Let’s talk about Libérame—our slow-burning, rhythm-forward meditation on freedom.
We wrote this song as a kind of offering. A letting go. A spiritual breath. It’s about liberation in every sense—personal, collective, musical. But what makes this track move isn’t just the message. It’s the rhythm.
Now, when we say Mozambique, we don’t mean the country on the southeastern coast of Africa—though the African diaspora runs through every note of this music. We’re talking about the Mozambique rhythm, a distinct Afro-Cuban groove that emerged in the early 1960s from the brilliant percussionist Pello el Afrokán. He took the drumming traditions of the conga comparsa—those street processions that light up Cuban carnival—and merged them with popular dance forms to create something completely new. It was raw. Bold. Urban. Political.
Later, in the hands of Latin jazz giants like Eddie Palmieri, the Mozambique became something else entirely: a rhythmic engine for jazz and salsa fusion. Palmieri electrified it—layering brass, piano montunos, and complex harmonies over a groove that never lost its street-born swagger.
That’s the lineage we stepped into with Libérame. But we also wanted to flip it.
Live, we usually play Mozambique fast. It drives. Audiences move. The rhythm is undeniable. But for the album, we slowed it way down. Osman said: “Let’s find the depth inside it.” So we sat with the groove. Let the cowbell speak. Let the congas breathe. Added synths that stretch like space dust. Wah-wah guitars like ripples in the dark. It’s still Mozambique, but warped into something cosmic.
It became almost meditative. A ritual in funk time.
We weren’t just trying to rework a traditional form. We were trying to listen to it—really listen—and ask what it could still reveal. In its slowness, Mozambique started to sound like longing. Like asking for room to transform.
That’s Libérame.
That’s what we hope you feel.
💬 Tell us—what did you hear in the rhythm?
—Setenta