On Sunday, the answer to Ozomatli's geopolitical game of Name That Tune is “Crystal Bay.”

Ozomatli's musical travelogue literally ranges all over the map, mashing up Zapatista hip-hop, Latin rhythms, New Orleans second line Jamaican ragga and indian raga into a harmonious whole. The collective — with Bay Area MC Lateef the Truth Speaker opening Sunday's show at the Crystal Bay Club — has emerged as a mountain-town favorite and harbinger of snow: Ozo not only gained traction by playing the 2001 SnoCore Tour Icicle Ball but opened the free concerts for the 2004 Winter X Games.

The group traditionally opens its shows with its members running through the audience with hand percussion, chanting an invocation to Ozomatli, the Aztec god of music; with the snow at Wagner Park preventing such antics, the band opened to the intro to “The A-Team.” Like that TV show's titual multicultural commando quartet, Ozo emerged from the Los Angeles underground.

According to Wikipedia, every incarnation of Ozomatli's ever-changing lineup has featured trumpet player Asdru Sierra, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Raul Pacheco, percussionist Justin Poree, bass player Wil-dog Abers, multi-instrumentalists Jiro Yamaguchi and Ulises Bella. Drummer Mario Calire rounds out the current lineup.

The members share vocal duties, hip-hop and sung, in English and Spanish.

In addition to Poree's vocal artillery, Ozo often highlights other MCs, who have included Kanetic Source, Chali 2Na of Jurassic 5, MC Jabu and Pharcyde vet Tre Hardson.

According to the band's Web site, Ozomatli originally formed to play at a labor protest before moving on to “earthquake prep hip-hop ghetto plays” at inner-city elementary schools, protests and city fund-raisers. A decade later, the band still shows its L.A. roots.

“This band could not have happened anywhere else but L.A.,” Bella said, according to the Web site. “Man, the tension of it, the multiculturalism of it. L.A. is like we're bonded by bridges.”

Since then, Ozo has grown out of the underground, crossed over into popular culture (appearing in both “Sex in the City” and “Never Been Kissed” and found international fame. However, Ozomatli has never lost its political bent: The same group that joined Rage Against the Machine for a 2000 concert protesting the two-party system, concurrent with the Democratic National Convention at the Staples Center, also has the Los Angeles Dodgers and Clippers adopt their music.

Ozo recorded “City of Angels” as a new urban anthem in 2007 and joined other prominent city figures for the “We Are 4 L.A.” imaging campaign on NBC.

“Just being who we are and just doing what we're doing with music at this time is very political,” Abers said. “The youth see us up there and recognize themselves. So in a playful party-type of way, I think it's real easy for this band to get dangerous. We are starting to realize just how big of a voice we actually have as a band and how important it is for us to use it.”

More recently, Ozomatli not only played free public concerts but held musical workshops and master classes when the U.S. State Department sponsored its tour of Tunisia, Jordan and Egypt.

“Our world standing has deteriorated,” Bella told the Los Angeles Times, according to the band's Web site. “I'm totally willing and wanting to give a different image of America than America has given over the last five years.”

The band helped Nepal celebrate its new peace accord by drawing 14,000 concertgoers to the nation's first show by a Western band. According to an official news release from the U.S. Embassy in Nepal, “Ozomatli is living proof that diverse backgrounds make a stronger and more prosperous whole. Ozomatli's nine members are committed to addressing social issues of local, national and international importance and they use the power of their own diversity to achieve this.”

Sierra put it more succinctly: “I've always felt that music is the key to every culture, the beginning of an understanding. It's a language far more universal than politics.”

According to Wikipedia, Lateef K. Daumont was born in 1974 in Oakland, where his father worked security for the Black Panthers and his mother was a medic for the revolutionary group, as well as a roommate of Angela Davis. Lateef the Truthspeaker was a founding member of the Soulsides collective, which became Quannum projects, as well as a member of Latryx (along with Lyrics Born) and Maroons (aka Lateef and the Chief, along with Chief Xcel of Blackalicious). The MC also has collaborated with DJ Shadow, Fatboy Slim, Galactic, the General Elektriks and is working on a solo album as well as the Mighty Underdogs' debut, “Dropping Science Fiction,” with Gift of Gab, the other half of Blackalicious.