Martin Perna

Martín Perna is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and bandleader. He is the founder of the musical groups Antibalas and Ocote Soul Sounds and a founding member of the Soul Providers and the Dap Kings bands. Perna became active in New York City in the mid 1990s while a student at New York University, learning from and collaborating with roommates Gabriel Roth (Dap Kings) and Tunde Adebimpe (TV on the Radio). While performing in Roth's various Desco Records projects, he formed Conjunto Antibalas (later Antibalas) in late 1997. The group began to perform in NYC in 1998 and began touring internationally in 2000. Perna also founded Ocote Soul Sounds in 2000 as an outlet for compositions outside the Antibalas aesthetic. In 2005, he self released "Electric Tides" and "El Niño y El Sol," a collaboration with Austin based musician-producer Adrian Quesada. Perna and Quesada linked up for three additional records, first released through the ESL label and re-released in 2016 on Level On