Zé Luis is nearly sixty. For years, he has been singing informally for Cape Verdean audiences. Now, for the first time, the rest of the world has a chance to hear his warm, enchanting voice on record.

José Luís was born in Praia in 1953. His mother passed on two great passions to him: music and cooking. He still remembers the fados – and, of course, the mornas – that she loved to sing while working around the house.

José Luís is at home with morna. He fully identifies with the genre as both an artist and a Cape Verdean. For the singer, morna is the most typically Cape Verdean style of romantic expression. Combining sadness, melancholy and sensuality, it is rooted in the soul and identity of his people.

When he was just eight, José’s family emigrated to Principe, one of the two islands that form São Tomé and Principe. The archipelago was then a Portuguese colony, as was Cape Verde. Back in the day, many Cape Verdeans moved there to farm the islands’ fertile volcanic soil. Many hoped to find a better life away from the poverty and famine of Cape Verde, but some were actually forced to move there by the Portuguese authorities. When they were not labouring in the fields, workers and their families gathered on Sundays, holidays and ceremonial occasions to meet and remember those they had left so far behind in their homeland. Their aim was to “kill nostalgia” (matar sodade). Of course music and particularly morna played a vital role at these reunions.

When in 1969 he finally returned to his homeland, the young José naturally found a place in the musical life of the capital, under the nickname of Zé Luis. His singing was recognised and enjoyed by all. Invited to every last serenade, party, musical competition and cultural event, he delighted audiences with his melodic, charming vocal talent and limitless repertoire as he performed the work of the greatest contemporary songwriters, along with forgotten songs which he revived with gusto. Yet he led a simple life, working as a carpenter. Music was always his great passion, a vital part of his life, but it was only for his personal pleasure. He sang as an amateur – rather fancifully, as if it were just a hobby. But today, at an age when most people are thinking of retiring, Zé Luís has decided to share the art he once kept for his small hometown community with the rest of the world. The power of his voice deserves to be heard by more than such a small audience.

Tito Paris, «the dear child of São Vicente», began his professional career in a family of musicians in Mindelo when he was nine; first, he has been initiated by his brothers to the cavaquinho, then to the guitar; later he became a bass-player before to take his chances composing his owns songs. He was around 19 when Bana, the famous Capeverdean singer based in Lisbon, Portugal, invited Tito to join his band, The Voz de Cabo Verde.

In Lisbon, Tito got soon his fame on the very flourishing Capeverdean musical scene: besides Bana, he was backing many other musicians, such as Dany Silva, Paulino Vieira, Paulo de Carvalho, Celina Peirera, or Vitorino… But it was as a composer that he made a name for himself, writting songs for many singers like Bana and Cesaria Evora. With a wealth of success on the Lisboan scene, he founded his own band with which he offered a acoustic but also electric show.

In the acoustic formation (piano, cavaquinho, bass, clarinet) Tito, who accompanied himself on the guitar, sang amazingly, with his husky voice, the standards of the Capeverdean morna; in its electric version and with an excellent brass section, the band that was really guitar oriented, gave a colorful and energetic show, that was composed of coladeras. And Tito has already become a coladera master.

Previously, Tito Paris has recorded two albums: Tito Paris ( released in Portuga, 1987) and Dança ma mi criola (on the Boston based label, MB Records in 94). His first record produced by Lusafrica, Graça de tchega, was released in October 96. On that occasion, Tito performed in Paris, Brussels, in the Netherlands and for the ’97 Midem in Cannes. But Tito’s heart belongs to Lisbon, his adoptive city, where he likes to perform. That’s where that, in June 98, Lusafrica decided to record a live album, at the Club B. Leza.

Manuel Lopes Andrade, aka Tcheka, was born on the 20th July 1973 in the port of Ribeira Barca, Santa Catarina district, on Santiago, the most African island of the Cape Verde archipelago. At a very early age, he began to perform alongside his father, Nho Raul Andrade, a highly popular violinist at the island’s village dances and festivities. Tcheka was in good hands. Every wrong note brought a rap on the knuckles from his father’s bow, but he learned quickly and soon made his mark at dances, weddings, baptisms and so on.

However, the boy had other ambitions. At 15, he began to develop a more personal style, based on batuque, one of Santiago Island’s more popular beats, originally played by women. One of the first pieces he wrote, “Man’ba des bes kumida dâ”, gave a clear idea of the musical path he wished to follow. His aim was to widen the appeal of batuque, turning it into a beat that everyone would love.

In the meantime, a man must earn his living. Tcheka left his rural home and went to live in Praia, where he became a cameraman for national television, a job that involved travel and broadened his horizons. In Praia, Tcheka met journalist Julio Rodrigues and wrote a number of songs with him. The two played informally in the bars of the Cape Verdean capital and other musicians soon joined them: percussionist Pery, bassist Kizo, flautist Robert Pemberton (a Scotsman who lived in Cape Verde) and, more recently, percussionist Raul.

Today, Tcheka is well-known in Praia for his work in modernising “batuque”, in much the same way as Catchas updated Funana, the other great Santiago beat, in the seventies. Providing a new reading of batuque while conserving its traditional structures is the message of Tcheka.

Pierre Akendengue is a pioneer. Although the term is often misused, it fits perfectly in his case. Born on the 25th April 1943 on Aouta, an island to the southwest of Gabon, the singer-poet and storyteller-philosopher who studied at the Mireille Petit Conservatoire released his first album, Nandipo, in 1974, on Pierre Barouh’s Saravah label. Back then, he played a part in the emergence of a primarily African-flavoured world-music explosion in France, where he had come to study and would stay for twenty years, before returning to Gabon in 1985. Over his career, Akendengué has increasingly filled out his orchestrations and given more emphasis to his lyrics. A brilliant storyteller, he sculpts fluid music copiously nourished by woody percussion sounds and flamboyant backing vocals. His songs draw metaphors to achieve a dazzling parable effect.

The singer explains that storytelling is a heritage of ancestral society. “I’m loyal to the oral civilisation I come from. Aside from that, I think it’s also a way of expressing what’s on my mind. Artists can’t sing aimlessly. Art should be a hotbed of protest in society to avoid it stagnating. Stories provide this possibility of protest. They say one thing and mean another.” While he was a student in France, Pierre Akendengué was banned from the airwaves in Gabon and even from returning there. He was guilty of belonging to the AGEG – the General Association of Gabonese Students, a Marxist organisation. Times change though. Since 2004, he has been personal advisor to the President of the Republic of Gabon, responsible for cultural affairs, youth and sport. The songs he writes convey his philosophical and humanist aspirations; his commitment shines through them. Pierre Akendengué refuses to sing solely for pleasure. “The artist’s role,” he emphasises, “is to sound the alarm, enlighten people and heighten their awareness.” He does this as best he can, whatever clouds, pitfalls and frowns life may bring, because he still believes in his ideals. So he sings about his dreams of freedom, his hopes of a united Africa and his trust in humanity. He sings in French, the language of his audiences when he started out, and in Myene, his native tongue. “Since I don’t sing to pass the time, I try to convey a number of my ancestral culture’s values, things that involve my native language and are often untranslatable. It’s essential that we preserve the vitality of our languages. A country that loses its language loses its culture and so its identity.” On Afrika Obota (one of two covers, along with Considérable, re-recorded for Vérité d’Afrique), he sings of African unity, something he sees as fundamental. “I still believe in it – more and more, in fact. If Africa is to construct its political and economic independence, it really must unite. With the help of our survival instinct, we’ll achieve unity in the end. Humanity isn’t in the business of scuppering itself. I believe in our ability to react. African unity is part of that reaction. Dreams of unity aren’t at all utopian. They were behind the OAU – now disbanded – which re-appeared as the African Union, actually much more efficient than the former OAU, which often used to simply mark time. The African Union intervenes more in African conflicts.”