On Place in the Sun, the eighth album from LA Latino funk collective Ozomatli, the band eschews its grittier, politically charged earlier ethos in favor of a more pop sound. While this critic has missed most of the last few Ozomatli albums, so it’s unclear if this is a completely new development, but it’s really surprising at how poppy their sound had become over the decade.

The fact that Ozomatli has been making music for this long is an accomplishment in itself and a testament to the commitment of their fan base, driven in large part by the radioactive energy of their live performance. I had a chance to see Ozomatli rock a crowd of about a thousand mostly white, middle aged beach folk down in Florida over a decade ago. Proving their chops more than any album ever could is their ability to connect with seemingly polar opposites through the diplomacy of funk. I got into Ozomatli because I was into DJing, funk music, and anything by Cut Chemist.

After only the first album their material departed from hip-hop infused beats provided by the Jurassic 5 co-founder, to the point where now the presence of the DJ is unheard on this album. That’s not good or bad, just an observation. Hopefully they still at least have a DJ in their live shows, as this was one of the major things that sparked a lot of people’s interest in them in the first place.

What’s up for debate is the quality of this record, and overall, as an album, it is bad. From a fan’s perspective, this is difficult to say, as both their live show and some of their older material is amazing. The first five tracks on this album feel like the members were trying in earnest to write the most amazing pop song for every style of music they could play. Batucada? Check. Electro? Check. Pop Rock? Check. Reggae primed for the nearest Sandals resort? Check. Slow-jam Salsa? You get the picture.

It’s clear that the members of this band are all very polished musicians by this point. The production sounds like something you would hear on a Black Eyed Peas album half of the time, and maybe a Jason Mraz album the rest. The album does get a bit better in the second half with “Burn it Down”, and “Tus Ojos”, the best song on the album. But there the goodness ends, and the songs sway too far into campy cheeseland for this critic’s tastes. I was hoping to hear something new and fresh with this album, but instead got something I may appreciate when I too own a seaworthy vessel and want to get groovy with the latin funk music. Perhaps.

But Ozomatli isn’t a hip-hop band; it’s a latin-funk-hip-hop hybrid, talking loud with the voices of the urban community with incredibly catchy, but paradoxically subtle, fight music. While at surface value, the band’s up-tempo party rhythms may seem like nothing more than the margarita soaked soundtrack to Cinco de Mayo, there is a deeper message within the lyrics. While happy gringos may be getting smashed to the sounds of “Guerrillero”, the irony is that Ozomatli comes with the illest of subliminals – fighting the powers that be, en espanol.

What attracts the hip-hop crowd to Ozomatli is its strong political ideals, the same that groups such as Public Enemy or Boogie Down Productions have shared in the past – not to mention the strong hip-hop influence that is prevalent in their music. While Ozo’s Spanish dialect may obviously alienate some listeners, the group’s resident emcee, Kanetic Source, (like Chali 2na before him), translates their messages into perfect ebonics, best evidenced on “Dos Cosas Ciertas”, a passionate anthem that breaks down into a junglist rhythm for a verse of Kanetic’s inspirational and uprising rhymes. While Kanetic is a worthy enough emcee to take the place of Chali 2na, Ozo has intelligently used their newfound clout to bring in some bigger names to keep the attention of fickle hip-hop fans, such as Common adding his own lines of freedom to album’s most important song, “Embrace The Chaos”. Meanwhile, De La Soul, Medusa, and Black Eyed Peas each turn in verses for more light-hearted party-starters such as “1, 2, 3, 4″ and “Vocal Artillery”.

While Cut Chemist, as well as the presence of an incredible DJ is missed (hint: get DJ Revolution to fill in), Ozomatli’s Embrace The Chaos picks up right where their debut album left off. Ozo is much more than the next band to emerge from pop music’s so-called “latin invasion”, they’re a political staple of streets of Los Angeles, that fuses the plight of inner city life into the music of revolution. Some hip-hop heads may initially be afraid to delve into what may haphazardly be defined as a Latin salsa band, but as appearances from their favorite emcees reel them in, they’ll be singing along to “Pa Lante” and “Suenos en Realidad” before they know it. No matter if you consider yourself an aficionado of Latin music, hip-hop, or just a fan of music itself, the best course of action is to simply check Ozomatli out; you’ll soon be passing it to a friend.