-By Jim Farber


Sometimes the places we adopt as home pull harder on us than the places we actually hail from. Take the case of the one-named, Lisbon raised singer Lura. She never saw her parents' birthplace (Cape Verde) until she was nearly 20. But the singer, who's now 32, wound up making the music of those islands her muse.

On Lura's ravishing second U.S. album, "M'Bem di Fora," she draws on rhythms that drive that part of the world — the funana, batuku and mazurka— then mixes them with sounds from modem Portugal. Her lyrics often address the dramas of those 10 arid islands, which lie hundreds of miles off the coast of Africa. In "Bida Mariadu," Lura sings of the islands' poverty. In "As-Agua," she depicts the importance of the rain that rarely falls there.

Lura's parents immigrated to Lisbon from the former Portuguese islands before she was born. As a teen in Lisbon, she began to hone her austere vocals, which ripple and shimmer with feeling. Likewise, the acoustic-based ballads on the CD sway with supple beats and longing melodies.

Those who know Cape Verde's music only through its most celebrated star, Cesaria Evora, would do well to seek out songs from someone who made this place her home by something more compelling than circumstance: Choice.

A Distant Set of Islands, Up close and Personal
-By Jim Farber


Sometimes the places we adopt as home pull harder on us than the places we actually hail from. Take the case of the one-named, Lisbon raised singer Lura. She never saw her parents' birthplace (Cape Verde) until she was nearly 20. But the singer, who's now 32, wound up making the music of those islands her muse.

On Lura's ravishing second U.S. album, "M'Bem di Fora," she draws on rhythms that drive that part of the world — the funana, batuku and mazurka— then mixes them with sounds from modem Portugal. Her lyrics often address the dramas of those 10 arid islands, which lie hundreds of miles off the coast of Africa. In "Bida Mariadu," Lura sings of the islands' poverty. In "As-Agua," she depicts the importance of the rain that rarely falls there.

Lura's parents immigrated to Lisbon from the former Portuguese islands before she was born. As a teen in Lisbon, she began to hone her austere vocals, which ripple and shimmer with feeling. Likewise, the acoustic-based ballads on the CD sway with supple beats and longing melodies.

Those who know Cape Verde's music only through its most celebrated star, Cesaria Evora, would do well to seek out songs from someone who made this place her home by something more compelling than circumstance: Choice.