Carmen Souza – Port’Inglês (Galileo Music, 2024)
Carmen Souza’s Port’Inglês mixes traditional Cape Verdean rhythms with jazz, highlighting the country’s colonial history and cultural hybridization. The album reflects on the lesser-known British presence in Cape Verde and the decolonization efforts that followed. Souza incorporates lovely rhythms like funana, contradança, morna, and mazurka, underscoring the multifaceted identity of Cape Verde, where African, European, and Creole influences converge.
This release also coincides with the 50th anniversary of Portugal’s Carnation Revolution, which led to the end of its colonial rule in Africa. Having lived in the UK for 16 years, Souza draws on her master’s thesis about the British influence in Cape Verde to compose a set of original songs. Her music tells the story of Cape Verde’s cultural intersections with the UK, weaving in themes of colonialism, identity, and resistance.
The album is enriched by Souza’s collaboration with musicians from both Lusophone and British backgrounds, including Deschanel Gordon (piano), Diogo Santos (piano), João Oliveira (drums), Elias Kacomanolis (drums), Zoe Pascal (drums), Mark Kavuma (trumpet), and Gareth Lockrane (flute). Souza herself contributes on piano and guitar, while her unmistakable, sultry and marvelous jazz trained voice navigates varied registers, delivering a direct, live sound.
Souza’s long-time collaborator as bassist, creative producer, and composer, Theo Pascal, comments, “Our priority was to allow each instrument’s acoustic ‘colors’ to shine through organically, without requiring extensive digital processing or effects. The use of analogue and other digital recording techniques is a nod to the historical nature of the stories we tell here, adding a layer of authenticity to the album.”
The extensive CD booklet contains lyrics, translations to English and detailed notes about the songs.
Buy Port’Inglês.
Author: Iliana Cabrera
