The opening track from Ozomatli’s 1998 self-titled debut album immediately sets the tone for the group’s musical voraciousness. "Como Ves" is awash with the sounds of urban Los Angeles — car traffic, a radio playing, a dog barking — and Brazilian batucada drumming, eventually becoming an energetic party song featuring a funky melodic bassline, lyrics in Spanish, and an African soukous-like guitar line accompanying the vocals.
Released 25 years ago on June 16, Ozomatli heralded a new generation in Latin fusion. While they were not pioneers of the genre — their forebears were the rock and blues-based fusion of California-born groups like Santana and Los Lobos — Ozomatli took Latin fusion to a whole other level and updated it for the 1990s. Their seamless blending of distinct Latin genres with hip-hop, funk, and reggae further marked the group as distinctly Angeleno. There have been other groups who followed Ozomatli’s blueprint, like the Bay Area’s O-Maya, but none that achieved its longevity or devoted following.
While the album’s sound and musicianship truly set the band apart, Ozomatli's lyrics also resonated with young audiences. On their debut (and throughout their career), Ozomatli has tackled local and global social justice issues, including police brutality, anti-immigrant policies, and U.S. imperialism in Latin America.
This is not surprising, given that the members of Ozomatli first met in the arena of labor organizing. Inspired by the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, the founding members — Raúl Pacheco, Asdrubal Sierra, Wil-Dog Abers, Justin Porée, Jiro Yamaguchi, Ulises Bella, DJ Cut Chemist, Chali 2na, William Marrufo, and Jose Espinoza — adopted a band name from an indigenous Nahuatl term that refers to the monkey figure found on the Aztec sun calendar. Their links to Mexican/Chicano identity and folk traditions were also apparent in ballads like "Aquí No Será," featuring accordion and requinto (a smaller, higher-pitched guitar) played by a member of Los Lobos, and the frenetic, Norteño-style song that closes the album, "La Misma Canción."
Ozomatli’s ideological leanings permeate the record. On the lovely Mexican folk-style ballad "Aquí No Será," the band employs an anti-imperialist message referencing the U.S. interventions in Central America in the 1980s: "We won’t have another Vietnam here/The Americas won’t allow another intervention into El Salvador," the chorus states. On "Chota" — the title is Salvedorian slang for the police — Ozo critiques U.S. immigration policy and warns "Careful, here comes the badge, the cops. Careful, here they come, cover your face." Its sung verse is followed by a rapped verse connecting anti-Black police brutality to the criminalization of Latino immigrants.
Notwithstanding the largely Latino identity of the group, Ozomatli’s sound can’t be divorced from the culturally diverse city in which the band was born. Their bassist is Jewish, their main percussionist is Japanese American, and two of their founding members belonged to the hip-hop group Jurassic 5 — MC Chali 2na and DJ Cut Chemist — which gave Ozomatli credibility among fans of L.A.'s thriving hip-hop community.
Hip-hop is, in fact, one of the main ingredients in the Ozomatli stew, with Chali 2na verses featured on half the album’s tracks, and frequent scratching interludes by Cut Chemist. The second song of the album, "Cut Chemist Suite," demonstrates the group’s funkified, acoustic hip-hop style backed by horn riffs and melodic bass lines. It’s notable that at the same time, across the country, the Roots were also making a name for themselves as a live hip-hop band.
Despite its folkloric intro, "O Le Le" is a good example of this funk-based hip-hop, with Chali 2na rapping over a sung chorus. This track also displays Ozomatli’s penchant for changing up rhythms and genres in the middle of their songs: at the 3:12 mark, there’s a brief foray into bebop with Chali 2na rapping over a furious sax solo.
"Coming War," does something similar with an interlude at the 2:33 mark featuring the distinct sounds of the Brazilian cuica drum, while "Super Bowl Sundae" features an extended intro with a sitar and tabla drums (from North Indian classical music) before transitioning into a hip-hop song whose chorus features a relaxed reggae beat and falsetto vocals.
Other songs on the album are more Latin-oriented, displaying a wide variety of influences and genres. Standout "Cumbia de los Muertos," a cumbia-reggae fusion, pays homage to the ancestors and features a memorable Chali 2na verse. While the sung verses reference Latin traditions such as Dia de los Muertos, Chali 2na’s relates to violence and premature death in the Black community: "Soon as we're rid of society's small terrors/The sooner these teenagers don't have to be pallbearers/And carry their pals nearer to graves."
This song is immediately followed by "Donde se fueron," which opens with a percussion-heavy Cuban rumba and harmonized singing. The lyrics reference the orishas, deities in the Afro-Cuban religion known as Santería, as the singer proclaims himself a "son of Yemayá" (deity of the sea). It eventually transitions into an earthy salsa, but the last third of the song switches up the pace yet again, moving into a sort of cha cha rhythm. The group is never content to rest on its laurels, always keeping the listener guessing.
The song "Chango" provides both another reference to the orishas (Changó is the deity of the drums, thunder, and lightning), and another fascinating rhythmic change. Opening with an incredibly fast merengue, the rhythmic change comes at the 2:48 mark, where the music suddenly stops and the chorus comes back in over a slowed-way-down reggae beat. At 3:17, the merengue beat comes back in and there’s a gradual acceleration until the song reaches full speed again.
Although Ozomatli never achieved mainstream success, it did well on the Billboard Latin charts and peaked at No. 7 on Top Latin Albums chart. The band joined Carlos Santana for his Supernatural tour the following year.
Ozomatli’s second album, 2001's Embrace the Chaos, garnered more critical and commercial attention despite the line-up changes following their debut release. In fact, both their second and third album (Street Signs) broke the Billboard 200 chart and won GRAMMY Awards for Best Latin Rock/Alternative Album. However, while Ozomatli’s debut album may have flown under the radar nationally, it paved the way for the group’s sound.
Ozomatli’s debut album tapped into a feeling of social change being just over the horizon. It was party music — and their live shows at the time were incredibly energetic and participatory — but it was also aspirational, and felt very much of California. It remains a favorite for many fans a quarter century later.
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