Club Makumba

(PT)

When, in 2015, Tó Trips edited the solo album Guitarra Makaka – Danças a um Deus Desconhecido, he would certainly not have imagined how those somewhat nostalgic themes, inspired by more or less distant destinations such as Cape Verde, Mali or Morocco, would be transformed a few years later, in the manifesto of resistance, but also of party named Club Makumba. It all started on the tour of that same album, when Tó Trips invited drummer and percussionist João Doce to accompany him live. The duo was later joined by Gonçalo Prazeres on saxophone and Gonçalo Leonardo on double bass, two musicians who had already played with Tó Trips on the album Odéon Hotel, by Dead Combo. And it was already with the full band that the exotic soundscapes of this Club Makumba were designed, among “guitars from the southern coasts, warm North African rhythms”, jazz, “melodies and ancient tunings”. All wrapped up in a “multicultural party” environment with “a clashian side”, in the most pamphleteer sense of the term, “for the defense of migrations and the right of people to fight for a better life on this side of the world”, as can be seen from the cover of the group’s first album, inspired by the famous painting A Jangada da Medusaby Théodore Géricault, but in this case “modified with the dollar symbol”.