Angolan singer Waldemar Bastos knows that his lyrical celebrations of love, peace and nature are not confined to any single language. So he blended French and Portuguese to come up with the title of his recent disc, "Renascence" (Times Square Records). But his songs also offer hopeful messages specifically for the often-troubled country of his birth a country that hasn't always treated him kindly

Bastos, who will appear Saturday at World Music Festival, has spent much of his life as an expatriate.

Rather than dwell on the circumstances that kept him away from Angola for long stretches, he prefers to discuss the influences that were always integral to his music.

"Throughout the centuries, Angola became two cultures within one culture, the Portuguese and the African," Bastos says. "It became natural for me to have two souls without any effort."

This does not mean that the cultures were entirely harmonious. As Angolans began calling for independence in the 1960s and 1970s, the Portuguese reacted severely. Paulo Bombe, who was born in Angola and runs Chicago's African Safari Imports, was a child at the time, but clearly recalls this period.

"The Portuguese were bombing and burning villages," Bombe says. "They were also killing and imprisoning young men."

One of these young men was Bastos, who is still unsure why he was jailed while he was still student. Angolan independence in 1975 brought its own troubles as various ideological and ethnic factions fought a civil war that raged for decades.

But today, in Bastos' music, the various worlds are more harmonious. While he frequently uses such imagery as traditional Angolan fishing boats and local deities, his musical palette is consciously global. On "Renascence" he includes Turkish string section, samba rhythms and ends the disc with a Jamaican dancehall club mix. His warm and remarkably fluid voice ties it all together.

For Bastos, the idea of seeking and combining diverse musical ideas started early. Now 51, he remembers traveling through out Angola with his parents, who were nurses, when he was child.

"Being in the interior gave me the opportunity to listen to the music of different tribes on different occasions," Bastos says. "Like weddings and funerals."

Along with traditional Kikongo and Kimbundu songs, Bastos also heard popular Congolese rumba (a.k.a. soukous) and Western pop via the radio. When he started performing in bands of his own, he says they performed what was popular in Angola at the time Jimi Hendrix and the Bee Gees.

Back then, Angola was a Portuguese colony and Bastos not only absorbed the language, but also such Iberian musical influences as fado.

Bastos defected from Angola in the early 1980s and lived in Portugal for a while before mov ing to Brazil. He says that the great Brazilian singer-song- writer Chico Buarque was one of the first to embrace him. Buarque had endured consider able abuse when he opposed Brazil's military dictatorship of the 1960s.

"We realized that we had common point of view," Bastos says. "He knew what exile means and he could understand it maybe better than the others."

Help during this difficult tune also came from another source, according to Bastos.

"My whole life was always ac companied by miracles and the hand of God," Bastos says. "God never abandoned me. I lived with what little I had and what didn't have."

As the fighting in Angola sub sided, Bastos made a brief visit in 1990. Eight years later, he re leased his American debut, "Pretaluz/Blacklight" (Luaka Bop).

He also visited Chicago in 1999 for the first World Music Festival. The singer says he fondly remembers the city's audiences as well as the Loop's painted cows.

Once Angolan peace was established, Bastos made a return visit to celebrate the treaty at major outdoor festival in 2003. His experience at the event is reflected in the feeling of renewal throughout "Renascence."

When Bastos is asked where he currently resides, he declines to claim any particular country, but his answer still sounds accurate.

"Portugal was my exile, but my main home is the world."

Waldemar Bastos will perform at the Old Town School of folk Music, 4544 N. Lincoln, at 8p.m. Sept. 17 with Cape Verdean singer Lura;773-728-6000; $12. Bastos will also appear at Borders, 830 N. Michigan Ave., at 1p.m. Sept. 17;free.