Under low-hanging lights in a kitchen in Squirrel Hill, Matisyahu and two members of his band,… Under low-hanging lights in a kitchen in Squirrel Hill, Matisyahu and two members of his band, bassist Josh Werner and guitarist Aaron Dugan, sit on stools, talking as Matisyahu eats his breakfast. The scene of friends chatting over eggs seems not at all uncommon.

Later, onstage at The Rex, Werner, Dugan and drummer Jonah David look like members of any band, some in button-down shirts and others in newsboy caps. Matisyahu, in a suit that looks the same as the one he wore earlier in the day, gives a very David Byrne vibe, a la The Talking Heads — save for his long beard, dark hat and the loose white threads that sway around his waist as he dances and sings.

The scarcity of Hasidic reggae bands makes this band — also named Matisyahu — seem unusual. But the audience’s responses and band’s diverse composition — Matisyahu describes the rest of the band as “religious, but just not Jewish” — emphasize similarities where they matter the most: within the music.

“The lyrics are definitely Jewish,” Dugan said. “But it’s not exclusive.”

“I think that if it was [exclusive], it wouldn’t be our thing, too,” Werner added. “And I think that’s why it works. It has a universal message, really. It’s the message of all mankind at its best, all religions at their heart.”

Though Thursday night’s show was mainly attended by individuals with beliefs similar to those of Matisyahu. Non-Jewish audience members, like Josh Clary, 26, articulated similar sentiments as those of the band.

“Rasta music really heavily relies on the Old Testament, so I don’t feel any more excluded from this than I do from other reggae,” Clary said. “The musicianship is awesome, and all the worlds that I’m picking out don’t strike me as too different from a lot of the other Rasta music I listen to. They’re all really talking about the same book.”

Online encyclopedia Wikipedia defines Hasidism as a religious movement, founded within Judaism, that revolves around two fundamental concepts: the omnipresence of God and the idea of communion between God and man.

According to Matisyahu, whose experiences with music and life did not always express such a positive message, this communion between God and man resulted in the band’s success.

“When I decided to be more focused, and I wrapped my mind into wanting to do the right thing and be responsible, that came along with becoming religious,” Matisyahu said. “The important thing was the decision to be pure, and honest with people and God and myself. That’s when God gave me music. That’s when he said, ‘Here, you can have it.'”

Jewish attendees, like Saadya Notik, 21, a student studying to become a rabbi, expressed their approval of Matisyahu as a front man and their excitement about the increasingly diverse faces of Jewish music genres.

“I think he’s real, and people sense that right away,” Notik said. “He’s relating to me a personal part of himself. His music is a direct reflection of his life experiences.”

Secular, distanced perceptions of reggae lifestyles would most likely include stereotypical references to marijuana and Jamaica. Matisyahu, the man and the band, address more varied and stratified concepts of the genre, bringing light to themes and theological ideas perhaps not notably recognized or correlated with reggae — or with Judaism.

“Judaism is a religion of being in the world,” Matisyahu said. “It’s not about going on the mountain and sort of evaporating into the mountain mists. It’s about being in this world, and going through this world, and taking the good, and staying away from the bad, and elevating what you can by bringing God into what you can.”