Hers was a total performance... To call Lura alluring is more than wordplay. In fact, she is fierce, showing tremendous vocal strength and range, and worked both the room and her band with sexiness, grace, and authority" -Boston Globe September 2005

Just as Mariza has breathed new life into Fado as a contemporary heir to Amalia Rodrigues, so Lura does to this Cape Verdean music first made famous by Cesaria Evora.

The Zeiterion Theatre, in celebration of Cape Verdean Recognition Week, is honored to present the Cape Verdean, Afro-pop songstress Lura on Tuesday, July 3 at 7:30pm. Five dollars from every ticket will be donated to Cape Verdean Recognition  Scholarship Committee Fund.

The winner of Best Newcome at the BBC Radio 3 Awards and Best World Music Album at Les Victoires De la Musique in France, Lura explores the music of women from the remote interior Cape Verde. Today, out of a rich musical culture influenced by Brazil, West Africa and Portugal, a new generation of Cape Verdean singers is coming to the fore. No one is better placed to step onto the world stage than Lura.

Delivering contemporary songs in Cape Verdean Crioulo with her deep, sultry contralto, Lura is a captivating performer steeped in traditional styles but interested in a vast range of sounds. Born and raised in Lisbon, she started her career as a dancer, but realized she had a gift for singing when Cape Verdean-born zouk star Juka recruited her to record with him. The duet was a minor hit, and the teenage budding singer suddenly started receiving requests from established figures such as Tito Paris, Paulinho Vieira, and Angola's Bonga.

Like a number of other young Cape Verdean singers, Lura is determined to spread awareness of styles beyond the lilting minor key mornas and spritely coladeras popularized by Evora. Instead, she's delved into accordion-based funana, a sensuous style long repressed by Cape Verde’s Portuguese colonial administration before independence in 1975, and batuku.

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. There’s a new generation, and I'm just a piece of a puzzle," Lura says. "We sing and play traditional music from Cape Verde with influences from all over the world — soul, reggae, blues, samba."