7.

Mongo Santamaría – Skin On Skin: The Mongo Santamaría Anthology 1958 – 1995 This one is all about the conga patterns that Mongo Santamaría plays. The music is very chilled and again he’s someone that inspired me as a child and moved me as a child because of course my parents listened to it and my brother in law, that had the music collection, he would play that album too. I mean there’s ‘watermelon Man’; there’s some classic jazz songs on those records. I grew up in quite a musical household, there was a lot of traditional Cuban music for me to explore and I attribute that to my love of drums. I think it inspired me as a child – not just the rhythms but the energy they performed this music with I think is what inspired me in a lot of ways, and the passion with which they played the music. It was almost like saying something funny without a smile. When you say something and you say it with a smile it means a lot more, and you can hear it in a different way. When you perform music and you perform it with your heart, your soul and with all your passion it executes differently.