Features

While the corporate record industry files lawsuits against 12-year-olds and Cal students for downloading music from the web, O-Maya, a group of former Berkeley and St. Mary’s high school students, offers their music for free on the Web and for sale on their debut CD this weekend. 

More than just a band, O-Maya is a Berkeley-based nine-man, one-woman musical aggregation that mixes up everything from classic Mexican corridos to funky Afro-American soul to contemporary hip hop—all with a big beat you can dance to and a message of anger, hope and inclusion. 

Thirty-four-year-old B. Quincy Griffin describes himself as the “old man of the group.” A Berkeley High graduate [class of 1987] with a shaved head, Griffin recently won the Sundance Audience Award for his musical score to the film “My Flesh and Blood” and was nominated for an Oscar for his score for “My Daughter From Danang.” 

When asked to define O-Maya’s sound, the band’s ringleader faltered. 

“It’s a real problem trying to label it,” Griffin said. “We came up with Afro-Latin-hip-hop but that just describes what it is. I would call it a certain type of fusion but everybody thinks of jazz-fusion when you use the word fusion. It’s a lot of different cultures coming together.” 

“I would describe it as a good time,” said lead vocalist Destani Wolf. “[It’s music that has] a spicy vibe, that has hip-hop, has the urban elements but still has a message. It’s just acknowledging the current situation. 

“How this country deals with the world. How this country deals with itself, with the righteousness of understanding what’s out there and what needs to be changed in our education system, police brutality, going out and attacking countries that get left with nothing. In the name of what?” 

Wolf, a 1994 Berkeley High graduate, earned her B.A. in music from San Francisco State. She spent four years recording three albums and touring the world with local a cappella group SoVoSo. 

“We did a show a week after Sept. 11 [two years ago] that was probably one of our most emotional shows to me,” said Wolf. 

“Within our music, within our lyrics you can’t avoid the realities. It’s not just an escape. It’s fun to just get away but it feels good to understand what’s real. People are feeling the hope, there’s an undercurrent of that.” 

One of the youngest members of the group is 23-year-old drummer Valentino Pelizzer. He and Wolf met at Berkeley High and played together in several local bands. 

After returning from a year at the New School for Social Research in New York, Pelizzer’s planning on continuing his education at San Francisco State. He credits his musical classes at Berkeley High [class of 1998] as inspirational and decries the current climate of cutbacks in arts education. 

“I was in the Berkeley High band ensemble for three years,” said the pony-tailed Pelizzer. “Any music program, not just Berkeley High, but any music program should be supported because it gives kids an outlet that they would otherwise not get, especially kids who don’t have instruments at home. 

“They could come to school and play and let out their emotions or whatever’s going on in their heads. Music is very healing. 

“Teaching them to read is important just like teaching mathematics is important, but what music does is it ties all that in,” Pelizzer continued. 

“It ties mathematics to a very real situation. Math sometimes tends to be kind of out there in equations and formulas and stuff. Music is very real and tangible. 

“You can touch it and it lasts. It’s reading, it’s not reading the English language but it’s reading a language. It also helps you to develop self-esteem as a child: I can do something that people like.” 

Steve Hogan, O-Maya’s bassist agreed. A former St. Mary’s High student, Hogan played with Bay Area hip-hop legends The Coup and Goapele, who’s debut album was just re-released by Sony. 

“Music takes people to a higher plane,” the 24-year-old UC graduate said. “ I like playing dance music because I like the energy you provide the dancers they provide put back to you. It’s sort of like this positive cycle that increases the energy level.  

O-Maya plays tonight at Jupiter in downtown Berkeley. Their CD Release Party is Saturday, Sept. 13 at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, and you can also hear them Sunday, Sept. 28 at the How Berkeley Can You Be Festival. 

On the Web: www.o-maya.com/.