A culpa da minha recente inatividade aqui no Caipirinha Lounge é de Buenos Aires, pura e simplesmente. Que cidade linda, cheia de vida e gente energética, cheia de contrastes, a 'design capital of the world'. Tem uma forte influencia de cidades européias mas é realmente uma coisa aparte. Estou em Argentina pouco mais que uma semana (é a minha primeira vez em América Latina), e durante esta primeira semana tem sido muito difícil parar de zanzar a cidade para sentar e escrever. Pensava que ninguém tinha uma vida nocturna mais activa do que os madrileños…estava redondamente enganado, porque os Porteños [...]
I am placing the blame of my recent inactivity here at Caipirinha Lounge squarely on the shoulders of this beautiful behemoth of a city, Buenos Aires. Maybe beautiful isn't the right word to describe it; striking and vivacious are better words. I have been in Argentina for a little over a week (it's my first time in South America), and finding the time to sit and write about beautiful music in Portuguese has proven to be elusive. I thought madrileños partied hard; clearly I had not yet experienced a night out in Buenos Aires. I will be a Porteño [...]
Lisbon is a city with character and soul, and a lot of it comes from the African diaspora that will forever remain a part of that city's identity. Because of Portugal's colonialist history, African peoples have been integrating into Portuguese society for centuries. So it is only fitting that a Cape Verdean, Sara Tavares , also does a song celebrating the city and what it means to her. The song Lisboa Kuya (a slang term that is loosely translated as Lisbon Rocks) has clear Cape Verdean influences that are right at home in Lisbon. Lisboa [...]
This Brazilian chanteuse is one of the most talented musicians to emerge from Brazil in recent times. A gifted individual, Cibelle was introduced to the world by way of Suba , the legendary Yugoslavian/Brazilian music producer who died shortly after releasing his first album, São Paulo Confessions . Cibelle featured prominently in that release, but her self-titled debut is something else. Exuberant, sultry, and experimental, she has a soft purr of a voice that just drives you wild. Deixa and Waiting are two great gems from her debut album, which many people [...]
Saudade is an untranslateable Portuguese word that conveys a feeling of sad, nostalgic longing for a person or place. For me, this place is Lisbon, the place that my brother and I would fly to every summer and sometimes Christmas and run to my mother's arm for another vacation with her. But this post is about Madredeus, and their song Moro em Lisboa ( I Live in Lisbon). Musicians always have a soft spot for a city that touches them deeply, and songs about cities abound. But few are quite like this one. Madredeus is able to [...]
A video by Sara Tavares and another by Lura played in the cinema . Later, Bïa came by to croon two sultry, jazzy late night songs in French and Portuguese. Then the Nigerian Asa was featured for a little anglophone and Yoruba flavor, with three biting, soulful, and insightful tracks reminiscent of Bob Marley. Angolan reggae band Kussondulola broght things back to a lusophone atmosphere with three reggae jams that remind me just a bit of the great Tiken Jah Fakoly, in content rather than language. Lastly, I shared with you my [...]
Someone a lot smarter than me once said that change is the only constant. In that spirit, here are two changes to this audioblog, a remodeling of the lounge, if you will. 1) This blog is in a bit of a shambles. It's kind of like organized chaos, but easy on the organized. Thus, after every week there will be a weekly roundup where I will recap the jams that were posted during the previous week, for an easier navigational experience. 2) This week marks the beginning of "Saudades de _________" series, in which I will post songs [...]
I am intensely in love with this song so my subsequent ramblings on it might be a tad bit biased. But i really do believe that Haja o que Houver is the most beautiful love song written in Portuguese (or any language), and that Teresa Salgueiro's voice is at its best here. A song by Madredeus, Haja o que Houver is featured in their 6th cd, O Paraíso , and is by far the standout track. At the risk of overhyping it I'll just let the song move you in its own way, at your [...]
These guys are pioneers –they are the first popular Portuguese-language reggae artists, the first to move massive crowds of people to sing Jah's praises in Camões' language. Fronted by the Angolan Janelo da Costa, with Daddy Bé on base and Messias on drums, Kussondulola is a large amorphous band that creates rootsy, African-influenced reggae tracks that talk about Angola's myriad socio-political problems as well as the usual reggae banter. I used to straight-up jam to Kussondulola growing up, and their debut album Tá-se Bem (released 1995, right in the middle of Angola's civil war), the one that catapulted them to [...]
One of the things that's wrong with the world today is that music like the type Asa makes, real music with a real message, never gets airplay in popular radio stations. Or maybe it's just here in the States. My cousin introduced me to her last month and I play her eponymous debut cd at least once a day. I jam to Jailer frequently – the lyrics, tone, and simple style remind me so much of Bob Marley. And that's not a comparison I throw around. Socially conscious music doesn't have to be complicated. Asa (pronounced [...]
Breezy, Brazilian, and jazzy, Bïa Krieger's music is made for those balmy summer nights that only seem to happen once in a very long while. This Canadian-based but French-raised Brazilian singer's tracks have a low key, sultry smooth jazz quality, perfect for a calm, lounge atmospehere. And then she is quadrilingual...some of her songs start in Portuguese and end in French ( Eu Vi /J'ai Vu ), whicle others are in English or Italian. Bïa is also notorious for singing Chico Buarque 's bossa nova renditions in flawless French, and also does covers for her favorite Italian [...]
My once trusty Toshiba recently decided to turn my life into a complete mess by crashing. I feared for the loss of all my music, and thus my recent days have been spent trying to retrieve all my extremely important files (read: music) with the help of some of the best data recoverers in the DC area. That, plus an aburd but wildly eventful trip to a remote area of North Carolina to celebrate my friend's birthday, have kept me away from you, my reader (according to sitemeter you actually exist!), my music, and rambling on about it. I had [...]
The picture above captures Lura's riveting beauty and the self-contained but exuberant passion she has for her music, all in a moment of quiet, serene exaltation. She was born in Lisbon but both her parents hail from Cape Verde, as her father is from Santiago island and her mother from São Nicolau. Lura has come a long way since her days as one of Cesária Évora's backup singers and dancers. The sensual diva first caught the attention of Évora's producer José da Silva after she sang duets with Lusophone music heavyweights such as Bonga and Tito Paris, since [...]
Monica Freire is a free spirit, a globe trotter, and her music reflects that. Born in Bahía, Brazil of Syrian-Lebanese, African, Portuguese, and indigenous ancestry, she started singing at 15 and before long established herself as the premiere singer for the Carnaval troupe Bloco Pinel, the same troupe where Brazilian MPB superstar Daniela Mercury started out. Monica's next stop was St. Martin in the Caribbean, where she stayed for a few months, and then southern France, where she arrived by boat from the Caribbean and stayed for a couple of years, absorbing the musical culture of the land. Next [...]
A produtora musical angolana Nossa Música, Lda. solicitou a colaboração deste blogue para uma maior divulgação do projecto que eles desenvolvem: a procura de novos talentos musicais, algo fora do comum. A Nossa Música pretende descobrir novos talentos no mercado lusófono e tranformá-las em vozes credíveis de sucesso. Estás interessado/a? Parece estar ao teu alcance? Então clica aqui e faz um download do documento word para mais informações. - Photo by Kaysha
O Rei. The King. Zunga. Roberto Carlos goes by several nicknames, all of which imply greatness and glory. The highest selling Latin-American artist in history, he is to Brazil what his idol Elvis was to the USA, and he was very much inspired by the hip swinging musician. He's the type of artist that defines a generation, having pioneered the Brazilian pop rock movement of the late 50's and throughout the 60's, and has had a career that has spanned 50 years (completed this past April 19) and over 100 million records. The songs in his 1966 album [...]
She is without doubt one of Portugal's most successful and respected singers, and one of the most talented, soulful fado artists to ever grace us with her music. Dulce Pontes conveys through her music the nuances of what it means to be and feel Portuguese, and the music she writes is melancholic and deeply emotional. But Dulce, ever the experimenter, doesn't just do fado – she also composes pop songs, classical ballads, and other forms of Portuguese folk music. She will inevitably be compared to Amália Rodrigues, Portugal's queen of fado and most loved singer, but Dulce [...]
Today marks the one month anniversary since the day Fernanda Porto first graced your ear drums with her sexy downtempo tracks, adding more flavor to the caipirinha in your hand. Or is it the other way around? It has been one month of music from all corners of the globe that speak Portuguese, from Paulo Flores in Luanda to Dili All-Stars in Timor to Terrakota in Lisbon to Mundo Livre S/A in the streets of Recife to Eneida in Bissau to Mayra in Cape Verde. I [...]
Another gem from the sands of Guinea Bissau, Eneida Marta's soothing music is a far cry from the current plight of her homeland and makes you wonder if the people driving Guinea into abject strife know that such poignant beauty is created in their own country. Calm and confident, Eneida's voice travels along a background of acoustic guitar and water drums, reminiscent of her compatriots Bidinte and Manecas Costa and very similar to Cesária Évora's brand of morna. A great example is N'pirdi Coragem, sung in Guinean Creole, a simple stripped down number prominently featuring her [...]
The video is in Portuguese, but you'll get the gist of things. The creation of Kuduro by Tony Amado
Caipirinha Lounge
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