Matisyahu and Street Performer From Viral Video Will Perform in Concert

Matisyahu performs in Park City, Utah January 18, 2014. Image by Getty Images

By Josefin Dolsten August 10, 2016

The tale of the Hawaiian busker who got to perform with Matisyahu in an impromptu street duet, captured in a viral video, isn’t over yet. After some legal arrangements, the unlikely pair are scheduled to perform together on Friday in Los Angeles.

Last Friday Matisyahu posted a live video on Facebook in which he invited Kekoa Alama to perform with him at the Hollywood Palladium, but Alama said he was not sure he could travel due to having violated his parole.

After speaking to Alama’s parole officer and the judge on the case, the Jewish reggae star announced Monday that the “Maui coffee shop brudda” would be allowed to travel to the performance.

In the original video Matisyahu discovered Alama playing the ukulele and singing his hit “One Day” in a Maui coffee shop. The Jewish reggae star joined in, although Alama did not realize who he really was.

“Oh Jesus. What’s up, man?” the street performer told the formerly Orthodox singer, who used to sport a beard, when he revealed his true identity. “You look different.”

Watch the viral video here:

Contact Josefin Dolsten at [email protected] or on Twitter, @JosefinDolsten

Josefin Dolsten is a New York-based writer who has reported for the Forward, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Times of Israel and other Jewish publications. She currently works as an account director at Fenton Communications, supporting organizations that work to advance racial justice, LGBTQ+ equality, reproductive rights and more. Dolsten earned her B.A. in government from Cornell University and her M.A. in comparative religion and Jewish studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO