, that song debuted on SiriusXM BPM, one of the biggest dance radio stations in the world, fulfilling one of Matt’s dreams. Then famed DJ Sam Felt aired it on his weekly radio show.
His most recent Matt Dubb release, “L’Chai Olamim” with Mordechai Shapiro and Benny Friedman, is one of his most successful songs. Within its first few months this song had over two million streams.
“The song blew up. It became an international sensation and is currently played at weddings and events throughout the world. Every day I’m getting tags from everywhere, New York to Australia- it’s an incredible and humbling feeling.”
Matt wants to bring his positive messages through music to as many people as he can.
He’s still working as a DJ, but mostly for Jewish events and parties. He is hustling, playing in venues and simultaneously trying to build the success of MŪNTII, which is a lot of work. “I’ve gotten messages from people from college campuses all over the U.S. telling me they love my MŪNTII songs.”
He wants to bridge the gap between secular and Jewish music, as well as build bridges between people. “Music unites people like nothing else.”
Matt is very spiritual.
“I view myself as a religious orthodox person. I keep Shabbat, Kosher and pray daily with a minyan At the same time, I am very open-minded. I don’t feel that it’s a contradiction to be religious and observant and enjoy good music. I am not listening to controversial or inappropriate music. Electronic music to me is very spiritual.
“Someone actually approached me in shul on Shabbat and said, ‘Wow, you look just like Matt Dubb!’
“I’m like, ‘Oh who is that?’ Sometimes I pretend it’s not me.
“He said, ‘Oh, he’s this famous DJ.’
“I answered, ‘I don’t even know who you’re talking about.’
“He said, “Oh okay, but it’s wild, you really look just like him.’”
Matt responded, “Well, what if I am him? Like why couldn’t I be him?”
The man said, ‘Oh no no, he wouldn’t be in shul on Shabbat. He’s not religious.’
“Sometimes, people might think I’m not spiritual because of my external image. But really, I’m deeply religious and spiritual. Similarly, my music breaks boundaries and bridges the gap between spiritual and not spiritual.”
Judaism plays a huge role in Matt’s life and animates every part of his day. “Judaism is the best thing in the world because it grounds me and gives me a lot of purpose and meaning. I don’t view Judaism as a restriction, I view it as a guide to life. All my music comes from a very spiritual place. I feel more connected when I am working on my music.” Matt also prioritizes learning Torah and also maintains a relationship with Rabbi Gershon Ribbner, a teacher who encouraged him to play gigs while in yeshiva.
Matt is also focused on his business. He founded a finance company which provides working capital for businesses. He explains that balancing his finance business and musical career is his biggest challenge.
“Even though the majority of my day is focused on my business, my passion is for music. So no matter how busy I may be with work, I will still take a day off for a studio session. Or I might stay up late working on music, and therefore will get to the office a bit late. These two priorities create inner conflict: if I only do music, my business will fall apart. I’m passionate, but I can’t let it take over my business.
“The music industry has a lot of ups and downs. It’s a lot of hard work. It could happen overnight for some people, like winning the lottery. But what I realized is that it might look like an overnight blow-up, but really it was five or ten years of hard work.”
“When I get feedback from followers, it keeps me going. The more people I reach, the greater I feel. People are responding with such positive messages. Someone on YouTube commented that my music caused him to put on tefillin for the first time in ten years. Another person wrote, ‘this song got me through hard times.’ All these comments make me want to keep reaching more and more people, and will hopefully make a difference.”
Matt was once stuck in Germany for Shabbat because his flight had experienced an emergency landing.
“I was davening at The West End Synagogue in Frankfurt. I met this couple, soon to be getting engaged. He was in the process of converting and told me my music gave him inspiration while becoming a Jew. He expressed how much my music helped his process.”
It’s stories like this that fuel Matt’s passion.
“Music enables me to connect to millions of people. I may not know them or ever see them, but I feel that I can make a difference in their lives. That’s what makes this all worth it.”
Someone once approached Matt and asked, “Why do you do this? Don’t you have a successful business?” Matt responded, “My passion for music is bigger than money. Find your passion and pursue it.”
Look out for Matt’s upcoming MŪNTII collaboration with Alex Clare and other exciting projects.
