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  New York City, USA - Putumayo will release Music from the
Chocolate Lands on November 9, 2004. In the spirit of the best-selling
Music from the Coffee Lands (over 300,000 sold), Music from the Chocolate
Lands offers a rich selection of songs from the tropical countries that grow
cocoa beans as well as collaborations with musicians from the European regions
where chocolate-makers produce some of the world’s most appetizing chocolate
products.
Africa, the world’s leading producer of cocoa beans, is represented by Dobet
Gnahoré from the Ivory Coast and Toto Bona Lokua, a trio featuring artists from
Congo, Cameroon and the French Caribbean island of Martinique. Also from the
Caribbean are Haiti’s Beethova Obas, with “Rasanblé,” and the masterful Cuban
trumpet player Chocolate Armenteros, whose song “Chocolate Sabroso” (Tasty
Chocolate) is a perfect fit. Adrian Martínez and Andy Palacio, from the Central
American country of Belize, provide a previously unreleased track. The
collection also features songs by Ozomatli (USA/Mexico),
Susana
Baca (Peru), Marcantonio (Brazil),
Susheela Raman (India) and Teresa Bright (Hawaii). The Belgian group Think
of One teams up with Brazilian musicians to create a track that unites two
important chocolate producing countries. Taffetas provides another truly unique
collaboration, bringing together musicians from the West African country of
Guinea Bissau and Switzerland, the land where milk chocolate was invented.
Music from the Chocolate Lands liner notes will be presented in English, French
and Spanish and will include a recipe for a flourless chocolate torte and
information on the history of chocolate around the world [buy
the CD now].
Chocolate has been enjoyed for thousands of years. Used for medicinal and
religious purposes, as well as for pleasure, traces of this “food of the gods”
have been found in early Mayan pots dating back to 600 B.C.E. Europeans added
sugar to the exotic concoction, and the chocolate craze gradually spread
throughout the world. Now the cacao plant, which provides the raw cocoa beans
for chocolate, is farmed in tropical locations around the globe, often far away
from its Central and South American origins.
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