Cape Verde is an archipelago and island country in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands. It was conquered by the Portuguese around 1462 and it was used as a sort of checkpoint for the transatlantic slave trade. Tens of thousands of slaves would be brought from the mainland of Africa to these Islands and then on to the New World. Cape Verde gained independence from Portugal fairly recently in 1975.
Mariana dos Santos at the age of 18, left her home Island in Cape Verde, for the neighbouring islands São Tomé and Principe. In the year 1954, she received a contract to work on a plantation in another Portuguese colony, picking coffee, coconut and cocoa. This was a common thing at the time as thousands of Cape Verdeans would leave the country to work as laborers in order to have a better life.
Pictured is Mariana before she left Cape Verde.
Mariana was accompanied to the port by her boyfriend, João (pronounced jo-ahou), who serenaded her with his guitar as she left the port. He sang "Who showed you / That far away path? / The path / to São Tomé. / Sodade, sodade, / Sodade / …” he sang. “If you write me, / I will write you / if you forget me, / I will forget you…" The meaning of the word Sodade is difficult to describe. It is the feeling that you get when you miss someone or something, but there is no way to bring it back to you. For many Cape Verdeans it is the nostalgia of constantly moving around from place to place, since the 1800s they have been traveling the seas and migrating to Europe and the New World.
This song, Sodade, would become one of Cape Verde's most famous Mornas- a style of music that is very slow and mellow. It is often sung is Kriolu (Portuguese Creole), but can be instrumental. This is a Cape Verdean musical practice which is believed to date back all the way to the 18th century.
Cesaria Evora is a Cape Verdean singer-songwriter, known by many as the "Queen of Morna" and the "Barefoot Diva" as she almost always performed without shoes. Here is here rendition of Sodade:
Batuco is a traditional form of music originating in the island of Santiago. It features a choir of women with a soloist called a chorister and combines drumming, singing and dancing. The lyrics nowadays are about everyday things, but also includes political and humorous topics. Batuco dates back to slavery, as a form of singing communication the slaves would use with each other.
After reading and listening to Batuco, I found it shares many of the same qualities as some of the West African music we heard in class. It is characterized as being in a slow, andante tempo, usually in 6/8 or 3/4 time and the call-and-response structure plays a key role in this style, as the chorister sings the main melody, the choirs repeats her. The drumming is also in affect while they sing. Drums were forbidden by the Portuguese during the times of slavery, so the women began drumming on these bolts of cloth.
Today, they are replaced by plastic, only some of the women use the real drums. Batuco is the only genre from Cape Verde that features polyrhythmic drumming, which stays constant throughout the song (the beat is 3 against 2, like stompy clappy!). Another key characteristic of this style is that it gets more intense as it progresses. Towards the end, two or three dancers will dance the torno, which can be seen in this video:
There are two Cape Verdean artists I'd like to mention are The Tavares Brothers and Mayra Andrade.
The Tavares Brothers are an American R&B, funk and soul music group composed of five Cape Verdean brothers, in the second half of the 20th century. In a quick summary of their background and story, The Tavares were born to Cape Verdean Americans in Providence, Rhode Island. They gained all their musical knowledge from their father Feliciano 'Flash' Tavares and their mother Albina Gomes, who was a singer at the time. Before they combined into one group, each of the brothers had their own musical endeavors and were pretty successful. Climbing the charts of Motown, R&B, doo-wop, funk and soul they became popular, especially in the New England area. One of their most famous songs is "Heaven, Must Be Missing an Angel," which I've included below:
Fun fact: I am distantly related to them through my "Mother," or Great Grandmother, Marjorie B Hughes, one of the first business women in Providence, RI.
The second artist, I'd like to introduce is one that is more current, her name is Mayra Andrade. Andrade in an article from World Music UK, describe her music as, “A musical crossroads, an “illegitimate” style...people from Cape Verde are naturally mixed,” also saying "If you take a close look at Cape Verdean music, you’ll find a strong connection to Brazilian music.” She uses her knowledge of Cape Verdean music to fuse it with her own style to create a new version that fully showcases the stylistic diversity of the 10 islands of Cape Verde. Along with this she includes Cuban, Brazilian and many other forms of music to draw out music that blends into this:
Ahdi, I really enjoyed reading your blog! Overall loved the content and really enjoyed listening to how the song Sodade was created. I loved the story behind it and learning what the words actually mean and comes from was really awesome. I loved listening to all the various artists and enjoyed all of them. Thank you for sharing and once again awesome blog!
I really enjoyed how you laid this out and how detailed and organized it was. This was really well written and executed. I particularly liked Myra's music and how it incorporates a lot of different cultures, it's a really nice blend. And that's a neat fun fact!
Sarah Beth Martin (my phone won’t connect to my page) : what an extravagant blog! I really enjoyed all of the listening videos especially the second one where they have they plastic looking drums! Cape Verde is so interesting! Thank you for all the of fun stuff!!
Hi Ahdi! I found your blog really interesting and that you chose to cover a place that we would typically not hear about. With the Portuguese conquering their land, their music does seem to have a lot of Latin influence even today. I thought that it was also really cool you found a group of female drummers who use a lot of the same rhythms we leaned about in class. Overall, a really interesting and nice blog :)
Ahdi, I really enjoyed reading your blog! Overall loved the content and really enjoyed listening to how the song Sodade was created. I loved the story behind it and learning what the words actually mean and comes from was really awesome. I loved listening to all the various artists and enjoyed all of them. Thank you for sharing and once again awesome blog!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed how you laid this out and how detailed and organized it was. This was really well written and executed. I particularly liked Myra's music and how it incorporates a lot of different cultures, it's a really nice blend. And that's a neat fun fact!
ReplyDeleteSarah Beth Martin (my phone won’t connect to my page) : what an extravagant blog! I really enjoyed all of the listening videos especially the second one where they have they plastic looking drums! Cape Verde is so interesting! Thank you for all the of fun stuff!!
ReplyDeleteHi Ahdi! I found your blog really interesting and that you chose to cover a place that we would typically not hear about. With the Portuguese conquering their land, their music does seem to have a lot of Latin influence even today. I thought that it was also really cool you found a group of female drummers who use a lot of the same rhythms we leaned about in class. Overall, a really interesting and nice blog :)
ReplyDelete