U.S. State Department’s New Cultural Ambassadors: Ozomatli

Never mind that members of the Los Angeles-based Latin-funk-rock band Ozomatli oppose just about everything the Bush administration stands for. At the behest of the U.S. State Department, they’re touring the Middle East and beyond, from Jordan and Egypt to India and Nepal, as cultural ambassadors. “Our world standing has deteriorated,” saxophonist Ulises Bella told the Los Angeles Times. “I’m totally willing and wanting to give a different image of America than America has given over the last five years.”

Heading…

Ozomatli is traveling in the footsteps of some great musicians. As the Times puts it:

During the Cold War, the State Department recruited jazz musicians as cultural emissaries. Mostly African Americans, who faced discrimination at home, musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Charles Mingus and Ornette Coleman were “jazz ambassadors,” playing gigs bankrolled by the U.S. government all over the world, including Communist countries. Such cultural outreach faded over the decades but has been revived in recent years by Karen Hughes, the U.S. undersecretary of State for public diplomacy. Last year, the Washington, D.C., hip-hop quartet Opus Akoben toured Cairo and other places in the Middle East.

Never heard of Ozomatli?

They have a rabid following in Los Angeles and a distinct sound, which band members recently described this way: “You drive down Sunset Boulevard and turn off your stereo and roll down your windows and all the music that comes out of each and every different car, whether it’s salsa, cumbia, meringue, or hip hop, funk or whatever, it’s that crazy blend that’s going on between that cacophony of sound that is Ozomatli.”

A lovely description, I think.

Their Web site is Ozomatli.com.