When you first listen to Levi Robin‘s tender, breathy vocals and hypnotic fingerpicking, what comes to mind is likely Iron & Wine or Bob Dylan. But if you close your eyes and listen to the lyrics, you might be surprised.

Instead of odes to long-haired beauties and urban chaos, Robin, a 21-year-old Lubavitcher Hasidic folksinger, delivers tried-and-true paeans of spiritual gratitude and God-longing.

One song, the upbeat “No Worries,” reads like something out of a Rebbe Nachman tale, with the “bird who sings a song of a lost kingdom.” Others are sprinkled with mentions of lion’s dens, longings for a promised land, and a call to “open your arms, release the bound”—a line straight out of the morning prayers.

Is acoustic folk ready for a Hasidic takeover? Can a bearded man with sidelocks and a yarmulke rise to the top of the Billboard charts? Sounds unlikely, but it’s certainly happened before.

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Watch Robin perform with Matisyahu:





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Listen to Robin’s single, “No Worries:”



