World Music - 4CDMusic.com - Our Life is Music

Born in the village of Minta in East Cameroon, Richard Bona grew up in a home filled with music.

At the tender age of five, he started performing in public singing in the village church with his mother and four sisters.  After moving from Cameroon to Paris and finally to New York in 1995, Bona became one of the most in-demand collaborators on the international Jazz scene, working with a remarkable array of artists, such as Paul Simon, Harry Belafonte, Chaka Khan, Queen Latifah, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Salif Keita, Kazumi, Branford Marsalis, David Sanborn, Regina Carter, Bobby McFerrin and Randy Brecker to name a few.

Bona s unique style incorporates influences from the around the world.

His first three solo albums, Scenes From My Life (1998), Reverence (2001), and Munia (2003) revealed a wonderful storyteller, a surprising musician, and a spellbinding vocalist. Billboard was quoted as saying Bona is tremendously appealing and the Los Angeles Times made note of his utter musical fearlessness. Newsweek thought his songs had irresistible hooks and of his live shows The Washington Post mused; Bona s angelic voice stopped conversation cold and his acoustic guitar solos were the essence of beauty.

  With his new recording, Tiki, he continues to give the listeners the full magnitude of his exceptional talents in a way that combines clarity with a sense of candor towards the diverse nature of our world today.  He manages to do this all through his music while inspiring the listener along the way.

Tiki was a labor of love for Bona who was surrounded by old collaborators ATN Stadwijk (keyboards) and Vinnie Colauita (drums) as well as some exceptional guest artists including Susheela Raman, Djavan, Mike Stern and Gil Goldstein.

  The album was an outlet for Bona to write of his homeland, Africa- a land full of myths and intimacy. This smorgasbord of an album takes the listener on a journey from his African roots with the lovely nursery rhyme Ida Bato, to the jazzy ballad Esoka Bulu and on to Brazil with the samba Akwa samba Yaya.   Tiki, without a doubt, is an album of beginnings, growth and maturity.

The end result is a collection of music that could be the soundtrack to the lives of all mankind.  Look for Richard Bona to perform selections from Tiki at Joe s Pub in New York City September 6th at 7PM with more tour dates listed below.

Recorded in their monastery during ten hours of consecutive chanting, My Spirit Flies To You was initially released on Vale Music in Spain to critical acclaim and quickly reached Platinum status.

The album fuses Zen-like mantras and chants with pure energy and eclectic beats that provide global appeal. The CD s first single of the same name reached number one on the iTunes chart in Spain.

The mantras on the album are mystic phrases or sentences which, when recited, connect one s being with a particular energy, or with an aspect of the perfect mind-the Buddhist mind.

The power of the mantra leads us to higher states of consciousness, bringing us closer to experiencing inner states of plenitude that we can share with our immediate surroundings in order to spread true happiness. Such happiness does not depend on any external factor, and therefore cannot be destroyed by anything or anybody; the Tibetan term for mantra roughly translates to protection of the mind.

The monks recite the Vajrasattva mantra as a means of facilitating purification.

The Buddhists of Sakya Tashi Ling believe that the practices of purification are themselves a direct commitment to happiness; they are to heal, to promote the end of a negative presence in order that a new and more perfect, positive disposition may emerge. Repentance is good only if it makes you change, from a chaotic attitude with negative results to a focused willingness aiming at positive effects. Becoming aware of one s errors is, in reality, to grow.

On Secret Energy, the White Tara mantra develops the feminine aspect that cares for beings so that their health may be strong and enduring, and that they may overcome any kind of impediment to longevity. It is an injection of vitality, of joy, of stability and of

growth. The sound of the recitation of this mantra causes the mind to enter into an alert and vital state that enables it to overcome the deficiencies caused by the wear and depletion experienced by any growing being.

It is like a pure white light that re-establishes and regenerates our entire being cell by cell, organ by organ, thought by thought. It connects us with what we are; from there, we can recover all that we have lost.

Lotus Sunset, the album s final track, envelopes the listener in the mantra of Universal Compassion, causing each cell in his body to rejoice in the sensation of being completely impregnated by personal and limitless intercommunication with the energy that makes the great beings of humanity mobilize and act.

All suffering is relieved by bathing in the energy of Compassion, and he who knows it and learns to develop it firstly for himself is subsequently capable of mobilizing it for the good of other beings.

The Sakya Tashi Ling community channels a great part of its energy and resources into the promotion of social and humanitarian projects and cultural activities. One of the monastery s main functions is to extend positive energy, and to help people rid themselves of negative energy.

In order to achieve this objective, they teach their students the value of spiritual tools such as meditation, prayer, ritual, karma yoga, and community work.

Now the secretarial member of the Spanish Federation of Buddhist Communities and a member of the European Buddhist Union, the Sakya Tashi Ling Monastery operates under the spiritual protection of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and with the authority of His Holiness Sakya Trizin. With many centers across Spain and in South America, the Sakya Tashi Ling teach courses in meditation at different levels and offer retreats to cultural associations, companies, and schools.

The Honorable Dalai Lama has acknowledged the success of the record and has sent word of congratulations to the Lama Jamyang Tashi Dorie and the Sakya Tashi Ling Community. All of the album s profits will go toward the community s social and cultural projects, guided by the Foundation for the Preservation of Inner Values.