Los Angeles culture-mashers Ozomatli are back with a new album called Fire Away, out now on Mercer Street Records / Downtown Records. But the shocker is that the album features a tune titled “Gay Vatos in Love.” Yep, the song is about two gay dudes loving each other. And it’s getting a lot of attention. We’re amazed. This is really cool.

In a recent interview with the LA Times,  Raul Pacheco, one of the band’s lead singers, said that there was “a lot of debate” within the band over how to approach the subject and concerns about how would the fans react— the media’s reaction and the LGBT community.  Also, what about Latin American and Latino listeners? In those communities, “vato” is generally understood as a term referring to a tough male from a tough neighborhood.

“I think the hardest thing was, how do we present this in a way that’s not a joke? And not a hammer either. Pretty much saying what the song says: ‘Do your thing,’ ” Pacheco said.

According to the Times, the band began putting together “Gay Vatos in Love” during the height of the Prop. 8 debate in California and while one of the band’s members, Asdru, was working on writing music for a independent film project about a Mexican American gay gangster.

“We bring in everything we’re working on,” Pacheco said of the band’s writing process. “Asdru just had a chorus, and the producer heard that and said, ‘You guys have to do a song about it.’”

The singer says he prefaces the song in live performance by asking audiences: “Do you believe in love?” The response is almost always enthusiastically affirmative. “People are like, ‘Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!’ And we just start singing.” Pacheco laughed.

The album Fire Away features the band’s Grammy Award winning mix of hip hop and salsa, dancehall and cumbia, samba and funk, merengue and comparsa, East LA R&B and New Orleans second line, Jamaican ragga and Indian raga.  And the track “Gay Vatos In Love” is pretty tight if we say so ourselves. What’s so cool about it is that the band takes the song very seriously.  They are so prop equal rights for all. Check out the EPK (electronic press kit) of the track below and listen to what these guys have to say. RIGHT ON OZOMATLI!!!!