Dino Santiago was born in 1982 in the Algarve, southern Portugal province. His parents are from the island of Santiago in Cape Verde. Finalist in 2003 of a reality TV program on Portuguese television, he then pointed in various electro nu soul groups of the scene in Lisbon. He decided in 2012 to delve into the roots of Cape Verde, a fusion between traditional rhythms and fado.
Site artiste : www.cordas-do-sol.com
Over the last few years, Cordas do Sol has become the star group of the island of Sant’Anton, the most mountainous island in the Cape Verde archipelago, famous for its production of sugar cane and rum. Lying a short distance from the port of Mindelo, Sant’Anton is seen as the granary and garden of the neighbouring island São Vicente, which has almost no reserves of drinking water.
Sant’Anton is well-known for its music, especially its mazurka and contredanse beats (probably originally brought there by French sailors), and its multiplicity of farming traditions. Since the English established a port on the island of São Vicente at the end of the 19th century, it has also provided an inexhaustible supply of musicians who have regularly crossed the Mar de Canal (the sound separating the two islands) to play in the taverns of Mindelo and entertain sailors on shore leave.
Cordas do Sol first formed in 1994. Initially, the group was simply an informal gathering of friends who met in their free time to talk about life and play serenades on moonlit evenings. But soon, they decided to work on a genuine musical project focusing on every kind of musical tribute to the history of Sant’Anton. The musicians talked to elders in villages and remote rural areas, seeking out different sounds and musical techniques that had often fallen into disuse, absorbing the great musical wealth inherited from the island’s traditional musical genres, including the mazurka, cola-sanjom, coladera and morna, and adapting them for contemporary instruments. They collected examples of oral tradition, costumes and anecdotes illustrating everyday rural life in days gone by, reviving colourful characters and their lost social mores.
Finally, the group began to explore another approach: paying tribute to the island’s particular accent in their songs, so helping to perpetuate its original Creole expression while consolidating their project. In fact, Sant’Anton Creole is often seen as a clumsy dialect. For a long time now, the populations of other islands have mocked its diction, pronunciation and expressions (although a little less today).
Over the years, Cordas do Sol have successfully developed their own style. By skilfully merging their poetic and harmonic heritage, and blending themes and genres, they have built a language that touches a chord in all their listeners. Their audiences’ enthusiasm is particularly apparent at the group’s concerts in Cape Verde, and above all when they play for the country’s diaspora worldwide, with growing numbers flocking to see them in something of a festive communion. Cordas do Sol have recorded two albums locally: Linga d´Sentonton in 2000 and Marijoana in 2002, compiled on a single CD for the international market: Terra de Sodade (2004).
Lume d’Lenha (Wood Fire), revives memories of nocturnal gatherings in clearings around a blazing bonfire, where the community came together after dark to sing of its joys and pains, pass on news brought by passing visitors and remember dead elders. Inland from the island’s magnificent shores, imagine the remote, towering, majestic mountains sculpted by deep rivers, and lush valleys with their often exuberant vegetation, just a few hours’ walk from the coast. Nature is generous there (although its bounty demands a great deal of hard work) and the people are warm and proud. Lume d’Lenha is all of that.
Lucibela was born in Tarrafal on the island of São Nicolau in Cabo Verde on April 18, 1986.
She began to show an interest in singing at a very early age. When her family moved to Mindelo on the island of São Vicente, it proved to be the perfect place for her to build on her childhood passion. On entering high school, she naturally joined a local group called Mindel Som.
A few years later, she started to sing in the hotels of Santa Maria on the island of Sal and Sal Rei on the island of Boa Vista. She perfected her technique and became an immediate hit with the tourists, performing songs made famous by the great singers of Cabo Verde: Cesaria Evora, Titina, Bana…
In 2012, the young woman moved to Praia where she was soon a star attraction at musical events in the capital. She met different musicians there, including the guitarist Kaku Alves, who had played all over the world with Cesaria for around fifteen years.
In 2016, Lucibela made her debut in Lisbon. Certain journalists compared her to Cesaria Evora. “Cesaria is unique and there’ll never be another Cesaria,” modestly insisted the young singer. “My aim is to carry on the work Cesaria began. I want to sing Cabo Verdean musical genres – such as morna and coladera – pretty much anywhere in the world,” she confided, “and I want to succeed because of my own talent.” Chosen to take part in the 2017 Atlantic Music Expo – a major music fair where musicians and producers from all over the globe meet in mid-Atlantic in Praia, truly a hub of world music – Lucibela caused a stir. Local music lovers had already become fans of the singer during the few years when she performed in the bars and clubs of Praia, but she was a genuine revelation for the professionals, journalists and show promoters visiting the Expo.
Following this success, Lucibela participated in the Sfinks Festival in Belgium then, in October and November 2017, she recorded her first album in Lisbon with Toy Vieira to the realization, one of the most famous Cape Verdean musicians of the local scene, who accompanied the greatest voices in the past, Bana, Titina, Tito Paris, Cesaria Evora, Lura and many others.
With this album named Laço Umbilical (Umbilival cord) to be released in February 2018, the chanteuse is determined to conquer the scenes of the world.
Lucibela was sure that the Woman would be the main subject of her new album. With Amdjer, released on June 3rd 2022, Lucibela tributes to Cape Verdean women, but also to women in general.
Born to Cape Verdean parents in Senegal (her father was from Fogo and her mother from São Vicente), Ceuzany lived in that country until the age of 2, when her family returned to Mindelo. In 2008, she won an award at a gala contest for singers from the island of Fogo. Arlindo Evora, the leader of Cordas do Sol, met her there and invited her to join the group. From 2007 to 2013, she brought her distinctive shine to the concerts and records of the band (who were then at the height of their popularity), channeling all her energy and exuberance into their performances.
With her first solo album, Nha Vida (released in 2012, it included the track Ultimo Chance), Ceuzany revealed her tremendous vocal potential and talent as a performer, attracting huge interest from professionals and national and foreign media.
Ilha d’Melodia, her second album, further underlines the quality of her melodic expression and vocal power. On it, Ceuzany bares her soul: each of the songs reveals the experiences and emotions that have shaped the facets of her personality.
Her forebears came from the island of Boa Vista with its Saharan sands, she grew up on the African Santiago and the nomadic São Vicente, and launched her musical career in Lisbon, capital of fado and pop. Naturally, the singer with her direct, open gaze is very much at home in the world of international Portuguese-speaking culture.
Manhã Florida is the singer’s fifth album and her second recorded for the Harmonia label, Lusafrica’s partner in the archipelago. It opens with Mi Sem Bo Amor, a superb morna penned by two great figures of Cabo-Verdean music: Vitorino Chantre, poet, musician and father of Teofilo, and Amândio Cabral, writer of the iconic Sodade. The first impression is of Nancy’s controlled, supremely true, highly characteristic voice, which has won the young woman acclaim from Portuguese critics as the “finest voice of Cabo Verde” of the new generation; the second is the wealth of musical worlds that unfold over a background of uncompromising classicism.
We find ourselves swept away on a journey to Cabo Verde that leads us from one island to the next in the heart of the Atlantic, between Africa, Brazil, Europe and the Caribbean, serenaded by the guitars and cavaquinhos of some of Cabo Verde’s greatest instrumentalists: Bau, Hernani Almeida, Zeca Mauricio and Zé Paris, not to mention Teofilo Chantre, who also directed the album’s flawless production.
Teofilo, the most Parisian of Cabo-Verdean musicians, is above all famous for the songs he wrote for Cesaria Evora (starting with the 1992 album Miss Perfumado), but also for his collaborations with Bernard Lavilliers – Elle Chante (She Sings), Y a pas qu’à New-York (Not Only in New York) – and Marc Estève (for Enrico Macias). Over the last 25 years, Teofilo Chantre has made his name as one of the key artisans of Cabo-Verdean music’s success worldwide, firstly with his own records (6 studio albums and one live to his credit) and then for his numerous collaborations as songwriter or artistic producer with other artists from the archipelago. So Nancy Vieira, who had been performing his songs for a long time, very naturally asked him to produce Manhã Florida. She wanted to dedicate the album to Cabo-Verdean guitar, whose melancholy, nostalgia and joie de vivre so beautifully accompany the charms of the archipelago’s melodies. Nancy carefully selected the pieces – which laid the foundations of Cesaria’s success and seem to be of another age – from the repertoires of the great classic writers (Amândio Cabral, Eugenio Tavares, Kaka Barbosa…) or the songs of today’s generation (Teofilo, Mário Lúcio, Betu, Tiolino, Antonio Alves).
Site artiste : www.elidaalmeida.com
Facebook – Instagram – Youtube
Winner of the Prix Découvertes RFI in 2015, Elida, a young woman born on the island of Santiago, developed her vocal techniques with simple church singing. Elida Almeida has made a name for herself performing at world music venues in Europe, Africa and North America.
The unknown Elida won huge acclaim for her first album and the song Nta Konsigui (2.7 million views on YouTube), her warm, smooth voice conveying a powerful exultation. On her second album, Kebrada (named for the village where she grew up), she asserts her African identity, seasoning her Cabo Verdean beats – batuque, funaná, coladera and tabanka – with Latino energy. Her fiery temperament and joie de vivre do nothing to undermine the social criticism she expresses in her nostalgic ballads tinged with pop.
Elida Almeida shows an impressive maturity, talent and generosity.
Gerasonobu – 6 Nov 2020
Nada Ka Muda – (single 2020)
Ta Due with Roberta Campos – (single 2019)
Homi Nha Amiga – feat Elji Beatzkilla (single) – 2019
Anu Nobu (single) – 2019
Sou Free – feat Flavia Coelho -Mo Laudi Remix (single) – 2018
Kebrada – 2017
E Zonban (single) – 2017
Djunta Kudjer (EP) 2017
Ora Doci Ora Margos- 2014
it brings together the cream of Cape-Verdean musicianship and some of today’s greatest voices
Artist’s website : www.cesaria-evora-orchestra.com
Facebook – Youtube
When Grammy Award winner Cesaria Evora suddenly left us on December 17, 2011, there was a huge outpouring of emotion from her fans. In 2012, thousands flocked to pay their respects to the great artist at a series of memorable concerts, especially in Toulouse, Lisbon, Amsterdam and Paris.
Some of the greatest singers in world music joined the musicians who had regularly accompanied Cesaria, lending their voices to this ultimate tribute to the woman known as The Barefoot Diva. Bonga, Angélique Kidjo, Lura, Ismaël Lô, Mayra Andrade and Bernard Lavilliers, Tito Paris were there, to name but a few.
Once the musical events were over, Cesaria’s musicians were more determined than ever to keep alive her repertoire, which had enchanted audiences all over the world.
A few formed the Cesaria Evora Orchestra, playing a first concert at the 2014 Gamboa Festival in Praia (Cabo Verde) as a tribute to the iconic singer and her tremendous achievements – especially as the international Ambassador of Cape-Verdean music.
Since then, the Cesaria Evora Orchestra has performed regularly around the world to celebrate Cesaria Evora.
Site artiste : www.cesaria-evora.com
Facebook – Youtube – Twitter
Cesaria Evora is first and foremost a mystery. She delights, fascinates and charms. Whatever our color, she is at once our friend, big sister and mother. When she comes to the Antilles, islands of zouk and beats, huge crowds stand in line at the ticket office. Everybody flocks to her concerts, from gros-ka fundamentalists to hardcore biguine-mazurka fans and addicts of rap and ragga: all want to immerse themselves in her melancholy. They take their shares of wrinkles and milk of youth. I have never had a chance to see her. The venues are always sold out. I can only imagine, gaze at her photos, be absorbed by her videos and dream of her tempi full of ancient pain.
In her book devoted to the Cabo-Verdean singer, Véronique Mortaigne makes it clear that a mystery such as hers cannot be solved, but only approached, experienced and revisited. This makes her fine writing and true sensitivity magnificent. She has understood that the secret of Cesaria Evora branches into many seams. Rather than a journey, she has to map erratic wanderings misted by fumes of punch and catchupa, through a geography of shadows, oases and light. Naturally, she has to listen to Cesaria – neither a peasant woman nor a ‘lady of the sea’, but a figure glimpsed in winding streets, bars and stores. She has to hear her delicious conversations with Vitoria, her good friend since childhood; learn the story of her fits of anger and torrent of insults; see her living in Mindelo, her island, town, port and hut, by a sea teeming with the hatreds and loves of those who were both forced to leave and compelled to remain. She sees the people who surround and love Cesaria, and those who support or take advantage of her. She sees her apron with its vast pockets, her plastic hair curlers and her waddling walk as she carries baskets of fish and herbs. She sees what Cesaria eats and learns the recipes, giving their number. She tastes the rum the singer shares freely, that did her so much harm and which the singer has no longer touched “since Christmas ’94”. She also has to understand the Cabo Verde archipelago and its initial catastrophe: Portuguese colonization and slavery. And then its struggle towards freedom and independence, its combats and alienations, its griefs and joys, and its mystery of life and salt in the growing threat of the Sahel.
Cesaria Evora is of that soil in the dryness of the sands. The book is not a biography, but an obscure revelation brimming with earth, life, music, simplicity, friendship, love, questions and lucidity. In its pages, I realize that Cesaria Evora is a Creole land in herself, whose diversity of imagination and people produces a music that connects with everyone, where melody, harmony and multiple rhythms encounter human suffering in a melting pot of blues, jazz and morna. I realize that Cesaria Evora is also a suffering – firstly hers, that of her life, her disastrous love affairs and a destructive intoxication to compensate for the wilting of the buds of hope. That familiar life of extremes ties in with ours in a tangible bond. When she sings, she brings us an entire life, escaping from the sordid bars and the fake gilt of socialite residences – the homes of Cabo Verde dotores who wanted to hear her sing. She also brings us her stationary exile, an irrepressible goal of exile that now lingers in each of us, drifting islands in a world that is a world unto itself. She reveals an incomparable sadness about everything possible. She tells us that happiness is lost but within reach. She speaks of black wounds of absence and silence. She describes the precious loam of memory. She tells of death and oblivion, loyalty and patience, liberty offered over bitter waves that one dares to tread. She tells of an open world of islands that are so accessible, so amenable to cultural fusions and the winds of the earth. She tells of inevitability, joy, hope, rounded strength and sharpened patience. Her feet are bare, her voice is naked, and so is her heart, proffered in a parure of all the graces. Among human beings, Cesaria is a queen.
Article written by Patrick Chamoiseau, published in the newspaper Le Monde for the publication of the biography written by Véronique Mortaigne, shortly after the release of the album “Cabo Verde” in February 1997.
Patrick Chamoiseau, a French writer from Martinique, was born on December 3, 1953, in Fort-de-France. Author of novels, short stories and essays, he is a theoretician of Creole culture and also writes for the theater and cinema.
La Diva Aux Pieds Nus – 1988
Distino Di Belita – 1990
Mar Azul – 1991
Miss Perfumado – 1992
Cesaria – 1995
Cabo Verde – 1997
Cesaria Best Of – 1997
Café Atlantico – 1999
Sao Vicente di Longe – 2001
Mornas & Coladeras (Compilation) – 2002
Voz d’Amor – 2003
Club Sodade (Remix Album) – 2003
Rogamar – 2006
Radio Mindelo – 2008
Nha Sentimento – 2009
Cesaria Evora & – 2010
Miss Perfumado (20th anniversary) – 2012
Mae Carinhosa – 2013
Greatest Hits – 2015
Carnaval de Mindelo (EP) – 2018
Nha Cancera Ka Tem Medida (Djeff Remix) – 2018
Artist’s website : www.lura.com
Lura was quietly studying sports education (her speciality was swimming) in Lisbon, when Juka, a successful singer originally from São Tome and Principe, asked her to appear on his new album. “I was seventeen. I was supposed to be sing backing vocals, but in the end, Juka asked me to sing a duet with him. I’d never thought about singing, but he insisted,” remembers Lura. It was then that she realized she had a voice, with a deep, sensual tone. Juka’s zouk was a hit when a Portuguese producer helped her record her first album, a dance record for her generation. She was then 21. “The record was mainly meant for clubs,” she explains, but despite the album’s commercial flavour, one song, “Nha Vida” (My Life), drew a great deal of attention when it was included on the Red Hot + Lisbon album the following year, in 1997.
Lusafrica took an interest in the young singing prodigy when she sang a duet with Bonga, “Mulemba Xangola”, and in 2004, the label produced Di Korpu Ku Alma (Of Body and Soul), Lura’s real Cape Verdean record, whose reputation was boosted back home and among the diaspora by the success of “Na Ri Na”. In 2005, the album was released in more than 10 countries, including the USA, Italy (where it was one of the top-selling records of the summer) and the UK (where it was nominated at the “BBC World Music Awards”). About Di Korpu Ku Alma, Portuguese journalist José Eduardo Agualusa wrote, “as I have constantly told anyone who would listen, the future of Cape Verdean music already has a name, and that name is Lura”, while UK daily The Independent promised, “When her international career gets going, this girl will fill stadiums.” With this album Lura was nominated in France at the “Victoires de la Musique”, in 2006, for “Best World Music album”.
For her next album, M’bem di Fora (I’ve come from far away) in November 2006, Lura travelled the world, winning over audiences who proved ever more loyal and attentive to her music. Three years later, she launched Eclipse which confirmed the immense talent of Lura, jewel of the new Cape Verdean generation. Yet she modestly admits: “My career has been a continual surprise to me since I discovered my voice in my teenage years up until now. I take it one day at a time, but I’ll be a singer for the rest of my life. I’m positive about it. I don’t know why.”
In 2010, Lusafrica releases The Best of Lura, an album gathering her best recordings and “Moda Bô”, recorded with Cesaria Evora in the early weeks of 2010 which is a tribute song to the Barefoot Diva, written by Lura. The album also includes a DVD containing a concert shot by the Portuguese television, as well as bonus videos.
Like every other Cape-Verdean artist, Lura was distraught when Cesaria passed away in December 2011. A year later, she paid tribute to the Barefoot Diva’s memory with the song “Nós Diva”, released on YouTube. Taking a step back, the singer decided to return to her roots in Praia, Cape Verde, but still continued to perform, regularly appearing all over the world to the delight of her fans. Empowered by her contacts with the archipelago’s musicians and composers, Lura returned to the studio at the start of 2015 to make a new album, due for release at the end of the year. Vibrant, tremendously danceable and so very Cape-Verdean, Herança (Heritage) focuses on the archipelago’s energizing up-tempo funana beat with songs that include “Maria di Lida”, “Sabi di Más” and “Ness Tempo di Nha Bidjissa”.
Herança gives us a chance to reconnect with the intensity of Cape Verde and its people, traditions and music, all reflected in the art of the most melodious, charismatic singer of an entire generation of Cape-Verdean performers. Lura’s singing and each of the album’s tracks remind us just how the essence of multiculturalism and traditional Creole music have given rise to a universal vocal genre at the heart of Africa’s best-kept secret: Cape Verde.
Alguem Di Alguem – 2018
Herança – 2015
Best Of Lura – 2010
Eclipse – 2009
M’Bem Di Fora – 2006
Di Korpu Ku Alma – 2004
