(from liner notes to “Negro and Robby at the Third World War):
I guess we could start tracing this music to Negro in Cuba in the early nineteen eighties, when, still a kid, he was arrested for playing Jack Bruce’s “Sunshine of Your Love” in Havana. Jack was thrilled, in fact, to find out about that music still being subversive somewhere in the world. But the deep subversive element of the story is also Negro defying rules and expectations and playing what he needed to play, in spite of the consequences. Given his intoxicatingly musical touch on the drums, Negro could get away with, and get into all kinds of subversive musical adventures (now, outside of Cuba, the adventure and chances, and their effect, are bigger), and the defiance is just a small part of his musical genius. His musical ideas are spectacular. And, of course, there’s more.
(full bio to follow)