Music
The music of Cape Verde hits the Dakota this week when the singer presents "the feeling of the songs" of her parents' homeland.
By BRITT ROBSON, Special to the Star Tribune
The native music of Cape Verde is as elusive and disparate as one might expect from an archipelago of 10 islands whose numerous ports are part of the international trade route off Africa's west coast. So it's fitting that Lura, the 36-year-old singer who perhaps best captures the myriad elements of the Cape Verdean hybrid, hails from Lisbon, Portugal, where she grew up being tantalized by the notion of her parents' native land.
"We lived in a Cape Verdean community. I listened to the music, ate the food and became very curious to know this country. Then I fell in love with Cape Verde and knew I had to use my voice to tell people about it," said Lura, speaking by phone from Zagreb, Croatia, a stop in a global tour that will arrive Monday at the Dakota in downtown Minneapolis.
Lura and her five-piece band will mostly be performing material from "Eclipse," her fourth international album, released in March.
As with her previous discs, it contains a guileless mix of "funana," the lilting, accordion-driven rhythm reminiscent of more uptempo French cafe music, and "batuque," a spirited staccato rhythm rooted in the beating of towels by women washing clothes down by the river. There is also a greater emphasis on the "morna" -- a gorgeous, often gently doleful form of balladry popularized by Cesaria Evora, matriarch of Cape Verde vocalists. The title track on "Eclipse" is closely associated with Evora.
"Yes, maybe this record is a little softer than the other ones," Lura said. "I can't tell you why, because I don't know if a record is going to be orange or black or green as I am making it. There is 'morna,' but there is 'funana' and 'batuque,' too; and Creole and funky and tango. It comes together like a puzzle from me just feeling the feeling of the songs."
