Drew Gonsalves' brainchild, Independence, has many shining points, even though I was apprehensive to listen to the album from the beginning for fear of hearing the same dub style of the previous year. Diaphragmatic diatribes, melodic firepower and smooth beach acoustic make this record a wholly unique dub/reggae album. This album definitely tackles a new theme outside of the normal subject matter of reggae by mixing so many elements of early Trinidad Calypso, Jamaican Mento, Brazillian Forro and Columbian and Haitian Kompa. Independence is very organic in nature, using every instrument Drew Gonsalves could find for his live performance band, he then added the components to fit in the last piece of the puzzle. The result is a collection of songs that sound warm and human. I was surprisingly impressed.

Toronto-based reggae-calypso band Kobo Town, brainchild of Trinidadian singer, songwriter and bandleader Drew Gonsalves, is named for the old Port-of-Spain neighborhood that birthed traditional calypso. Though the band's sound is best described as pan-Caribbean, its inspiration and subject matter have firm roots in the history of Gonsalves's native land, of whose turbulent history he speaks with poetic specificity and force.

In "Trinity" he looks down on the land from an airplane: "Her clothes were torn, and her shirt was all tattered/Her eyes downcast, every hope and joy scattered/Dream of my past, bright memory shattered/but I adore her still 'cause I know that all that don't matter." In other songs ("Abatina," "Beautiful Soul") he focusses closer in, examining the lives of individuals. And in "Blood and Fire" he casts his eye on the wider stage of the whole suffering world: "From Gaza to Jaffna, blood and fire/Soweto to Rio, blood and fire...What must fall to be free, blood and fire."

But Gonsalves and his able eight-piece band couch the messages in bouncing beats that elevate the spirit. Flute and violin lines slither through the clever arrangements; Gonsalves himself handles the guitar and cuatro; and Kellylee Evans contributes some laserlike guest vocals. Fans of Caribbean music, world music in general, and meaningful songwriting should grab this CD when it's released next month - it's a beauty.

Intoxicating calypso rhythms held straight with a reggae backbone is the best way to describe this Toronto based group's sound. Incorporating instruments like the flute, quatro, violin, saxophone and Indian hand drums, Kobo Town have created their own sound that glides on a musical wave.

Set against a backdrop of social want and need, the sense of urgency heard here makes you want to stand up and be heard. Songs of pride, hope, and an ability to see beauty in troubled times. "Independence" shows how music can be the voice of the people and that the message always rises from ashes. One of the most beautifully intelligent releases...ever!

Independence is one of those rare records that you will encourage everyone in your vicinity to get. Merging calypso, roots reggae, acoustic performance, dub studio techniques and Trinidadian/Jamaican cultures, Kobo Town is a unique, stylistic, transnational composite of rhythm, poetry and activist journalism. Like the great Calypsonians of his birthplace in Port-of-Spain (Lord Kitchener, the Mighty Sparrow), Toronto-based songwriter Drew Gonsalves constructs incisive social commentary with humour, panache and unforgettable rhythm/melody combinations. Take the jumpy, Carnival-ready "Trinity," or the moody tale of murder and deception, "Abatina”," which are songs of dense graphic and musical description, and cut bone deep into the listener's subconscious. Likewise, the dancehall-inspired "Across the Dark Waters" and the lazy Kingston skank of "At the Edge of the City" fuse inter-Caribbean sounds, histories and moods in an altogether formidable package. Independence is somewhat of a concept album, recorded between Trinidad and Ontario, of a diasporic son coming to terms with the home country and falling in love with it all over again through the eyes of his new home. Don't be surprised if you too fall in love with Kobo Town.

What does the name Kobo Town signify? Drew Gonsalves: I named the project Kobo Town as a tribute to the place that helped give birth to calypso. It was the centre for the stick fighting art called Kalenda and there was a lot of rhythm and singing involved while people were jumping around and beating each other up. Calypso grew out of the boastful taunts that people used to sing around the circle of stick fighters.

Do Calypso fans tend to be purists? Well, you find a lot of people that would call themselves Calypso purists have made a peace with the drum machine I could never make! Our fan base is really mixed actually. I'd say about half is West Indian, but we also have college students, the world music crowd and the reggae audience.

Can you tell me a bit about your approach to writing lyrics? One of the things I try to do in my own songwriting is to engage [the] imagination by building songs on stories and/or images. Politically conscious music often gets tied down into abstract phrases and words. Like, for example, what does liberty mean? It could mean a hundred things to different people. The best way to relay a message is to tell a story or present somebody with an image. It is something they can smell, taste and imagine.

A band like Kobo Town - diasporic, multi-ethnic, genre-straddling - would always have been a source of bewilderment to marketing executives in what you might call the "1.0" version of the music industry. How, where, to whom, would one sell them? The answer to that question, in the age of the Internet, is, of course: to anybody and everybody on the World Wide Web. Kobo Town is one of several emerging - and, more often than not, young - groups and artists from the Caribbean who have embraced the opportunities of the Internet, thereby dispensing with the need for the traditional structures which probably wouldn't have paid them much attention anyway. Their web site, kobotown.com, re-directs to their page at MySpace (the social networking site which has become a sine qua non for independent bands and artists), which features a prominent link to their page at the well-regarded world music download site Calabash Music, along with full-length music samples (for your pre-purchase listening pleasure).

Kobo Town is led by Drew Gonsalves, a Trinidadian transplanted to Canada, and comprises an assortment of his fellow diasporians from Trinidad, Jamaica, and Cuba. The tracks on Independence alternate between uptown-style roots reggae and old-time kaiso layered with light punk and blues rhythms, with Gonsalves's social commentary texts and twenty-first-century kaiso narratives in the foreground.

International fusion music can be a gaping hole in the walls many a well-rounded music collection. Here to fill in the gap between established favorites like Bob Marley and the Wailers and Wyclef is Kobo Town, a collection of incredibly talented musicians from Trinidad and Tobago making their current home in Ontario, Canada. These polished professionals bring an album to the table that not only possesses superior lyrics but infectious calypso/reggae beats that will have you shaking your shins and jumping up for an impromptu dance no matter where your cubicle may be located.

The album is presented as an exploration into the 'independence experiment' of Trinidad and Tobago in the West Indies. With a great deal of love, as well as a soupcon of irony, the group examines the culture, rhythms, and history of the nation. 'Abatina' discusses the horrors of a marriage ending in abuse and death, 'At The Edges' life on the margins of a city, 'Blood and Fire' the horrors and excitement of a city rioting for justice. This album is a powerful statement of the personal experiences of the band members in a society still adjusting to freedom and self-rule, and done in a way which celebrates the unique joy, organic growth, and tremendous beauty of Trinidad's musical and cultural eclecticism.

I sought out this CD on a whim, having read a positive review elsewhere. I expected it to at least be pretty good and am instead pleased to report it's well into the realm of great. A mixture of calypso, reggae and Latin rhythms, the music of Toronto-based Kobo Town scores high marks not only for infectious grooves but for lyrics that are unfailingly both conscientious and clever.

Lead singer/guitarist/composer Drew Gonsalves hails from Trinidad and uses his homeland's 45 years of independence as a jumping-off point for these songs that lash out against oppression and materialism while uplifting self-worth and spirituality.

Gonsalves has a deftly engaging, Caribbean-accented voice that fills every rhythm and rhyme full of urgent yet whimsical energy, riding his band's swinging foundation of bass, drums, percussion, flute, soprano sax, trumpet and violin with graceful conviction.

I'll not bother with descriptions of specific songs 'cause they're all beauties. This disc would likely have made my Top 10 of 2006 had I known about it at the time, so I'll now make up for any oversight by saying that Independence will stir your soul, warm your heart, free your mind and render your body unable to keep still. Kobo Town deserve to be the talk of the town.

The members of Kobo Town are a complete cross-section of the Caribbean islands where their musical influences stem from-composed of Trinidadians, a Cuban and a Jamaican (as well as a few Canadians), the group fluidly meshes their West Indian roots to form a new reggae/calypso carnival party. Bandleader and lead vocalist Drew Gonsalves has a perfect reggae voice (more authentic and passionate than either Mishka or Matisyahu), and the group's lyrics tackle Trinidad's turbulent past and present-a subject he's experienced firsthand. Taking cues from Jamaican mento, reggae, and calypso (which was born in Kobo Town, Trinidad), Independence is packed with traditional instrumentation and a joyous vibe. "Sing Out, Shout Out," "Corbeaux Following" and "Blood And Fire" are the key tracks, mixing inventive horns, congas, cuatro and contrabass, led by Gonsalves' energetic and smooth patois.

Luminato Festival, Lula Libre Stage, Distillery District. Toronto

On a beautiful warm spring night on an open-air sound stage in the heart of Toronto's beautiful Distillery District - this is the way to see Kobo Town. The occasion was Luminato, the Toronto festival of arts and creativity. It was there, between the historic buildings, at the end of the big cobblestone road, that Kobo Town seemed larger than life.

The band executed their unique blend of Calypso, roots reggae and a splash of jazz with effortless precision. The crowd was receptive and appreciative. During their first song a two-year-old baby danced a solo game of Ring around the rosie on the riser in front of the stage, entertaining the audience and causing guitarist Cesco Emmanuel to crack a smile. Soon that solo baby would turn into a mob of dancers.

A quartet of young teenage female hip-hop dancers popped and locked amongst the other Kobo Town revellers as the band delivered crowd pleasers from their Independence album, which was released late in 2006, as well as many bonus songs. The violin solo from "Abatina", which had turned into a Linsey Wellman flute solo at the Independence album release party, this time became a dramatic guitar solo by virtuoso Cesco Emmanuel.

A couple of pulsing conga solos by Derek Thorne had the crowd cheering. Bassist Roger Williams laid down thick bottoms as drummer Robert Millicevic kept precision time. In between gifting us with his melodic poetry, bandleader Drew Gonsalves volleyed festive rhythm riffs on his acoustic guitar.

The sounds all came together beautifully, the five men on stage each bringing a unique style that came together to create lush, exotic kaiso music. The large crowd that came out to enjoy the band received a real gift this night. The dancers got a glorious workout. One fan in the audience held up a large homemade Bristol board sign that summed it all up nicely: Kobo Town Rocks!