By Angie Lemon PR
Published March 13, 2024
I am pleased to present the exciting new album of stories, dreams and longings by Cape Verdean singer, Nancy Vieira titled GENTE, that releases internationally through Germany’s Galileo MC record label on March 15, 2024.
GENTE is Portuguese for ‘People’ and is an album that was made with a large creative team of composers, lyricists and musicians. The songs on GENTE are all performed by Nancy Vieira in Cape Verdean Creole and Portuguese with melodic subtleties and rich harmonic twists and were all recorded in Lisbon, Portugal, the city of Nancy’s work and life now.
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Nancy Vieira’s voice exudes natural warmth like a welcoming breeze. Akin to “morabeza”, a word that expresses the friendliness of Cape Verdan hospitality, the award-winning singer has a new album to celebrate, GENTE. An album that strongly connects and respects the place of Nancy’s childhood, the Cape Verdean islands with the city and country where she now lives and works: Lisbon, Portugal. Songs, stories, dreams and longings are all fully expressed through Nancy Vieira’s captivating voice. All songs on GENTE are performed in Cape Verdean Creole and Portuguese with melodic subtleties and rich harmonic twists.
The songs and music on GENTE come from the islands of Cape Verde and the streets of Lisbon with musical nuances from Brazil and echoes from Africa, Europe and the Americas. There’s morna and samba, fado, jazz-tinged sophistication and pop-minded adventure. There are people. There is life. This is fresh-sounding album made now with tomorrow in mind. Yesterday only matters because it’s what brought us all here.
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GENTE starts with a celebration of Cape Verdean life on “Sol Di Nha Vida” (My Life Under The Sun). Inspired by the hybrid of funaná and samba that Kaka Barbosa promoted and called “funamba”, “Sol Di nha Vida” was written by the renowned Mário Lúcio, an artist and composer who explores this Atlantic meeting of swings and cadences like few other and who is one of the creative forces that marks GENTE. Says Nancy Vieira of Mário Lúcio, “He is one of the composers who inspires me the most and one of the greatest Cape Verdean authors/composers of our time”.On the song “Singa” (Balance), Nancy Vieria is joined by an emerging singer and musician from the West African Guinean music scene, Remna Schwarz, son of the legendary José Carlos Schwarz. In perfect empathy and with the utmost elegance, Remna combines his distinctive Creole with Nancy’s for this beautiful song as arranged by Jorge Cervantes who also provides all of its instrumentation. “Singa” is a sweet lament lulled by a melody that is of today and now, but could just as well come from afar, so classic is its form. Strings intertwine in a fine harmonic tapestry while Nancy’s voice soars with a clarity that is guaranteed.
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GENTE, whose title translates from Portuguese for ‘People’ – brings together Cape Verdean musicians, singers and writers with some of Portugal’s finest musicians and producers. Produced by Amélia Muge, António José Martins and Nancy Vieira herself, GENTE was recorded in Lisbon between the historic Namouche studio and the Cervantes Estúdio of Jorge Cervantes, a Peruvian musician who plays on the album as well as providing some of the arrangements. This world, which Nancy Vieira knows so well because she has travelled the world on stage, also features on this album.
Nancy Vieira was born in Bissau and spent her childhood between the Cape Verdean islands of Santiago and São Vicente. She later moved to Lisbon, capital of fado and pop, to further her musical career and studies, where she has lived and worked since. Lisbon’s musical influences are very present on GENTE as the working base for the team of producers and several of the featured musicians: such as percussionist Iuri Oliveira, a sophisticated driving force behind so much great music that has been released in recent years; Mário Lúcio, Vaiss Dias and Zé Paris, all living treasures of Cape Verdean music who play stringed instruments. GENTE also features bassist and master of chordophones, Olmo Marin from the Basque Country; accordionists Luciano Maia and Gustavo Nunes from Brazil and violinist Denys Stetsenko from Ukraine. A world of a lot of PEOPLE, indeed.
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The songs and music on GENTE also have strong authorship: the renowned Mário Lúcio wrote four of the collection. There are also songs born from the feathers of Remna Schwarz, Luís Firmino from Acácia Maior, the great and historic B.Leza, Ano Nobo, José M. Neves and Kaku Alves and Adalberto S. Betú. Also featured are songs by Alexandre Lenos with Fred Martins, Luís Lima and Vaiss, Teófilo Chantre and, of course, Amélia Muge. In other words, themes that come from the deep musical traditions of Cape Verde and also from other generations and countries consolidated by a new generation already projecting the soul of these islands into the future.
The subtle and rich musical arrangements on GENTE with their swings and harmonies, reflect the visions of Jorge Cervantes, the Acácia Maior of Luís Firmino and Henrique Silva, fundamental names of the new generation from Cape Verde and the Lisboetas group Fogo Fogo who have raised the flag of the new Cape Verdean music ‘funaná’ high or the experienced Mário Lúcio. And there are also other guests who reflect this multiplicity of experiences and intersections in Nancy’s life: António Zambujo who joins his voice to Nancy’s in the beautiful ‘Fado Criolo’, a song in which you can also hear the spoken cadence of Chullage and the acoustic guitar of Fred Martins, or Miroca Paris who paints ‘Dia Funçon’ with percussions.
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GENTE follows on from Nancy Vieira’s 2018 release ‘Manhã Florida’. There are many people involved on GENTE, an album that avoids the easy path of technological touches of “modernity” and prefers, in its apparent formal traditionalism, to promote the particular magic that only happens when people from different walks of life meet in the same space to share, play and sing their different stories. There’s so much of Cape Verde on this album, it runs in Nancy’s veins to the point she is often referred to as the heiress of Cesária Évora, one of her strongest muses.
Nancy Vieira truly represents a new generation of Cape Verdean artists. In 2019, she won two Cape Verde Music Awards: Best Traditional Song and Best Female Interpreter. Nancy was the participating singer in the celebration of the consecration of the music of Morna as a Cultural Intangible Heritage of Humanity by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Nancy Veiria has become known and loved as singer with a direct, open voice and world view, very much at home in the world of international Portuguese-speaking cultures.
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GENTE is a work of encounters, stories, ideas, but above all, of people. The first two singles from GENTE, “Sol Di Nha Vida” (My Life Under The Sun) and “Singa” (Balance) represent the album’s moods perfectly. GENTE is a work that was conceived slowly thoughout, discussed and meticulously planned.
