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Barefoot Diva Sings for Africa
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Edmonton Journal, Barefoot Diva Sings for Africa >>
-by Roger Levesque
With a sublime voice that masks the serious social concerns in her lyrics, singer Cesaria Evora remains the epitome of a Third World woman who has triumphed over adversity to become a global star.
"In Cape Verde, we live with hope," she says. "If I am any sort of role model it's because all my life I was fighting and now I am successful."
You wonder if, at 65, she can finally rest because the battle is over, but Evora declares:
"I am still fighting. I am always singing and fighting."
Evora was born in the port town of Mindelo on the island of Sao Vicente, part of the tiny volcanic archipelago of 10 islands known as Cape Verde, resting several hundred kilometres off the coast of Senegal, West Africa. Once central to the slave trade and trade generally, it was a Portuguese colony for hundreds of years until it gained independence in 1975. In recent decades it's become a harsh place to live, both from a series of droughts and a decline in shipping that has pushed many citizens to move, leaving a poverty-stricken population of just over 400,000.
If Cape Verde is poor, like much of Africa, it's still rich musically. Evora has gained a good deal of the world musical spotlight since Jose Da Silva, a Cape Verde-born producer living in France, talked her into coming to Paris to record in 1987. It took several albums before her 1992 release Miss Perfumado became a global hit but now her recordings sell in the millions.
After winning over France and Europe years ago, she finally picked up a Grammy Award in 2004 for the album Voz D'Amor. Evora has also been celebrated by pop stars such as worldbeat enthusiast David Byrne. Madonna tried to hire Evora to sing at her birthday party a few years ago, but the singer refused when the pop star wouldn't fly in Evora's own band.
Despite the fact that she does more than 90 shows a year, Evora says "I cannot go far from Africa."
Her concern for that continent is echoed again in the tune Africa Nossa (Our Africa) from her latest album Rogamar (rough translation Pray to the Sea; on Lusafrica/Sony-BMG). It's co-written with Teofilo Chantre, one of the young poet-singers of Cape Verde, and by Senegalese star Ismael Lo, who guests on the track.
The rest of Rogamar is vintage Evora, featuring her deeply soulful sound against the backing of a top-notch group of African and European musicians who have been with her for at least five years, in most cases. They're experts when it comes to spinning African rhythms, with the fine solos of featured saxophonist Antonio Fernandes to complement the singer's evocative voice.
In fact, Evora and her label Lusafrica have done much to bring Chantre and other artists from Cape Verde to audiences around the world. When she performs Friday at the Winspear, the opening act will be the brilliant young singer-guitarist Tcheka, also from Cape Verde (his album Nu Monda is on Times Square Records).
The themes of her songs often explore the state of life in Cape Verde and Africa, the plight of women, in particular, politics in general, and, of course, love. But as Evora delivers songs in Portuguese Creole, most of us are left to absorb her message by osmosis through the native song forms of her country, the soulful, somewhat sad mornas, Cape Verde's answer to the blues, and the more uptempo breezy coladeras.
Evora has been singing all her life. Along with the native sounds of Cape Verde, her influences drew from Portuguese fado and Brazilian music. She was singing in clubs by the age of 16 and early on became known as the "Queen of Morna". She did stop her career to raise a family and was nearly lost to the music world before she eventually returned to performance in 1985.
More recently, she's been nicknamed "the barefoot diva". In her previous appearance here in 2003, she brought a special casual grace to the stage, barefoot as usual, with the sort of majestic presence one expects of musical royalty. And she does seem to live for performance.
"I'm just waiting to see my fans."
06/13/07
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