Ozain Mystery of the Congo and Yoruba
I was born at Marianna hospital in the Bronx New York. At the age of 13 I began learning martial arts, and became a black belt. My brother Seth Canty had a dance company where they did African dance, and I would heat the drums with sterno to change the tone of the drums. I began learning how to play the drums and other accompanying instruments. I went to William Howard Taft high school where I studied music. I graduated in the year of 1969. After enlisting in the army I returned from Viet Nam in 1973. I started learning more drumming from Richard Landrum, Papiro Allende, and Baba Femi Akinlana. After studying at the Jazz mobile for some years, I decided to come to California to go to college to study dance and music. While working at Rwanda Lewis Dance Company with some great drummers I was introduced to the practice here in California by Akin Dosu Davis. From that time my life has changed to who I am now. I have been practicing various forms of ethnic practices from Africa and have found with my practice and travels to West Africa many times I find that one must find his or her way in this life and the things that make you happy. I learned to speak and translate Spanish on my own and conversate with other Spanish speaking groups. I am Caribbean born in New York but my roots are from West Africa Senegal. While studying this belief system performing with different African companies from Senegal as well as Nigerian, Haitian I feel with my observation for some 34 years of the African belief systems that I can give an insight to the practice and study of the material within.