Andrew Gilbert interviews Lura.

Delivering contemporary songs in Cape Verdean Crioulo with her deep, sultry contralto, Lura is a captivating performer steeped in traditional styles but interested in a vast range of sounds. Born and raised in Lisbon, she started her career as a dancer but realized she had a gift for singing when Cape Verdean-born zouk star Juka recruited her to record with him.

A duet they recorded was a minor hit, and the budding teenage singer suddenly started receiving requests from established figures such as Tito Paris, Paulinho Vieira and Angola's Bonga. She recorded her first album, "Nha Vida," in 1996, and made a splash when the title track was included on the 1997 AIDS benefit compilation "Onda Sonora: Red Hot \+ Lisbon," alongside pieces by stars such as Caetano Veloso, Djavan, Marisa Monte and k.d. lang.

Like a number of other young Cape Verdean singers, Lura is determined to spread awareness of styles beyond the lilting minor-key mornas and sprightly coladeras popularized by Evora. Lura has delved into accordion-based funana, a sensuous style long repressed by Cape Verde's Portuguese colonial administration before independence in 1975, and batuku, a rhythm that originated among groups of women beating folded stacks of clothes, accompanied by topical, often satirical improvised verses.

Her gorgeous third album, "Di Korpu Ku Alma" (Lusafrica, 2005), features five batukus, including her signature tunes "Na Ri Na" and "Vazulina," by Orlando Panteira, a gifted composer who died before he had a chance to release his own album. "Di Korpu" also features a separate DVD shot during a 2004 concert opening for Evora at Le Grand Rex in Paris, which captures Lura's infectious, youthful energy.

Her second U.S. release, "M'bem Di Fora (I Come From the Country)," came out in March on Times Square Records. It continues her exploration of her family's rural Cape Verdean roots, with a strong tinge of jazz and R&B.

"There's a new generation, and I'm just a piece of a puzzle," Lura says, speaking by phone from her home in Lisbon. "We sing and play traditional music from Cape Verde with influences from all over the world - soul, reggae, blues, samba." Read More

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Kevin L. Carter reviews Lura's performance at the Perelman.

Only in Cape Verde could the mazurka, a Polish song form appropriated by the French and dispersed around the world by Martiniquians, find itself a proper place within the Crioulu cultural stew and active musical laboratory of this West African island archipelago.

When Lura, the sensuous Cape Verdean vocalist, danced joyfully across the Kimmel Center's Perelman Theater stage Wednesday night, you could see Africa personified in her movements and in her smile. But as any Cape Verdean will tell you, while African roots are strong in Cape Verde, they are not the whole story. With Lura, as with Cape Verdean pioneer Cesaria Evora, the songs are full of Portuguese chordal and emotional underpinnings.

Lura, born Maria de Lurdes Pina Assunção in Lisbon 30 years ago, fronted a crack six-piece ensemble and ran briskly through the gamut of Cape Verdean rhythms – mazurka, coladeira, batuku, funana and morna.

Singing to a multicultural crowd that included a large Cape Verdean contingent, Lura used her voice to good effect, markedly on "Ponciana," from her new album, M'bem di fora (I've Come from Far Away). Lura is a compact woman with a voice powerful and metallic in the high register, more tender and sweet in the lower.

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Lura

If there were any doubts about the younger woman's potential, they are swept away by her album M'bem di Fora ("I've Come From Far Away"), a recording as satisfying in its way as any of the grande dame's recent releases. The fact that Lura was not born in the islands does nothing to undermine her claim to carry on the tradition. Marooned off the coast of Senegal, the archipelago is, after all, a land that has spawned its own diaspora: more Cape Verdeans live abroad than on the islands themselves. For all the recent excitement over an explosion in tourism, their country has traditionally been a land of modest resources, where drought and poverty are part of the natural order. Exile has become a way of life. Yet, thanks to its historic role as a way-station on the nautical routes between Africa, Europe and South America, Cape Verde has nurtured a strikingly rich Creole culture, blending the fatalism of fado with the delicacy of Brazilian samba and the rhythmic intensity of West African pop.

Evora arrived late on the international stage. While Lura's ascent may not have been quite as leisurely, there is no question that it has taken her a long time to find her true voice. Her first record, released a decade ago, was dominated by youth-oriented zouk rhythms and echoes of glossy American R&B. It was not until 2004 that she released what she regards as her first "authentic" Cape Verdean album, Di Korpu Ku Alma ("Of Body and Soul"). It was, she says, a conversation with the famously laconic Evora, with whom she had been working as a backing singer, that helped her to find the right path: "Cesaria doesn't talk much," Lura explains, laughing. "When I recorded my album In Love [in 2002], I sang in English and Portuguese, and did some R&B and soul. So I asked her: 'Do you like this album?' And she said: 'I don't have to like your album. You have to like it.' And she told me I had to sing the music that I felt. They were such simple words, but it was like a door opening. That was when I realised my music is the music of Cape Verde."

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Robin Denselow review's Lura's new album M'Bem Di Fora.

This album shows off her cool, clear vocals on a series of songs that are all very pleasant and easygoing but fail to give any indication of her full musical range or her stage personality. Maybe a live album would put that right.

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Lura - Cape Verde

Cape Verde hardly seems well positioned to elbow its way into the highly contested world music marketplace. Made up of 10 main islands off the coast of Senegal, it is barely larger in size than Rhode Island. Cape Verde's population is about 420,000 (though the country's endemic poverty has resulted in a far-flung diaspora of another half a million people).

Cesaria Evora's rise to prominence in the late 1980s put the West African nation on the international musical map, and outside the Lusofone (Portugese-speaking) world she has continued to reign as the sole voice of the nation. But with a confluence of influences from Portugal, Brazil, and West Africa nurturing a musical culture as rich as the islands are barren, a new generation of Cape Verdean singers is coming to the fore.

Sara Tavares , Fantcha , Maria de Barros , Gardenia Benrós , and Maria Alice have all released impressive albums with distribution in the United States and Europe. None, however, is better placed to step onto the world stage than Lura , who returns to the Berklee Performance Center on Saturday for a reprise of her triumphant September 2005 debut.

"Cesaria is like our mother," says Lura, 31, who was featured on an extensive 2001 European tour, Cesaria & Friends. "She makes Cape Verdean culture known all over the world. She does it very seriously, and I learned a lot with her. I learned where my place is in music from Cape Verde and what I have to do."

Delivering contemporary songs in Cape Verdean Crioulo with her deep, sultry contralto, Lura is a captivating performer steeped in traditional styles but interested in a vast range of sounds. Born and raised in Lisbon, she started her career as a dancer, but realized she had a gift for singing when Cape Verdean-born zouk star Juka recruited her to record with him. The duet was a minor hit, and the teenage budding singer suddenly started receiving requests from established figures such as Tito Paris, Paulinho Vieira , and Angola's Bonga.

Read More
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