Mayra Andrade

Mayra Andrade: Storia Storia

Read "Storia Storia" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
November 12, 2009

Seemingly coming out of nowhere in 2007, singer Mayra Andrade single handedly rebooted the prevailing stereotype of Cape Verdean music with her debut album, Navega (Sterns). Sunny and gorgeously melodic, the disc provided a counterweight to the anguished oeuvre of Cesaria Evora, the “Barefoot Diva" who had been the international voice of Cape Verdean popular music since the late 1980s. To date, Navega has sold 70,000 copies and rising, quite an achievement for an unknown artist on a roots-based specialist ...

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Album Review

Mayra Andrade: Navega

by Chris May
September 3, 2007

Until now, for most people, the music of the Cape Verde islands has started and finished with the singer Cesaria Evora, who arrived on the international stage, aged 47, with the album La Diva Aux Pieds Nus (Lusafrica, 1988), becoming a festival-headlining world music star with Miss Perfumado (Lusafrica, 1992). Evora's style is called morna, and like its primary source material--which prominently includes Portugese fado and Angolan landu (lament)--excels at expressing sadness, loss and heartbreak. It's a kind of mid-Atlantic ...

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