Gerasonobu

Description

La Capverdienne Elida Almeida returns with a fourth album, "Gerasonobu," in which she confirms her status as a leader of the new generation of musicians in Cape Verde. At 27, Elida Almeida already stands out, with her honey smile and solar energy, as youthful as it is mature, as the muse of the new musical generation of Cape Verde. This status, she displays like a banner and inscribes it on the front of her new album, titled "Gerasonobu" ("New Generation" in Cape Verdean Creole). For, along with other fellow musicians, the young woman, with roots planted on the island of Santiago, contributes to breaking the codes of Cape Verdean music: this tradition illuminated by the guiding figure of Cesária Evora, jealously monitored by so-called "experts," who grumble as soon as one takes a step (of dance) outside of orthodoxy. Yet, Elida protests, "Even Cesária's creations stand out from 'traditional' pieces. The music of my archipelago of sailors, open to all winds, permeable to all influences, all fusions, is defined precisely by its constant evolution...". Thus, unlike her last album "Kebrada," which takes its name from her hometown and is anchored on the small piece of land without electricity where she grew up, she now travels the world, all antennas out, to nourish her newly charted paths. In her luggage? The Cape Verdean songs that rocked her early years, on the radio. The wandering tracks of "Gerasonobu" were thus composed in the four corners of the planet, during tours, in the semi-awake dream of a plane journey, in Lisbon where she resides, or even in Abidjan... "Each time, my creations, at the Cape Verdean heart, have absorbed the vibrations, the music of the territories in which I wrote them," she smiles. And to give her songs a more "urban" texture, Elida surrounded herself with her faithful accomplice, the Cape Verdean multi-instrumentalist and producer Hernani Almeida, but also with the DJ, producer, and musician Blinky Bill, a hero of the new guard of Kenya.