Ozomatli: OzoKidz

NEW ALBUM OZOKIDZ OUT SEPTEMBER 25

Ozomatli

Over the past seventeen years, celebrated Los Angeles culture-mashers Ozomatli have sung about everything from immigration protests and gang violence to Hurricane Katrina. But with their new project, OzoKidz, the band has immersed themselves in a whole new world of storytelling, one with a very different list of priorities: photosynthesis, spelling, balloons, germs, skateboards, and of course, a runaway moose.

The idea to do the album struck the band after they were asked by PBS to record a series of instructional songs to be featured on-air and on-line as part of the network’s children’s programming. After writing “Opposable Thumbs,” “Nouns,” and “Measurement,” the prospect of creating an original album of their own started to not seem so far-fetched.

Offers to record songs for the Warner Brother’s Interactive Elmo’s Musical Monsterpiece and Happy Feet II video games only sealed the deal: OzoKidz was meant to be. So armed with new songs and new stage outfits (rooster masks, anyone?) they started playing family-friendly concerts, landed some opening spots on the Yo Gabba Gabba tour, and then headed into the studio.

Recorded at Brushfire Studios in LA with acclaimed producer Robert Carranza (Jack Johnson, Mars Volta), OzoKidz may sound like an Ozomatli album with its effortless bilingualism and trademark swirl of styles and genres — dancehall, merengue, rock steady, rock, hip hop, to name a few– but beyond its sparkling electronic beats and occasionally auto-tuned raps, this is an Ozo album without precedent. Think Burl Ives (“Little Grey Goose,” “Fooba Wooba John”) re-imagined for 21st century, multi-racial urban America. OzoKidz is due out September 25 on Hornblow/Megaforce/RED.

OzoKidz Tracklisting

Trees

Moose On the Loose

We are the OzoKidz

Germs

Like Its Your Birthday

Exercise

Balloon Fest

Sun And Moon

Piraña

Let’s Go To The Movies

Skateboard

Water

Spelling

Changito

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