Ojos de Brujo

Ojos de Brujo ("Eyes of the Wizard") emerged from Barcelona's fertile musical underground in the middle of the 1990s with a unique fusion of traditional flamenco and rumba catalana with hip-hop breakbeats and other contemporary urban sounds. The collective effectively marries classic flamenco instrumentation – guitar, cajon, palmas – with turntables, percussion and the occasional human beatbox, to carve out a signature 21st century sound that's as unique as the city they call home.

The eight-person collective got its start in 1996, coming together to jam informally and find new ways to update Spain's beloved flamenco and rumba catalana for a generation raised on the Beastie Boys. Led by the twin flamenco guitars of Ramón Giménez and Paco Lomeña, the group always had a strong traditional grounding; but the hip-hop hijinx of DJ Panko and the fondness of percussionist Xavi Turull for everything from Indian tablas to North African dumbeks took the group into strange new places. Their debut album, Vengue (2000), was a hit in Spain, where their mix of tradition and innovation resonated amid economic boom times.

The group's follow-up album, 2002's Bari, was an even greater success; bringing the band international attention for the first time. The replacement of former singer Macaco with the fiery Mariana "Las Canillas" Abad, was a masterstroke. Abad's songwriting gifts, piercing voice and riveting stage presence made them irresistible, and the band's material took on a new, socially conscious tone. Though the album did extremely well in Europe – especially gratifying for an independent release on the group's own Fabrica de Colores label – and Ojos had become massively popular on the European festival circuit, the band had yet to crack the U.S.

In 2004, Bari was released in North America (with a remix album also released in the bargain), and the group toured extensively in support of the album, in both North and South America. That tour became the raw material for a documentary on the band released in 2005.

In 2006 ODB returned stronger than ever with Techari, an album that boasted a harder, more urban hip hop edge. – Tom Pryor