Matisyajew vs Drake

After being introduced to multiple Jewish artist's and assigned to investigate aspects of their CD's like artist, objectives, lyrics, genre, album cover etc the point was brought up about someone who is an artist and jewish, and someone who is a Jewish artist. This was something I had never thought about before and the differentiation interested me. We briefly spoke about Matisyahu and his story as a Jewish individual so I began my search with him. I came to an article from the Jewish Chronical online (thejc.com) titled, "Matisyahu: I am more Jewish then Drake." This automatically caught my attention and I was shocked to see something like this posted and it seemed to fit perfectly with the topic of this class. What is Jewish? Can someone or something be more Jewish then another? And if so, what standard's are we too go by? These are all questions we are investigating through the material.
According to Matisyahu, Drake, who is has publicly declared himself as being Jewish "does not represent Jews or Judaism" and "his Jewish is just a by product." Matisyahu claims that as an artist, he is trying to incorporate his past traditions with modern day life and has said that he is the "best" Jew to have done what he has accomplished as an artist. I found similar articles like this all over the website, on gossip magazine websites and blogs showing that issues concerning Judaism and what it means as an identity is prevalent in our society and in the media.
This article alone brings up several issues. Who is Matisyahu to say what represents Jewish, and how can he see himself as "better" then others. Although many of his songs have Jerusalem-themed tracks, does that make him any more authentic? Then, this brings up the problem of authenticity. I was surprised to see Matisyahu bashed Drake as a Jew, but not as an artist. We also discussed how identifying as a Jew affects your career and the market you reach out too as an artist, but in this case it seems like Drake is using his religious identity, to his benefit.
I continued to read more about Matisyahu and saw many pictures of him preforming with his black hat and peyot which I feel some can argue seems to be a little bit of an "act." The entire make up that scream I am Jewish may be who he really is or may be part of his identity as an artist because there is a difference. In that industry whoever you portray yourself to be is the act you must keep up so how do we as viewers know what the artist actually stands for?