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In their fourteen years together as a band, celebrated Los Angeles
culture-mashers Ozomatli have gone from being hometown heroes to
being named U.S. State Department Cultural Ambassadors.
Ozomatli has always juggled two key identities. They are the voice
of their city and they are citizens of the world.
Their
music-- a notorious urban-Latino-and-beyond collision of hip hop and
salsa, dancehall and cumbia, samba and funk, merengue and comparsa,
East LA R&B and New Orleans second line, Jamaican ragga and Indian
raga-- has long followed a key mantra: it will take you around the
world by taking you around L.A.
This has never been truer
for Ozo than it is in 2009. More than ever before, the band is both
of the world and of L.A.
Originally formed to play at an area
labor protest over a decade ago, Ozomatli spent some of their early
days participating in everything from earthquake prep "hip hop
ghetto plays" at inner-city L.A. elementary schools to community
activist events, protests, and city fundraisers. Ever since, they
have been synonymous with their city: their music has been taken up
by The Los Angeles Dodgers and The Los Angeles Clippers, they
recorded the street-view travelogue "City of Angels" in 2007 as a
new urban anthem, and most recently, they were featured as part of
the prominent L.A. figures imaging campaign "We Are 4 L.A." on NBC.
"This band could not have happened anywhere else but L.A.,"
saxophonist and clarinetist Ulises Bella has said. "Man, the tension
of it, the multiculturalism of it. L.A. is like, we're bonded by
bridges."
Ozo is also a product of the city's grassroots
political scene. Proudly born as a multi-racial crew in
post-uprising 90s Los Angeles, the band has built a formidable
reputation over four full-length studio albums and a relentless
touring schedule for taking party rocking so seriously that it
becomes new school musical activism.
"Just being who we are
and just doing what we're doing with music at this time is very
political," says bassist Wil-Dog Abers. "The youth see us up there
and recognize themselves. So in a playful, party-type of way, I
think it's real easy for this band to get dangerous. We are starting
to realize just how big of a voice we actually have as a band and
how important it is for us to use it."
In 2007, the reach and
power of that voice went to new global heights. The band had long
been a favorite of international audiences-playing everywhere from
Japan to North Africa and Australia-and their music had always been
internationalist in its scope, seamlessly blending and transforming
traditions from Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East
(what other band could record a song once described as "Arabic
jarocho dancehall"?), but last year, they entered the global arena
in a different way.
They were invited by the U.S. State
Department to serve as official Cultural Ambassadors on a series of
government-sponsored international tours to Asia, Africa, South
America, and the Middle East, tours that linked Ozomatli to a
tradition of cultural diplomacy that also includes the esteemed
likes of Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, and Louis Armstrong.
For those who wondered how a band known for its vigilant anti-war
stance could become a partner with the very Bush administration they
have so vocally critiqued in the past, the band was clear about
their position: it was all about responding to a global "cry for
change" by using music to promote messages of peace and
understanding.
As Bella told The Los Angeles Times during the
band's visit to an orphanage in Cairo, "Our world standing has
deteriorated. I'm totally willing and wanting to give a different
image of America than America has given over the last five years."
In places like Tunisia, India, Jordan, and Nepal, Ozo didn't
just play rousing free public concerts, but offered musical
workshops and master classes and visited arts centers, summer camps,
youth rehabilitation centers, and even a Palestinian refugee camp.
They listened to performances by local musicians and often joined in
for impromptu jam sessions with student bands and community
musicians. Most shows ended up with kids dancing on stage and their
new collaborators sitting in for a tabla solo or a run on the slide
guitar.
In the case of Nepal, the band's trip was part of a
celebration of the country's newly ratified peace accord and they
arrived with a direct message: "different instruments but one
rhythm, together we can make a prosperous Nepal." Their concert,
which drew over 14,000 people, was a historic one-Ozo were the first
Western band to do a concert in Nepal and the event was the
country's first peaceful mass gathering that was not a protest or
religious ceremony.
For the U.S Embassy in Nepal, Ozomatli
were a model of how diversity promotes change. According to an
official embassy release, "Ozomatli is living proof that diverse
backgrounds make a stronger and more prosperous whole. Ozomatli's
nine members are committed to addressing social issues of local,
national and international importance and they use the power of
their own diversity to achieve this."
Suddenly the lessons of
L.A. had found their way into the world at large.
"I've
always felt that music is the key to every culture, the beginning of
an understanding," says vocalist and trumpet player Asdru Sierra.
"It's a language far more universal than politics."
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