Bobby Oroza is a Helsinki, Finland-born and-based, Bolivian-Finnish singer/songwriter, producer and percussionist, who was raised by a family of musicians and artists. And as a result, a young Oroza was exposed to a wide range of music. Family parties and get togethers frequently featured his Bolivian-born grandfather playing Latin and Cuban classics on his guitar or his parents playing album from their eclectic and diverse record collection, a collection that included early jazz and blues, Motown, gospel, doo-wop, soul, as well as Brazilian, African, North American and South American folk, and Nuyroican salsa, all of which influenced the music he began writing and working on.
Before completing high school, Oroza decided that he needed to experience and soak up the rhythmic source that inspired him the most, so he would up traveling to Santiago de Cuba, where he intensively studied percussion and singing. Since returning to Finland, the Bolivian-Finnish singer/songwriter, producer and percussionist has been busy producing, recording and performing music to make a living. He eventually teamed with Timmion Records‘ house band/production duo Jukka Sarapää and Sami Kantelinen, best known as Cold Diamond & Mink, along with guitarist/composer Seppo Salmi, who have helped achieve his artistic vision — smokey, late night, lo-fi soul paired with Oroza’s plaintive tenor crooning over the mix.
The Bolivian-Finnish singer/songwriter’s full-length debut This Love is slated for a May 3, 2019 release through Big Crown Records, the label home of Lee Fields & The Expressions, The Shacks and El Michels Affair. The album’s latest single is the slow-burning and aching ballad “Deja Vu,” a deceptively anachronistic track that sounds as though it could have been released sometime between 1971 and 1974. Interestingly, the song tells the story of the moment when romantically, you’re in a repetitious rut, and when you realize that you and your relationship are at a fork in the road and sometimes in that moment, there comes a fundamental and painful understanding about yourself and your partner.
