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In their fifteen
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 2011. More
than ever before, the band is
both of the world and of L.A.
Originally formed to play at a
Los Angeles 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 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 both the Los Angeles
Dodgers and Los Angeles
Clippers, they recorded the
street-view travelogue “City of
Angels” as a new urban anthem,
and they were featured as part
of the prominent L.A. figures
imaging campaign “We Are 4 L.A.”
on NBC, and have the distinction
of headlining the Hollywood Bowl
twice in 2008 and 2010.
In recognition of their efforts
towards Los Angeles, the City of
Los Angeles has officially
declared April 23rd, 2010 as
“Ozomatli Day”, as well as every
following April 23rd, in
perpetuity. Ozomatli were also
recipients of the 2010 Local
Heroes Award by Los Angeles PBS
station KCET-TV, recognizing the
band’s longstanding
accomplishments and community
service throughout Southern
California.
“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 five 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 that year they
entered the global arena in a
different way.
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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.
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.
In 2009, Ozomatli traveled to
Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand
performing free concerts and
extending humanitarian outreach,
including HIV and AIDS care
clinics, visits to schools for
the blind and deaf, orphanages,
Methadone clinics, and outreach
programs to refugees and
disadvantaged youth.
In 2010, Ozomatli journeyed to
the earthquake zone in
Dujiangyan, China – an area
still ravaged by the devastating
7.9 temblor of May 12, 2008 –
killing at least 68,000 people
and injuring countless more.
Ozo’s outreach in this area
focused on extending the value
of music education to children
in orphanages, schools for
migrant workers families, and
schools for the handicapped.
Ozomatli were honored to help
celebrate the Boston Pops 125th
Anniversary, performing songs
from the band’s latest release
“Fire Away” as well as Ozo
classics from their previous
discs, accompanied by the Boston
Symphony Orchestra. In November,
Ozomatli made an appearance at
TEDxSF – the first musical talk
ever given at any TED conference
– mixing discussion and sound to
explore the challenges and
promises of musical identities
in a global age.
Ozomatli ended the 2010 calendar
year with a huge Quinceañera
Party at Club Nokia in the heart
of downtown Los Angeles,
celebrating their 15th year
together as a band. Upholding
Quinceañera tradition, the
members of Ozomatli wore
celebratory costumes and
requested their audience to wear
traditional formal attire as
well. The evening ended with the
band and their fans embracing
each other, celebrating
Ozomatli’s milestone by
participating in the
“Quinceañera waltz” together.
Ozomatli has spent 15 years
working diligently to spread its
message of peace, communication
and understanding through music,
with a long standing tradition
of performing for children all
over the world, from the schools
of North St. Louis to the
orphanages of Southeast Asia.
2011 has the band focused on “oZoKidZ”,
a special family friendly set
geared towards performing for
children and adults alike. The
band are currently in the studio
with acclaimed producer Tony
Berg, recording a children’s
album for release in 2011,
followed by a book, DVD and
tour.
Listen to the Music of Ozomatli
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