Bonga - Kualuka Kuetu (1983)

The sun is flooding through the windows, and one might imagine that the palm trees behind Bonga on the album sleeve are just in reach. Spring is indeed here, though the two feet of snow over the weekend and this morning's -18° F thermometer reading have dampened any enthusiasm for its arrival. Still, the fluffy white stuff, the work in moving it out of the way, and the abrupt cold have kept me off my bike, letting me focus on music and a few other important things.

Listening to Bonga is always such a pleasure. Weaving Angolan folk music with influences from other lusophone countries' cultures. Threads from Cape Verde, Brazil and Portugal abound, but where do they originate? There has been such coevolution of music that those threads are found in the music of each of those countries.

This album, from relatively early in Bonga's long career, alternates between ballads and dance-oriented sembas, with a few surprises. The birimbau in "Pió-Pió" is delicious. Listening to this great, uplifting album as I write, I realize it might not be THAT cold outside. Time to ride!

Enjoy!

PS. This is the third Bonga album I have had the pleasure to digitize. The others can be found here!

Kandandu - Bonga (1980)

Whether it is a morna from Cape Verde, a revolutionary song from Guinea Bissau, a nineteenth century horns and percussion piece, or any one of the songs that draw on his Angolan roots, Bonga produced one of his finest albums in 1980. Kandandu is simply a masterpiece from the Angolan superstar. Listening to this exquisitely beautiful album years ago is what led me to collect any Bonga recording I could find.

One of my early posts on this site was a 1984 release from this great musician, and that post had a fair amount of information about Bonga. Accordingly I write sparingly about the man today, and rush this music to you. The songs that feature Bonga singing along with simple percussion and lovely acoustic guitars, like the sublime title cut "Um Kandandu Amigo" and "Nguzu," are terribly moving. Others will have you dancing. It's no wonder that his gravelly voice became the epitome of Angolan popular music.

Enjoy!

Teta Lando - Menina de Angola (1990)

I've been listening to Angolan music a lot lately, and I devoted my radio show to it this week. Unfortunately I did not have this record available yet, for it has several tasty songs. Teta Lando was an important figure in Angolan music history who caused national mourning when he died in 2008. His long career included activism and leadership of the National Musicians and Composers Union.

This album swings between semba and a couple of slower songs full of suadade. It's interesting how influential Portuguese fado was in that country's African colonies. While the guitars and percussion are nice throughout, and the keyboards are mostly tasteful, it is Teta Lando's expressive singing that hooks you in this relatively short recording.

Enjoy!

Bonga - Marika (1984)

The gruff voice of Bonga (Barceló de Carvalho) is without question the best-known one from Angola. When Bonga exchanged his life as an athlete for that of a musician, in the early 70s, he began a productive career that has produced over thirty records, and immense popularity in Angola, Portugal and the rest of the Lusophone world. There is a reasonable biography of Bonga here.

While his earliest recordings (Angola 72, Angola 74) were revived as CD reissues in the late 1990s, much of his exceptional work from the late 70s and early 80s, when his musical maturity and cosmopolitan experience combined to produce the iconic sound that has endured through the decades. Today we feature the album that spotlights Bonga's song Marika, which evolved from its semba roots on Angola 74 to become "real soukous" on this album. Critics of the day claimed that Bonga was abandoning his roots and becoming "commercial," but he rejected that criticism by claiming, justifiably, that soukous is related to the music of northern Angola. Indeed, one of the leading singers in Congolese rumba in that era was Sam Mangwana, who also has Angolan roots.

Bonga was, however, internationalist with his music, and Marika has the imprint of Cape Verdean morna and Portuguese fado, especially on the song, here called Camin Longe, which is a version of the epic Sodade that became a signature song for Cesaria Evora. Varied, interesting, stretching from traditional to organic African pop, I think you will like this album.

Enjoy!