Demagogue

He's 26 years old, and he's a Hasidic Jewish reggae vocalist -- three adjectives that have rarely stood side by side. But as Slate.com's Judy Rosen explains, the vocalist Matisyahu must have more than mere novelty working in his favor. After all, his 2005 album spent eight weeks at the top of Billboard's reggae chart.

There aren't many profiles of vocalists that include sentences like this: "Musically speaking, Jewish reggae is not such a far-fetched idea ..."