Bonga

Kaxexe

(Times Square)

Singer-songwriter Barcelo de Cavalho actually introduced globalist audiences to “Sodade,” his fellow Portuguese speaker Cesaria Evora’s signature ballad.  It was back in the early ‘70s, just after De Carvalho took the name Bonga in order to keep the colonial government in his native Angola off his trail.  Back then, the star-athlete-turned-rebel-singer was not quite comfortable with the hoarse growl that would become his trademark once he was forced into exile.  Although Evora pretty much owns “Sodade” these days, it’s be interesting to hear how Bonga would kick it now, with some 30 years of international acclaim behind him.

Even more so were “Sodade” to get the jolt that the artist’s music does on Kaxexe, his latest disc.  It would be inaccurate to call this a new Bonga, but somehow the veteran has managed to stir his ingredients – voice, soothing guitar, percussion, accordian – into a livelier brew.  Much has been said about the debt that styles like Brazilian samba and Cape Verdean morna owe to Bonga’s native samba, but what really impresses throughout the new disc is a lilt that seems Pan-American (or more to the point, Caribbean) in flavor. Although Bonga never shifts the proceedings higher than relaxed medium tempo, the backup singers and organ filigrees feign the momentum of high-energy musics like zouk and forro.  Bomga’s raspy authority has never seemed more built for speed. – K. LeanderWilliams