Brother Roots is a Florida band. We make no bones about it. But we do take exception to the stereotype of what being a band from Florida has become. Our vision is to put forth a new model of what the sound, the culture, the ideology of our contemporary musical world is really about. We are a group of musicians who have lived and grown up here and who have been part of Florida’s music scene for many years. Our musical roots are as rich and varied and the natural landscape once was—a mix of Afro-Caribbean rumba and reggae, blues and jazz, and good ole American pop. Rather than homogenizing everything into a bland generic blend of ingredients, we have tried to maintain the integrity of our musical influences and instead, juxtapose them in a sort of patchwork musical neighborhood.

The impetus for forming Brother Roots and recording this CD came, at least in part, from our frustration with the increasingly conservative, close-minded attitude of our audiences. We’ve seen a trend toward rejection of any original music, especially if it has unfamiliar rhythms or lyrics about consciousness. People still want to cling to the false security of “Cheeseburger in Paradise” and “Every Little Thing’s Gonna Be Alright,” but the world has changed radically since the 70s. While we’ve been wasting away in Margaritaville, corporate America has been busy transforming Florida into a cultural gated-community. You can see it in our environment. Just take a drive and look at how big money has turned much of Florida’s old-growth forests, wetlands, and few undeveloped beaches into sprawling golf-course communities and luxury condos that serve only a special segment of the population.

This thoughtless destruction of Florida’s land by greedy developers symbolically represents what is happening to our music and other forms of cultural expression, as well.

There is a wealth of regional talent and creativity in the Sunshine State that often goes overlooked because it doesn’t serve corporate interests. In our tourism-based economy, most people would rather bask in the sun than concern themselves with immigration problems in Miami or the plight of migrant-workers in the Panhandle. Much of the popular music—the “happy” sounds associated with Florida such as Buffett, Miami Sound Machine, or the various “boy bands”—serves as an opiate for the anglo masses taking comfort in an illusion of paradise that differs markedly from the culturally diverse, economically and environmentally challenged reality of Florida.

Songs