“Always a man boy / A Man Boy Brown /He’s just a man boy / Forever in his crown” 

Man Boy Brown is the alter ego of Raul Pacheco, the vocalist/guitarist/songwriter and co-founding member of the three-time Grammy-winning L.A. musical mainstay Ozomatli. His first-ever solo album offers a playful take on the eternal adolescence he’s enjoyed since forming the groundbreaking, multicultural group 30 years ago. 

At once steeped in the roots of romantic Latin ballads and Mexican corridos with sparing arrangements that allow the songs to breathe and resonate, Pacheco’s Man Boy Brown offers the perspective of a musician looking back on three decades, but also to what lies ahead. 

The first single, “Moving On,” coming after Ozomatli’s last album, 2022’s Marching On, is a declaration of both independence and commitment to making new music with strong messages of community and solidarity. “Are you ready to move on/From glory days and same old songs,” sings Pacheco in his warm, inviting baritone – he suggests a nod to Jackson Browne’s “Jamaica Say You Will” -- signaling his desire to forge his own artistic identity as Man Boy Brown while continuing to tour with his longtime Ozomatli bandmates. 

“We’re still together, but we are at a different place,” he explained. “I’m choosing to move on and be more prolific because I have the time to do it. But the song can be interpreted in many ways. I’m at the age where, if I don’t do this now, I might never do it. I want to delve into all the things I love musically.” 

Pacheco approached a typically diverse group of collaborators, including a Brazilian rhythm section consisting of bassist Andre de Sant’anna and percussionist Leonardo Costa, as well as Israeli keyboardist Mandelman Daniel Kaplan, who share co-writing credits on four of the tracks. 

“There’s a quality of my own musical style, which is melodic, that prefers a little more space in the arrangements,” he explained, giving demos of the songs to the three and letting them choose the ones they wanted to record.  

“Dulce Cancion” (“Sweet Song”) features a bass note intro reminiscent of “Stand by Me” and a pumping organ for an old-school Spanish language bolero with yearning vocals from Pacheco’s musical alias gazing at the clouds, remembering stolen moments together. The song grew out of an incidental snippet that Raul first created for a film of a tune wafting from a radio in the background, expanding it into this full piece, which he calls “a Linda Ronstadt country vibe crossed with Eydie Gorme & Trios Los Panchos.” 

“This was my way of taking a break from all the chaos of politics,” admitted Pacheco about stepping away from Ozomatli’s own social activism on these songs. “It’s more about what all of us go through, the desire for ascendance, connection, growth, the ability to give and receive love, which is something I had to learn to get better at.” 

Going back to his youth, listening to his parents’ traditional records as well as his older sisters’ rock music, was one of the inspirations for the new album’s eclectic style.  

“Give me medicine of dance all day/Take it to the night away,” he sings in the bouncy, rhythmic “Golden Ride,” the swirling, bubbly synths a nod to ‘70s disco and R&B groups like Silver Convention and Andrea True. “That’s what a song is for me, a golden ride,” Pacheco pointed out. “This is kind of a mellow Euro take on that kind of music.” 

The romantic fantasy “The Word,” with its reference to Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, has a slow-burning sensuality, like the Bolero, the sexual tension almost palpable. “I wrote it during the pandemic, when I had just met someone, and she moved in right away, but it didn’t work out,” he said, “The song is about me writing this story from the beginning as I go, and who knows where it ends?”  

In the semi-autobiographical “Man Boy Brown,” Pacheco admits to still being child-like while maintaining the kind of innocence that keeps the creative fires burning. “The kid behind sprinkles of grey/Charming with nothing left to say/About love that’s never found/No reason to be bound.”  

“I’m saying it’s OK not to be in a relationship, to be alone,” he said. “How do you embrace that and not see it as a negative? You still need to maintain that youthful outlook. To me, this song is confessional, like John Lennon or Tom Petty.” 

An ominous piano and horn opens “Twice,” a song about looking back on one’s life and wondering what they left behind to better the world. “Once your sun dimmers and falls/The movie starts, remember it all/Like a history that is told/Was it meek or was it bold?” 

“This is a reflective song along the lines of the Allman Brothers or the Grateful Dead,” said Raul. “There’s a jam band element to it.” 

Dividing his time between an adobe home in New Mexico and a new one back in his hometown of Boyle Heights in East L.A., Raul Pacheco is ready to embrace his inner Man Boy Brown as he continues to work his “day job” with Ozomatli. 

“It’s interesting to me because I’m around all these things I grew up around,” he said about returning to his birthplace. “The park where I learned to play baseball, the church where I had my first holy communion, the house I grew up in, where my niece lives.  I ran into a high school classmate at the coffee shop. I’m proud of where I come from, but I’m also a man of the world.” 

 “I feel like I haven’t peaked yet... The best is yet to come.” 

For Raul Pacheco, the Golden Ride continues with Man Boy Brown. He’s moving on without ever leaving home.