Putumayo Presents - Music From the Chocolate Lands

In the spirit of the best-selling Music from the Coffee Lands, Music from the Chocolate Lands offers a rich selection of songs from the world's chocolate producing countries.
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.

Music from the Chocolate Lands features a selection of songs as distinctive as chocolate's history. This release includes music 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 is presented in English, French and Spanish and includes a recipe for a flourless chocolate torte and information on the history of chocolate around the world.