Un Archipel de musiques

Description

The beings who have strived to live in the Atlantic archipelago of Cape Verde have been torn from Europe and Africa. In them flows the nostalgia of separation, saudade. From their trials were born a creole language, poetry, and a mixed culture that the music of the different islands of Cape Verde carries today beyond the seas.
The existence of Cape Verde on geographical maps begins in 1460 with the discovery by Portuguese sailors of this empty archipelago, nearly five hundred kilometers off the coast of Senegal. Its history begins a few years later with the settlement of poor colonists and adventurers sent by the Crown; it continues with the deportation of slaves from the African coast to cultivate a barren land, rarely favored by rain. After five centuries of Portuguese domination, Cape Verde gained independence on July 5, 1975. Cape Verdean identity is based on the forced encounter between Portuguese culture, a significant mark of the colonizing master, and scattered elements of African cultures, a clandestine heritage of generations of slaves. Blacks, Whites, and mixed-race people of Cape Verde, living in the archipelago or in lands of immigration, today proudly claim the richness of their poetic and musical heritage, born from confrontations and mixtures, and of which the morna, now famous worldwide, represents the most shared value.