NEW Music from TapRoots!

TapRoots' new album, The Resonance Within, is finished and is ready to release into the world! It has been over 2 years that the first COVID lockdown afforded me the opportunity to write some new songs, the results of which have been curated into this sophomore LP. It builds upon the foundation that the original laid and shoots it into the stratosphere! While the first LP was originally conceived as a random assortment of songs that I would be playing all of the instruments on (it didn't work out that way ... IT TAKES A VILLAGE!), this batch of music was written with the TapRoots band in mind: filled with layered harmonies, pulsing rhythms, musical motifs and grooves from around the world, and blazing horn lines, this album takes you on a journey into the heart of the TapRoot, and stimulates the mind, body and spirit in new and exciting ways. It will be released on all platforms on March 20 (bringing balance on the Equinox!)

Leading up to this date, there will be a couple of singles, released to whet the appetite and join the first single, Song for the Ocean, as a vision of things to come!

First on this list is the album's title track, Resonance, which just came out YESTERDAY! This is a song that came to me while meditating on a painting that hangs in my house by the immensely talented Martin Bridge, and eventually was transformed into the cover art for this album. It depicts a giant tree playing the Earth like a drum, and looking at it, I remember thinking, if this painting was a song, what would it sound like? What would that song be about? I recalled teaching about how our own bodies are resonant chambers, much like that of a drum, and that in many traditions, drums themselves are just physical forms within which dwell ancestral spirits. In many ways, this song is about how we are all connected, in community with each other, and how we are all just resonant instruments to be played by spirit. It is a celebration of that spirit that TapRoots seeks to embody. The end of the song is a pure Timba jubilation, and an expression of the community of both spirit and people that is created when we all come together in ceremony and celebration.

Next up, available on Feb 17, is the funky tribute to New Orleans, Gumbo! Over the years people have often asked me … what kind of music do you play? Is it Latin funk? Global fusion? Orisha rock? Reggaefied Jazz? It doesn’t fit any one box and is sometimes passed by as a result of people not knowing how to talk about it and understand it. Truthfully, it is all these things and more. As an artist, and generally in my life, I have always been drawn to braiding together disparate threats of culture, cuisine, song, spirit and community. Gumbo seemed an apt metaphor for a way of life that celebrates the diversity around us and mixes it all together into a cohesive and tasty stew of influences and flavors. Add to these flavors the tasty wordsmithing of rap virtuosos Garrick "Force" Perry and Eraun "Caqtalyst" Dugger, who bring the special spice of their PG County origins to the Go-Go breakdown, and this celebration goes to the next level! Music and art always find the pathways through difference that connect us all together, and this song celebrates the ways that those differences can be seen as beautiful, and that out of them can come an inclusive whole.

With all of this great new music in the world, you can all look for TapRoots live show to come to a venue near you this Summer. Help spread the word and stay in touch! Let us know what you think of these new songs and I'll see you out there dancing to them sometime soon!