OZOMATLI INTERVIEW by Sarah Tither-Kaplan

Question: What are your biggest challenges as musicians?

Justin: I think the biggest challenge for me in the band over the years has been, I don’t know. I mean basically our band is a huge mix of a lot of different styles so the challenge for us has been getting pigeonholed. There’s no category for a band that play Latin, Hip-Hop, Arabic music, but people from the music geek side of the spectrum or as a rock by people on the commercial side categorize us as world music. Over the years that has been one of our biggest challenges, but we’ve always tried to ignore all that. Now more than ever, music has changed so much that anyone can do whatever the want and get their product out there on their own and do it independently. It makes it a lot easier to just do what we want as a band and not worry about the categorization.

Raul: I really like writing songs and making music but most of being a professional musician is not about that, it’s about other stuff. When we tour, most of the time we’re not playing music , we’re just getting from point A to B, and that’s always been a strange thing for me, but it’s just part of the reality of it. I think dealing with that has always been strange, but I’m really happy when I play music. Constantly writing and constantly being on tour, and with a band as large as ours it’s sometimes hard to get everybody on the same page, but we love what we do.

Question: What’s the most important thing for you as a band?

Justin: First and foremost that we’re happy with what we’re doing, musically and as musicians. This lifestyle is not always glamorous so we just want to be happy. Touching and reaching people with our music and not catering to any one person, just having a good time and trying to reach people. Recently we’ve had a lot of great experiences in other parts of the world that most bands don’t get. We went to the Middle East, Jordan, Cairo, Indonesia, we’ve been to so many places that the people have never heard one note of our music. But in a lot of places we had an instant connection, like in Cairo, as soon as we started playing kids were up out of their seats dancing. Those experiences just make you want to keep going and keep doing what you do.

Raul: Trying new things. Right now we have a radio show, and we’re working on a movie, we’re always recording, making music, playing live, and constantly creating and working.
Question: What do you want fans to take away from your music?
Justin: I’m not much of a preacher, so I don’t know. I just want them to have a personal experience, our lyrics are very socially involved and politically involved. We do have a message, just to love and to have a good time. Like Bob Marley, he wrote a lot of politically conscious songs, but at the same time you can’t listen to a Bob Marley song without wanting to get up and dance and move around. People are going to take whatever they want, we’ve played shows where people have no connection to it at all. But we just want the ones that do to enjoy it.