“En la vida, dos cosas ciertas/Son la muerte y el cambio,” say Ozomatli on “Dos Cosas Ciertas,” a mix of Cuban son with drum ‘n’ bass rap, from their second album Embrace The Chaos (Interscope). The Los Angeles combo of seven musicians (including MC and DJ) seem older than their actual ages (ranging from 25 to 34 years old) and certainly more mature than the band’s lifespan (going back to 1995) to be commenting with such sonic eloquence on the certainties of death and change as life’s only guarantees. Typical for the group, this observation goes beyond existential weariness; personal change intersects with social upheaval, while physical death can be the culmination of spiritual and moral fatality, unless one takes action to create meaning and seize dignity in life.
Aware that change is both a certainty and opportunity, Ozomatli came together on March 12, 1995, when Wil-Dog Abers helped orchestrate a sit-down strike at the L.A. Conservation Corps’ Emergency Response Unit Headquarters. A Jewish kid from Pico-Union in Echo Park, Abers had been employed by the program for public beautification that hired youngsters at minimum wage (without benefits) for such projects as painting over graffiti. He came to consider it a “poverty pimp” organization, especially when an attempt to unionize got him and others summarily fired. It was not the most celebratory situation, but Abers called up a network of friends and turned the strike into a party.
Lucky for L.A. (and the rest of the world), the strike band Somos Marcos became Ozomatli, named after the Aztec god of dance, and began gigging around town at activist events. Wil-Dog was able to convince Chali2na, an underground MC with Jurassic Five whom Abers had known since he was 12, and the J5’s DJ Cut Chemist to come by and try a session. Soon enough, a peanut gallery of L.A. multi-culti soul brothers had formed — including trumpeter Asdru Sierra (a high-school friend of Wil-Dog’s from a family of salseros), Choctaw/Creole percussionist Justin “Niño” Porée, guitarist Raul Pacheco (whose tastes include Latin jazz and country/western), clarinetist/saxophonist Ulises Bella (Fishbone fan and student of L.A.’s free-jazz guru Bobby Bradford), and tabla-player Jiro Yamaguchi, a Japanese American homeboy trained in classical Indian music.
As worldly as the City Of Angels, Ozomatli’s members grew up inspired by the movements and music of their hometown. Bella describes how every party he went to as a kid had to have Santana’s “Oye Como Va” play at least once. Los Ozos knew Santana’s sources and contemporaries — the ’70s Chicano/Afro-Latino groove scene made of equal amounts roots and funk that included such groups as War, Tierra, Malo, El Chicano, Azteca, and Mandrill.
By 1998, the demand for Ozomatli as one of L.A.’s most popular live bands resulted in their self-titled debut album (on Herb Alpert’s Almo Sounds label). It was a dedication to their ancestors, a slice of hope to their peers growing up under the suspicious watch of police and other gangs, and a mix of joyful noise pointing the way to new social relations. It also took them out of L.A., onto the road, and into new struggles. Over the next few years, Ozomatli tested their music and mission in a variety of challenging contexts. They played the second stage on the 1998 Vans/Warped Tour that featured mostly frenetic skacore acts. Reception was cold at times, but at some shows kids would skank to an Ozo rendition of Dominican merengue under the assumption that it was ska. Bella remembers, “Some people said we were the most punk-rock thing on the tour, just because there was nothing like us.” The punk-rock spirit might have gotten them a little carried away, as they ended up on The Offspring’s early-1999 tour that had them dealing with boos, catcalls, and suburban kids who considered them “jungle Mexican music.”
Still, Ozo bounced back in 1999 with spots on Santana’s “Supernatural” tour and, strangely enough, a cameo as the prom band in the Drew Barrymore vehicle Never Been Kissed. Their music also showed up in Ron Howard’s EDtv and HBO’s “Sex And The City.”
Over time, the road started to take its toll, and life changes were drawing some members back to family obligations. “We toured so much for two years on and off,” says Porée. “We were trying to learn how to bond, and after a while, we got sick of each other musically and emotionally. We did go through a period there where it was really hard, where we did not know if the band was going to stay together. Physically, financially, and emotionally, we’re still trying to help each other out, and it has its rough times.” Eventually, their original drummer and alto-saxist left the band, and their Almo label dissolved, while Chali2na and Cut Chemist went back to Jurassic Five to support their first major release with that group. If Ozomatli’s first record was a celebration of what brought them together, their second would have to search for a reason to keep on doing it.
“Pa’lante,” the first cut on Embrace The Chaos, matches its lyrical message — to wipe away the tears, move forward, unify, and fight the darkness — with the musical foot-stomping flair of Mexican son huasteco, featuring the African kora harp, Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo on violin, Bella on six-string requinto, and Pacheco strumming the eight-string jarana guitar from Veracruz. It’s an instrumentally advanced tune that takes the listener by the hand for a dance with raised fist, without a hint of its hard-earned experiential cost.
Despite its overtones of menace (with the sounds of ghetto birds hovering and impending street scuffles), Ozomatli fearlessly cut pieces from their soul to weave into a blanket to keep the listener warm against the world’s chill winds. Reassembling their lineup with a new MC, DJ, and drummer — respectively, Kanetic Source, Spinobi, and Andrew Mendoza — Ozo come back with typical blends of trad-Cuban/Mexican son, funk, rap, R&B, experimental jazz, electronica, salsa, banda, and vallenato, but this time with the confidence of accumulated experience. “I think all of us as a band have matured quite a bit musically,” Bella notes. “For example, on this record there are certain cuts with [Los Lobos’] Steve Berlin that we did completely live, quick track, direct to tape, and we pulled it off this time around, whereas the first time I don’t think we could have done it.”
Their musical maturity shows as much as the deeper involvement of collaboration, with a trio of producers that includes Berlin, the Beastie Boys’ Mario Caldato Jr., and Bob Power (who has worked with Erykah Badu, the Roots, and others). Wil-Dog also anchors with solid chops from having worked with core Lobos on the Latino super-group Los Super Seven’s second album Canto, that brought him into the studio with legends Ruben Ramos, Caetano Veloso, and Susana Baca. As well, Cut Chemist still appears on several tracks, as does Chali2na in sample format on the album’s first single, “Vocal Artillery,” that features MCs Medusa and Will.I.Am. from Black Eyed Peas. Elsewhere, De La Soul, vocalists from Quetzal, and Chicago’s very own Common join in.
In particular, Common’s vocals on the record’s title track articulate the band’s millenial epiphany — “only through chaos will we ever see change.” Still, from uplifting lyrics seemingly inspired by Sly & the Family Stone’s “Stand” to the comical cover art, Ozo do it with a sense of joy and humor. They took photos for the record without a permit on an L.A. street corner and acted as if they were shoplifting their instruments while under surveillance and dodging cops. They even included a pawn-shop security guard — a real timbalero and one of Sierra’s friends — in the shoot as an extra Ozo.
Meanwhile, continuing to tour this past summer in anticipation of the new release, Ozo looked forward to the date that Embrace The Chaos would hit the streets: September 11, 2001.
The release date leads right back to those two sure things, death and change. Kanetic raps a relevant message on “Dos Cosas Ciertas”: “It’s you they card, it’s you they charge, it’s you they complain about, strolling the boulevard/You’s the one claiming and screaming you’re all hard/Are you in control, or is it just a facade?/ If Uncle Sam wants you, it’s you that’ll need/It’s you that’ll sacrifice and you that’ll bleed.” On that dark day, militant rhetoric fell under a new shadow of scrutiny never anticipated by Parental Advisory stickers, and Ozomatli found themselves sitting on their tour bus for three days watching CNN, debating how to analyze the situation. Wil-Dog soon posted a note on an Ozomatli web board:
“I used to work in the mail room in one of the high-rises downtown, and I think about all the office workers, secretaries, janitors, etc. affected by this and it saddens me . . . As much as I’m saddened by this I’m not surprised one bit. ‘Cause there’s millions of people all over the world that hate the U.S. for doing the exact same thing to them for centuries.”
As Porée points out, not everyone in the band necessarily is as strident as Wil-Dog, and Bella says right off the bat that any loss of innocent life is a tragedy. But, he adds, “We have to educate ourselves to the history of events, and bombing the shit out of people is not going to do anything.”
Like many committed artists who visited Chicago recently for the World Music Festival, Ozomatli will blend such messages into the fabric of performance, so what they communicate won’t turn out a speech, lecture, or scolding. Their music itself will speak with a more powerful militancy, that of unity despite what divides. As they do at every show, they’ll begin and end right in the middle of the crowd, with a Brazilian-style batucada drum blowout that takes it to the people. Whoever dreams of a new world already triumphs, they seem to say, so let’s just feel together what the drum tells us to do next.
November 2001, Illinois Entertainer
