Indigenous + Popa Chubby

Indigenous recorded five full-length albums and a pair of EPs together before deciding to take separate musical paths. Having fronted the group as well as writing most of the material, Mato retained the Indigenous name and recorded the albums Chasing The Sun (2006) and Broken Lands (2008). “I just felt it was the right thing to keep the Indigenous name going,” Mato explains. In a very real sense, his latest release, The Acoustic Sessions (2010), is not only a fitting way to close the first chapter of the Indigenous story; it also leads definitively to the beginning of the next one.

Born Ted Horowitz, Popa Chubby is a true native son of the Big Apple. He was born in 1960 in the Bronx and grew up in a neighborhood made famous by Robert DeNiro in the movie A Bronx Tale. His parents owned a candy store on the corner of 181st Street and Arthur Avenue. His early memories of hearing the juke box playing the hits of early ’60s soul and R&B – and the neighborhood teens flocking around it – made a lasting impression on him. To this day, the musical influence of Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, and Marvin Gaye are ever present in Popa’s music.