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Concert Preview - African artist at home in Victoria
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canada.com, Concert Preview - African artist at home in Victoria >>
Victoria is a long way from Cape Verde, but when African superstar Cesaria Evora visits this city, it reminds her of home.
Evora hails from Sao Vicente Island, one of an isolated cluster of islands known as Cape Verde, 500 kilometres off West Africa. In recent years, the singer has played Victoria often. She says Vancouver Island always seems oddly familiar, despite being on the other side of the globe.
"When I am there, I have my eyes in Victoria, but my mind is in Cape Verde, because of the sea. It looks very much like Cape Verde," Evora said Wednesday.
The 65-year-old spoke from Paris through a translator. It was a creaky and imperfect process, in which answers did not necessarily jibe with questions. Evora speaks Kriolu, a Creole form of Portuguese, and her low, rumbling voice could be heard in the background. The singer was staying at her favourite small hotel in the 17th arrondissement, where the staff all know her. She likes it because there's a good Portuguese restaurant nearby (Cape Verde was colonized by the Portuguese in the 1500s).
Today, the chain-smoking Evora is famous -- at least, in the world music community. Known as the Barefoot Diva because of a preference for performing shoeless, she has appeared on David Letterman's show and has been invited twice by Madonna to perform at parties. In 2004, she won a Grammy for her album Voz d'Amor. The woman known to intimates as "Cize" has sold five million recordings worldwide.
It's all rather astonishing, given that Evora didn't emerge as an international figure until her mid-40s. At that time, after a hiatus from music, she recorded a series of albums that became especially popular in Paris. The rest of the world followed, attracted by the earthy authenticity of her singing and the exotic melange of African rhythms.
Evora specializes in a Cape Verdean genre known as "morna," influenced by Portuguese, Brazilian, Argentinian and other styles of music. Typically, morna suggests a poignant sadness, a sense of regret and longing. Some say it reflects the fact that many Cape Verdeans, for economic and other reasons, are forced to move away from their beloved homeland.
This theme is explored on Evora's latest disc, Rogamar. The song Sombras di Distino (Shadows of Destiny) includes the lyrics: "My life is rootless/Like the fate of a Cape Verdean son."
Rogamar comes from the words rogar, which means "to pray," and mar, meaning "the sea." The title song is about a little boat full of sea-going Cape Verdeans pitching about in choppy waters. Other songs, all written by others, examine love, nostalgia, sadness -- recurring themes in Evora's music.
In 2005, Evora cancelled a Royal Theatre concert due to health problems. This week she said her health is fine. Globe-trotting (her tour with an eight-piece band takes her through Canada and the U.S. and to Hungary) isn't a problem, she says, because she's been doing it for so many years.
"What I'm trying to do is bring our culture of music to the world," said Evora.
Like many non-commercial, "authentic" artists ranging from American bluesman R.L. Burnside to Cuba's Buena Vista Social Club, Evora has been embraced by the rich and famous. Fans include David Byrne, Ed Bradley and Madonna. The last even hired Evora to sing at a 1997 birthday party she planned to throw at Gianni Versace's home, but it was cancelled after the fashion designer was murdered. When Madonna got married in 2000, she again invited the singer. But Evora turned down the gig when it transpired the Material Girl wanted her to appear without her full band.
This suggests Evora -- reportedly sharp-tongued and impatient on occasion -- can't be bothered catering to the whims of Madonna and other celebrities. But, after a lengthy confab between Evora and her translator, the trans-Atlantic response to this suggestion seemed oddly sanitized.
"She has a beautiful show," said Evora, adding she'd be glad to perform for Madonna in the future.
"If I am famous today, it is because of my fans. So I just sing our music, like I did in my country, and people accept it and they like it. People tell me when they hear my music, they get chicken skin. They cry, they fall in love, they hear it in their hearts. I'm glad if I can make people happy."
And then the translator said goodbye. Cape Verde's Queen of Morna wanted to walk to that Portuguese restaurant. It was time for dinner. 06/07/07 >> go there
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