LURA... AT LULA!

Just as Mariza has breathed new life into Fado, as a contemporary heir to Amalia Rodrigues, so LURA does to  music made famous by Cesaria Evora. Lura brings a street wise, urban sensuality infused with the passionate root of mother Africa to her music. Riding on the tide Cape Verde's rediscovery of its African roots, she has the star quality to bring the music to a wider audience. Lura and her band return to Toronto on her second North American tour, after delighting a capacity audience at the Small World Festival in September.

The music of Cape Verde, an archipelago 300 miles west of Dakar, Senegal, is a music of emigration. Lura fits the tradtion well – a young singer born and raised in Lisbon's émigré community, she has created a major buzz on the global music scene, presenting oncehidden Cape Verdean styles to enthusiastic American and European audiences.

Lura mixes the familiar morna style with until now unheard rhythms of Funana and batuque; styles brought to the fore by a talented new generation of composers such Tcheka and Pantera.

It is the music of women from the remote African interior of Cape Verde, now infused with jazz and Brazilian influences. With last year's much anticipated album, DI KORPU KU ALMA(Of Body and Soul) on Escondida Music, Lura gave notice that she was a musical force worthy of note.

"Lura was dynamite: with a voice that modulated from a dreamy whisper to a ferocious shout, and with an act that was first comic, then sexually provocative, then rabblerousing. When her international career gets going, this girl will fill stadiums."

The Independent on Lura's London debut

The first European colonial town in Africa was founded in Cape Verde in 1462. Its music reflects the rich mix of Portuguese and West African roots and, since traveling between Cape Verde's ten islands is expensive, the populations on each island are distinct with their own personality and dialect.

Cesaria Evora, from the island of Sao Vicente, is known for the European-inflected mornas and the faster-paced coladeras while Lura is part of a new generation of musicians rediscovering the hidden traditions of her ancestral homeland; Her music is inspired by the styles of Santiago; the most African of the islands, and the island from which her father came; styles such as batuku and funana.

The African musical traditions of Cape Verde are still emerging now because the nation only gained independence in 1975, and prior to that the Church and the colonial government prohibited certain forms. The accordion-driven funana, which Lura performs, was considered too erotic.

Originally a dozen or more women would beat the batuku rhythm on folded stacks of clothes (called tchabeta) held by their knees, while a lead singer improvised poetry lampooning or critiquing community happenings.

A very sensual dance called torno accompanied the song form.

"The women in Cape Verde spend a lot of time together, working and talking and that is how batuku started, from the women of Santiago," Lura says.

"Now I and others are making a kind of batuku, but singing alone, not in a group. I am a little representation of batuku from Cape Verde."