In just 2 years, Elida Almeida has made a name for herself performing at world music venues in Europe, Africa and North America.
\nThe unknown Elida won huge acclaim for her first album and the song Nta Konsigui (2.7 million views on YouTube), her warm, smooth voice conveying a powerful exultation. On her second album, Kebrada (named for the village where she grew up), she asserts her African identity, seasoning her Cabo Verdean beats \u2013 batuque, funan\u00e1, coladera and tabanka \u2013 with Latino energy. Her fiery temperament and joie de vivre do nothing to undermine the social criticism she expresses in her nostalgic ballads tinged with pop.
\nAlready at 25, Elida Almeida shows an impressive maturity, talent and generosity.<\/p>\n
Her first album, Ora doci, Ora margos (Sweet Moment, Bitter Moments), proved a success when it was released in 2015. Now Elida Almeida brings us Kebrada, a collection of all of her new songs following the spring 2017 release of a six-track EP whose Cabo Verdean Creole title, Djunta Kudjer (Putting Our Spoons Together), means becoming united in friendship, solidarity or even love. Combining various genres and inspirations, the twelve tracks on the new album explore the traditions of the Sahel archipelago, a port of call for sailors crossing the Atlantic. With Elida, we set off on a voyage, too, from nostalgic ballads (Forti Dor, the story of son who died because he fell in with a bad crowd, or Nlibra di Bo, a song about separation that has a very Cuban touch) to the energy of batuque (N\u2019Kreu), funan\u00e0 (Grogu Kaba) and tabanka (Bersu d\u2019Oru) beats.
\nPacked with pop references and echoes of islands across the Atlantic, the young singer\u2019s style is extremely international. Winner of the 2015 RFI (Radio France Internationale) Discoveries Prize, the 25-year-old Elida Almeida learned the art of fusion as she toured the globe from C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire to Haiti, Paris and Cuba. The new pearl of Cabo Verde has a powerful appetite, curiosity, a ton of good humor and an equal measure of determination.<\/p>\n
Born on February 15, 1993 on the island of Santiago, Elida Almeida was raised by her grandparents in the little village of Kebrada, a remote, mountainous spot near to Pedra Badejo in the east of the capital island. \u201cA place with no roads or electricity\u201d where the only connection with the outside world was battery-powered radios, but where there was genuine happiness to be found. At the age of 14, Elida moved to the island of Maio with its vast stretches of sand, salt marshes, beaches and pearly waves. There, she helped her mother to sell fruit and vegetables in the market of Vila do Maio, also known as Porto Ingles (the English Port).
\nChosen among the ten islands of the archipelago by fate, Santiago was the land of Elida Almeida\u2019s roots; Maio the isle of her emancipation. When she became a mother at 17, she continued her studies. In the heat of Maio, she also presented a show on local radio and refined her musical culture. To improve her vocal technique, she practiced church singing. Determined and keen to defend the right to education, Elida left the rural world to write songs of love and empathy.
\nAt a concert in Praia (having doubts, she had prudently enrolled to study \u201cmultimedia communication at university\u201d), she met Jos\u00e9 da Silva, founder of the Lusafrica label, and sent him her songs \u201capprehensively, as a female songwriter in a country with so many great artists\u201d. She recorded Ora doci, Ora margos in 2014. Her freshness and warmth of voice won immediate success. The track Nta Konsigui, which she had written at the age of 17, subsequently featured in the highly popular Portuguese TV serial A Unica Mulher.<\/p>\n
If a \u2018golden cradle\u2019 exists, Elida Almeida was not born to it, but fashioned it herself with elegant obstinacy. Enjoying complete freedom as she crafted her Bersu d\u2019Oru, Elida Almeida chose a more obscure beat: tabanka. Used during carnival celebrations on the island of Santiago, tabanka became the symbol of the country\u2019s struggle for independence. Today, it expresses a joyous, colorful assertion of African identity. On the track, she namedrops relentlessly: Manuzinhu, Sema Lopi, Nha Nacia, Katx\u00e0s, Norbetu\u2026 \u201cI grew up surrounded by those ancestral masters of tabanka and often dreamed of having met them, of having danced with them. Tabanka is a tradition that was originally developed to get around the colonial power\u2019s ban on African beats and instruments.\u201d Each year, black kings and queens defy the white masters, revel in their transgressions and revive black splendor in a grand carnival.
\nAlthough the tradition \u2013 which evolved in various forms over the different islands \u2013 is tending to disappear, Elida Almeida captures, digests and transforms it with the help of her guitarist and arranger Hernani Almeida. She draws on her environment with precision and lightheartedness. \u201cMy songs are inspired by my own experiences. Such as Sapatinha, which is about the nursery rhymes of my childhood when I woke up at cock crow. Sometimes I put myself in the place of other people, for instance a woman who is the victim of domestic violence in Kontam.\u201d There are also songs about the ravages of grog (the local rum), Grogu Kaba, and the return of a migrant in Nta Fasi Kusa. Then there is the eternal figure of the mother, who loves and sometimes punishes, but also gives affectionate advice.
\nRecorded with the musicians who back the singer on stage \u2013 Hernani Almeida (guitars), Nelida da Cruz (bass), Diego Gomes (keyboards) and Magik Santiago (drums), Kebrada also features a few distinguished guests, especially Vincent Segal on cello, the sons of Cod\u00e9 di Dona on gaita and ferrinho, and accordionist Regis Gizavo in one of his final recordings.<\/p>\n
Winner of the Prix D\u00e9couvertes RFI in 2015, Elida, a young woman bornon the island of Santiago, developed her vocal techniques with simple church singing. Elida Almeida has made a name for herself performing at world music venues in Europe, Africa and North America.The unknown Elida won huge acclaim for her first album and the song Nta Konsigui (2.7 million views on YouTube), her warm, smooth voice conveying a powerful exultation. On her second album, Kebrada (named for the village where she grew up), she asserts her African identity, seasoning her Cabo Verdean beats \u2013 batuque, funan\u00e1, coladera and tabanka \u2013 with Latino energy.<\/p>\n
Her fiery temperament and joie de vivre do nothing to undermine the social criticism she expresses in her nostalgic ballads tinged with pop. Elida Almeida shows an impressive maturity, talent and generosity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2680,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}}},"categorie-artiste":[],"genres":[],"class_list":["post-597","artiste","type-artiste","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pasamusik.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artiste\/597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pasamusik.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artiste"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pasamusik.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/artiste"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pasamusik.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pasamusik.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"categorie-artiste","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pasamusik.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categorie-artiste?post=597"},{"taxonomy":"genres","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pasamusik.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genres?post=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}