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Album Review
by SashaS
5-11-2001
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| Ozomatli |
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Ozomatli: 'Embrace The Chaos...'
(Interscope/Universal)
Ozimatli continue to provide soundtrack for the 21st century mind revolution
World music is the obvious way to stress out that we’ve lived in a shadow of recycled creativity for far too long. Every new generation of musicians appear to distil and sanitize the previous ‘revolutionary’ form. From punk to rap, everything is included with the most blatant ripping-off occurring in pop music. Ozomatli simply challenge that equation, not only the hip-hop’s…
Furthermore, the toughness and brutality of rappers is (thank God) mainly theoretical, limited to the verbal aspect of it, with few exceptions of Puffy Pee-Diddy and, just recently, So Solid Crew… These were shooting incidents while Ozomatli have done their bit for the freedom of expression. The multi-racial, mixed-up Latino-funk-rap collective from Los Angeles have had their fair share of controversy.
As part of the demonstration outside last year’s Democratic National Convention, they managed one song before the police pulled the plug and the rubber bullets started to fly – hence the title for this album, ‘Embrace The Chaos…’ Shaken but not deterred, this black-chicano-Cuban-Japanese-Jewish-Filipino (whah, no native Amers? or Amish?) crew continue to do what they do best and that is – strive for social change through music or, at least, enlightenment of a kind.
Although you’d need knowledge of Spanish to understand it, for most part, the album’s themes are of the usual awareness-sort and are critical of the way societies are in the Western world. In short, they work on forming opinions for the 21st century revolution, although sounds are of the party type and you can easily get your body lost in its captivating rhythms. And its musical variety…
The title track kills with its simple but insistent beat that is balanced by the avant-garde sounding ‘Pensativo (Interlude)’, the carnival world of ‘Timido’ as well as the muscle-engaging ‘Guerrillero’… There is a wide range of moods and atmos, paces and emotions, sounds pickled in Latin influences and grounded in butt-exercising funk and hip-hop, but you have to wonder how this – feelgood music actually – is going to change the world? (De La Soul, the kush-est trio in rapdom, are guests…)
Better forget that and jump on the dance floor but pay attention to treat your ears to a luxury.
8.7/10
SashaS
5-11-2001
Ozimatli album 'Embrace The Chaos' is available now on Interscope/Universal
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