Roots and Wisdom - Bicycles For Rastas Mayas

Artist: Roots and Wisdom

Album: Bicycles For Rastas Mayas

Real authentic African music, worldbeat and roots reggae. Some tracks recorded in Spanish with a latin twist for the dance oriented listeners. Music dedicated to the sprit of volunteerism around the world....

If you think you have tried all that is around in world music and reggae, do not stop yet until you listen to this cd from Roots And Wisdom. This cd is highly recomended for it's variety of sounds that is never boring. It is as if you are listening to your own very special radio program.

The seeds were planted for ROOTS AND WISDOM music in Nigeria West Africa, where Wisdom Ogbor was born and where he began early in his life to lead singing groups in his schools' cultural and religious festivities. According to Wisdom, songs began to form in his head in those early childhood days, and the presence of the songs inside his being always moved him to search for forums to present the songs.

It came to pass that when Wisdom's parents sent him to study in a university in the United States of America , Wisdom became heavily influenced by access to music from all over the world which competed for listenership in the USA . In New York City and Washington DC , Wisdom began collaborating and writing music with African American musicians, Brazilians, Jamaicans, Cubans and African musicians who came for summer tours in the United States . A stint as a Disc Jockey on a popular Dallas Texas radio station raised people's confidence in Wisdom and he began getting booked in local venues with his own band. He toured all over the USA and settled in Austin Texas, where he became involved with bicycle activism.

Wisdom's bicycle projects took him to Mexico and Central America in late 1999 as the head of a group that transported more than 100 bicycles for use in poor communities there in the so called La Ruta Maya. He took along with him his guitar and tapes of his old music which were recorded in Africa, in Ghana and Nigeria , and also in the United States . In Mexico people quickly took a liking to Wisdom`s music and musicians there readily gave their support to him to play his music and show him a true Mexican hospitality. That experience encouraged Wisdom to write several songs in Spanish which appeared on the CD BICYCLES FOR RASTAS MAYAS. He also writes and sings in two Nigerian languages, (Ibo and Yoruba), and in English.

Wisdom's band ROOTS AND WISDOM plays in the tourist zones of Mexico, in Central America, and in the United States of America . In Mexico and Central America , the group is well tested with the presence of international tourists from all over the world who regularly party with ROOTS AND WISDOM and take the music home with them to their different parts of the world.

A friend with a recording studio in San Cristobal de Las Casas in Chiapas Mexico , gave Wisdom cheap studio time and together with other musician friends from the USA , Haiti , Mexico and Europe, they began recording new songs from the " Latin America Experience". These songs, with old music which were recorded in Africa and in the USA , were remixed to make this CD, BICYCLES FOR RASTAS MAYAS (From Africa to the Land of the Mayas).

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