Cape Verde: The Musical Legacy of Cesária Évora

29 Dec

This post was originally published at Global Voices Online Portuguese. The English version was translated by Janet Gunter. Follow this link to read the original article in English.

On December 17, Cesária Évora, a musical ambassador of sorts for Cape Verde, left us. There was an abundance of tributes and declarations by her faithful audience, present in almost every corner of the globe. The singer, as well as the music of her country, were the focus of the blogosphere in recent days, and in the twittersphere Évora became a Trending Topic on the day of her death.

Julio de Magalhães, from the blog Do Médio-Oriente e afins (From the Middle East and the like) commented on the departure of the singer and highlights the music of her country:

Foi uma voz de Cabo Verde escutada e aclamada em toda a parte e, de alguma forma, um símbolo nacional. Dotada de um inconfundível instrumento vocal, como aliás grande parte dos cabo-verdianos, apresentou-se nos principais palcos do mundo sempre com extraordinário sucesso.

It was a voice of Cape Verde listened to and acclaimed all over and, in some way, a national symbol. Endowed with an unmistakable vocal instrument, as in fact a large part of Cape Verdeans, she appeared on the biggest stages of the world with extraordinary success.

photo shared by twitpic user @huygui

 

For Brazilian journalist Mauro Ferreira, of the blog Notas Musicais (Musical Notes) “a sweet voice of deep feeling has been silenced”. On her music, he says:

Voz que destilava a fina melancolia impregnada nas mornas – espécie de samba-canção da terra da intérprete – que entoava em crioulo, um idioma que misturava português, francês e dialetos africanos. Évora também deu voz às coladeiras, outro ritmo cabo-verdiano, mais dançante e próximo da pegada caribenha.

A voice that distilled the fine melancholy infused in mornas – a kind of samba – a song of the land of the performer – which she sang in creole, a language which mixed Portuguese, French and African dialects. Évora also gave voice to coladeiras, other Cape Verdean rhythm, more danceable and closer to a Caribbean step.

 

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Brazil’s Rising Stars – Thiago Pethit

20 May

This article was originally posted at Virgin.com Top Music Blogs on May 19th, 2011. Follow this link to read the original article.

Brazilian music is known abroad from its most popular musical genres: Samba and Bossa-Nova. But Brazilian music is much more than that and a cultural scene started in the mid-90s seems to be proving it.

Productions coming from cities with different perspectives and music traditions such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Recife – and with a little help from technology and internet to facilitate creation and communication between artists – are showing a whole new range of possibilities for anyone with an internet connection and a bit of curiosity.

Artists such as Thiago Pethit, Curumin, Tiê, Kassin, Domenico Lancellotti, Rodrigo Amarante, Marcelo Jeneci and Tulipa Ruiz, are just a few names of the new face of Brazilian music. Continue reading 

Music Videos: One Take

4 Apr

Warpaint: Billie Holiday

This is just a quick note about a recent music video discovery: Athens Soundies. It’s not a band, it’s a website. I always loved La Blogotheque Take Away Shows… Simple videos, one take, great new (sometimes unknown) bands and the photography in those videos are always incredible, probably because they are too simple. Sometimes simple is the best. A lot of times, actually. I discovered Beirut through a Take Away Show, just to tell you one example. This time I discovered Warpaint and I liked the video so much that here I am, writing this post about One Take Music Videos. Continue reading 

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Mixtape #1 While my keyboard gently weeps

5 Mar

Image from flickr user @dullhunk, under a CC license

I have been discovering a lot of interesting tracks lately, so I decided to start compiling them into mixtapes.  Juvelen is a soundcloud discovery and Orelha Negra I discovered because of this amazing video with artist Vhils (watch it!). Passion Pit and The Naked and Famous I got from videos I watched on Facebook and I instantly fall in love with their music (here and here). Phoenix I got interested because of this remix on soundcloud, but than I watched the video and preferred the original track (although I really like the remix), they were also responsible for Somewhere‘s soundtrack (a really good soundtrack!). I really liked  Two Door Cinema Club video “What You Know” , a friend sent me the link through Skype. Everest I got interested through this video, a live version of the song “Let Go”. Peter Bjorn and John and Kings of Leon are old times favorites and are the only tracks that did not come from an internet source.

Mixtape #1 While my keyboard gently weeps by djdebb

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SoundCloud: empowering music creativity

22 Feb

I recently created an account at SoundCloud not really knowing what it was for. A friend of mine sent me a link for Tiger Baby’s  ”One day it’s you” and I wanted to save it somehow, but not as a link… Because of that, I have found an amazing tool, not only to share and save favorite tracks, but to actually promote music interchange between musicians. It’s very simple to use, it focus on the music instead of being a kind of profile for artists and it’s easier to have feedback from your listeners.

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