Omar Sosa
Sentir
Ota
It is a rare, beautiful thing to discover an artist with a unique vision and the talent to see it through. Cuban pianist/composer Omar Sosa is just such an artist. A musical Marcus Garvey or Kwame Nkrumah, Sosa is a jazz visionary with a strong penchant for Afrocentric unity. He masterfully takes Latin jazz and spreads it beautifully across the entire African Diaspora. His sound incorporates Yoruban orations, Gnawa chants, and spoken word with its American and Latin jazz bases. In any given song one can hear Sosa’s exquisite piano, batas and bongos, djembes, Moroccan violins, ouds, guiros, didgeridoos, bells, and even ashtrays along with lyrics in Spanish, Yoruba, Arara, Arabic, and English. However, this cultural collage is anything but chaos. Sosa weaves all of these disparate influences into a cohesive whole that simply marvels. Sentir is Sosa’s eighth album, and definitely one of the best albums of this year. It’s a beautiful, melodic masterwork of pure poetry. This is music to contemplate and revel in. I cannot recommend this album, this artist, strongly enough.
