SKA CUBANO*

"Our original first idea was to bring Cuban musicians to Europe to tour. But our thinking gradually changed and we decided that we didn't actually want a 100% Cuban sound. Natty and I knew most of the best Cuban, Jamaican and other Caribbean musicians in London and, we decided to form the band there with Beny commuting from Santiago to complete what had now become Ska Cubano. The line-up included Rey Crespo (a great bass player and old friend of mine who by then had relocated from Havana to London ); Jesus Cutino, a charismatic young tres player originally from Las Tunas; congalero Oreste Noda, recently arrived from Matanzas (the great centre of Afro-Cuban religion culture and drumming): Dr Sleepy (Reuben White), a veteran rock and reggae drummer originally from Montserrat, whose explosive energy supplies much of the insistent drive we needed, and legendary veteran trumpet player Eddi “Tan Tan” Thornton , joined to create an amazing Caribbean band.

The Ska Cubano line-up and our unique sound is therefore a fusion of different traditions: mambo from Beny; ska from Natty and Megumi; rumba from Noda; rock and reggae from Tan Tan and Sleepy; son from Rey and Jesus.

You can hear echoes of all of these rootstocks on different tracks but the fusion is taking us somewhere completely different as you can hear on the second album, !Ay Caramba!, which explores yet more Caribbean rootstocks. Natty and I share the same crazy, surreal sense of humour and Ska Cubano is always mainly going to be about having a huge amount of fun. "