A prolific collaborator who has travelled extensively since leaving his Cuban homeland, Omar Sosa talks to Jane Cornwell about his fact-finding tour of East Africa and his new album, which sees him collaborate with some of the region’s leading folkloric musicians Omar Sosa (photo: Massimo Mantovani) Afro-Cuban pianist and composer Omar Sosa has always been a seeker, an artist driven to explore African musical cultures and their connections to his own ancestral roots. Along the way he has linked the traditional and contemporary, the acoustic and electronic, with forward-thinking solo work and collaborations with musicians from Latin America and across the African diaspora. “Most of the Cuban music people know about is from the 1940s onwards,” says the Camagüey-born award-winner, Zooming from his home in Barcelona. “But if we look deeper there are cultural and musical reminders from so many different places in Africa. I want to give them attention, bring them together in one place.”