MArio Lucio & The Pan African Band

(CV)

Mario Lucio & The Pan African Band surgem como uma chama viva da crioulização cabo-verdiana, celebrando a fusão de África, diáspora e independência num tempo em que a identidade ainda é luta e festa. Cantor, compositor, poeta e ex-ministro da Cultura, Mario Lucio encarna a visão de um arquipélago que se fez na encruzilhada dos mares, onde ritmos proibidos renasceram livres e pan-africanos.

A 5 de Julho de 1975, Cabo Verde tornava-se independente. Era o segundo território de expressão portuguesa em África a libertar-se do jugo colonial e Mario Lucio Sousa tinha dez anos. Crescia no Tarrafal, ilha de Santiago, a mesma ilha onde o regime de Salazar instalara um campo de concentração para presos políticos das colónias. Um miúdo de dez anos guardava memórias de danças que regressavam, de músicas que voltavam de um exílio silencioso, de um povo que punha o corpo a celebrar o que durante décadas fora proibido. Cinquenta anos depois, esse miúdo regressou às memórias para fazer o disco da sua vida.

Lúcio Matias de Sousa Mendes, o nome completo que o mundo conhece como Mario Lucio, nasceu em 1964. Perdeu o pai aos doze anos e a mãe três anos depois, ficando com sete irmãos à guarda do exército cabo-verdiano, no quartel do Tarrafal. Foi o exército que lhe pagou a escola secundária; foi uma bolsa do governo cubano que em 1984 o levou a Havana a estudar Direito. Regressou seis anos depois, exerceu advocacia, foi assessor cultural do Ministério da Cultura, deputado ao parlamento entre 1996 e 2001, e de 2011 a 2016 ocupou o cargo de Ministro da Cultura de Cabo Verde. Nesse papel, criou o Atlantic Music Expo, um dos mais importantes fóruns de música da diáspora atlântica, e o Fesquintal de Jazz, o festival de jazz internacional do arquipélago. Um homem de muitos chapéus, todos levados a sério.

Mas antes de tudo isso, e durante tudo isso, havia a música. Mario Lucio fundou a Simentera, banda que marcou o regresso da música cabo-verdiana às suas raízes acústicas e reivindicou a cultura africana continental como parte integrante da identidade cabo-verdiana. Compôs para a saudosa Cesária Évora, para Ildo Lobo e para muitos outros. Publicou seis álbuns a solo antes de chegar ao sétimo e mais ambicioso: Independance, lançado em janeiro de 2025, exatamente cinquenta anos após a independência.

The title Independance deliberately contains the word dance. It is a play on words that Mário Lúcio does not explain; he leaves it to be understood. The album is a celebration of memory and consciousness at the same time: a record that celebrates the return of folk dances banned by colonialism and the archipelago’s opening up to urban music from Angola, Congo, Guinea, Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal: afrobeat, soukous, rumba, coladeira, funaná, all blended with the ease of someone who knows the traditions so well that he can play with them. To perform it live, he formed the Pan African Band: Jery Bidan, from Guinea-Bissau, on guitar; Ricardo Campos, from Angola, on bass; and Dilson Groove, from Congo, on drums. A band that is, in itself, a political statement. The Black Atlantic in miniature, gathered on stage.

Mario Lucio é cantor, guitarrista, compositor, poeta, romancista, pintor, legislador e pensador. Em palco, tudo isso está presente ao mesmo tempo, sem que nada pareça demais. É um dos raros artistas que consegue ser simultaneamente sábio e festivo, profundamente político e completamente dançável. A Pan African Band que o rodeia não é adorno, é argumento: a prova viva de que o Atlântico que durante séculos transportou escravos pode hoje ser o mesmo oceano que transporta alegria e dignidade. No Med, cinquenta anos de independência celebram-se assim. A dançar, com consciência.

VITORINO

(PT)

The year 2025 marks fifty years since the release of Semear Salsa ao Reguinho, the debut album by Vitorino Salomé, who has become one of the most iconic voices in contemporary Portuguese music.

A singer, songwriter and performer, Vitorino is today recognised as one of the last surviving figures of the April Revolution still actively involved in the artsa living witness to half a century of music, freedom and democracy.

Born in Redondo into a family of musicians, he grew up immersed in the oral traditions of the Alentejo. From an early age, he crossed paths with the leading figures of protest music, having been a faithful companion to José Afonso and Adriano Correia de Oliveira, from whom he learnt the art of the stage and respect for the audience.

Alongside José Mário Branco, Sérgio Godinho and other colleagues, he made a living singing in the metro and shared the experience of emigration in Paris, amidst literary gatherings, bohemian life and political struggle.

His career has been marked by major collaborations: Fausto, Rui Veloso, Jorge Palma, Tim, Janita Salomé, amongst many others. He was the founder of the Rio Grande project and recorded in Cuba with the Septeto Habanero, constantly opening himself up to international musical dialogue.

Vitorino’s career has been distinguished by awards that underscore his cultural significance:

• Prémio José Afonso, for the album Eu Que Me Comovo por Tudo e Por Nada, written entirely in collaboration with António Lobo Antunes.
• Play Awards for Best Traditional Live Artist – 2025, testifying to the unrivalled power of his performances.
• Play Awards for Best Music Video 2025 for his song “Laurinda” (Laurinda, Karetus, Vitorino, Iolanda), directed by *Aidan Kless, which reaffirms him as an intergenerational artist, both deeply rooted in tradition and thoroughly contemporary.
• Notable appearances at WOMEX — in Thessaloniki (2013), in Santiago de Compostela, where he gave a talk on ‘A Canção como uma arma de combate às injustiças’ and at the 2021 edition in Porto, where he opened the official programme with a performance.

The new album

Scheduled for release in October 2025, the album “50 Anos a Semear Salsa ao Reguinho” recreates the original 1975 tracklist, given a fresh twist with contemporary arrangements and featuring collaborations with some of the biggest names in Portuguese music: Rui Veloso, Jorge Palma, Luísa Sobral, Cuca Roseta, Ana Bacalhau, TIM, Janita Salomé, Maria Ana Bobone, Buba Espinho, Pedro Sáfara, Segue-me à Capela, amongst others — bridging the gap between generations.

A vibrant and diverse show

The commemorative concert revisits Vitorino’s classics, blending Alentejo tradition, folk poetry and new sounds.
On stage, in addition to his band, the show features special guests (who contributed to the album) and the involvement of local artists in each region, reinforcing the community-based and deeply rooted nature of a body of work that has always drawn its inspiration from its closeness to the people and the land.

Seun Kuti & Egypt 80

(NG/FR)

Some people confuse the terms afrobeat and afrobeat, and it is important to clarify the distinction, particularly when discussing Seun Kuti. Afrobeat, created by Fela Kuti in 1970s Lagos, is a powerful and expansive genre: a blend of Yoruba rhythms, jazz, funk, soul and fearless political courage. Every track was a manifesto; every note, a spark of rebellion. Afrobeats (in the plural), on the other hand, which today dominates urban dancefloors from Lagos to London, is a more pop- and electronic-oriented movement, born of an aesthetic lineage but with less militant edge. Seun Kuti remains faithful to the former. The original afrobeat, the body and nerve of an Africa that thinks, dances and resists.

Seun Anikulapo Kuti was born in 1983 in Lagos. The youngest son of the legendary Fela Kuti and the activist and performer Fehintola Anikulapo Kuti. He literally grew up on stage and in the rehearsal rooms of the Shrine, the legendary headquarters of the Egypt 80 orchestra, where he learnt early on that music and politics could speak the same language. By the age of nine he was already accompanying his father on tours; at fourteen, following Fela’s death, he took over the leadership of the band. An almost mythical gesture of continuity.

Since then, Seun Kuti has been touring the world with a visceral energy. From his early albums Many Things (2008) and From Africa with Fury: Rise (2011, produced by Brian Eno) to Black Times (2018), he builds a bridge between contemporary Nigeria and his father’s legacy, infusing it with his own urgency and passion. Influenced by Coltrane’s rebellious jazz, James Brown’s political groove and the poetry of resistance from modern African artists, Seun cultivates a sound that is not merely a tribute. It is living reinvention.

At the helm of Egypt 80, the band of relentless brass and ever-vigilant percussion, Seun Kuti preserves the DNA of Afrobeat: the expansive rhythmic structure, the hypnotic repetition, the social commentary at the heart of the dance. But there is also room for reggae, spoken word and jazz improvisation. Every concert is a rite of liberation. Fela’s legacy runs through the stage, but Seun inhabits it as a new leader: fierce, electrifying, deeply contemporary.

Fifteen years on, MED revisits a hurricane of energy that sweeps the orchestra and the audience into a celebration of African and universal freedom.

LURA

(CV)

24th October of 2024. Angélique Kidjo, the greatest diva of African music, celebrates 40 years in the business at the Gulbenkian Auditorium. Lura is the special guest at this show, where she commands the stage with her charismatic presence in ‘Carnaval de São Vicente’. In a rousing finale, singing Miriam Makeba’s iconic ‘Pata Pata’ in duet, she spots Anabela in the audience and brings her up on stage to bring this celebration of African music to a triumphant close.

Lura is fire. She is volcanic blood. A magnetic presence on stage. She dances with joyful fury, shares neighbourhood stories, and draws the audience into the Creole circle. She is Lisbon, Paris and São Vicente. She is morna, fado, coladeira, funaná, the rebellious drumming of the diaspora, Afropop, bossa nova, a plural identity so well reflected in the album Multicolor (2023). An album that includes a duet with Kidjo (Cetam), where Cape Verdean traditions emerge with new textures, painted in new shades, as if each track were a different island in the same emotional archipelago. Amidst messages of self-esteem such as Preta (an echo of Black Lives Matter).

A teenage backing singer in the 1990s, Lura shot to stardom with In Love (2002) and burst onto the scene with Di Korpu Ku Alma (2005), on which Na Ri Na became a global anthem of Creole joy. Seven albums on, Lura represents one of the most luminous ways of singing of the Cape Verdean diaspora, with respect for her roots and the courage to reinvent them. At a time when identities intersect and are questioned, her music shows that one can belong to many places without losing one’s centre.

When she pays homage to Cesária, the ‘sodade’ is real; it has weight, texture, and the distinct scent of an absence that cannot be resolved.

At the MED Festival, she marks a career spanning 30 years of activity, during which she has travelled the world many times over with a wealth of experience.

Bonga

(AO)

When Bonga first made his voice heard, Angola was still a nation struggling to assert its freedom. His songs resonated in the hearts of those who dreamed of an end to colonial rule and the birth of a distinct identity. He sang semba at a time when it was already a form of resistance: a hybrid rhythm, with Afro-Lusophone roots, where body and words moved as one. At a time when music was both a weapon and a refuge, Bonga raised his voice as a symbol of unity and liberation. He was persecuted, exiled, but never silenced. His singing travelled from Luanda to Lisbon and from there to the world, carrying the memory of a people.

Born José Adelino Barceló de Carvalho in Kipiri, on the outskirts of Catumbela, in 1942, Bonga grew up amidst the batuques of Angola and the records arriving from across the Atlantic. Before becoming a musician, he was a top-level athlete and even represented Portugal in the 400 metres. But when the winds of change began to blow across Africa, he swapped the name of a runner for that of a messenger: Bonga Kuenda. That is to say, ‘he who crosses borders running’. From then on, he did indeed run, but in pursuit of freedom. Bonga set off for the Netherlands, for France, for the exile that so many knew and few were able to transform into a life’s work.

Having settled in Europe in the 1970s, Bonga became a leading voice of the Angolan diaspora. His debut album, Angola 72, blended acoustic guitars and reco-recos, saxophone and melancholy, and gave semba a new horizon: urban, poetic, universal. Influenced by Liceu Vieira Dias, Rui Mingas, morna and fado, he reinvented semba as a hybrid language, somewhere between lament and an invitation to dance.

Over more than five decades, he has built a body of work that is also an archive: from the influences of batuque and rebita to the dialogue with jazz and Cape Verdean music, and the Kimbundu language, which he insists on singing. His songs are home to stories of fishermen, of women who wait, of children who grow up too quickly, of a continent that the West stubbornly refuses to listen to with due attention. Bonga’s voice is unmistakable: hoarse, earthy, almost ancestral. It carries the salt of the dirt roads and the sweetness of Luanda’s backyards.

At 84, with over half a century of songs and resistance behind him, Bonga returns to MED, eight years after, with the same vigour as ever.

Dikanda

(PL)

Central Europe knows all too well the weight of borders. Szczecin, a Polish city on the banks of the Oder, was for centuries a place of passage, conquest and the reconstruction of identity: German, Polish, and everything that lay between the two. It is on this historically unstable ground that Dikanda was formed in 1997.

The name says it all: dikanda is, in a Central African language, the word for a family that has come together on the road. Vocalist and accordionist Anna Witczak-Czerniawska, alongside guitarist Piotr Rejdak, began by playing on the streets of Europe, improvising songs to fund their travels, until the jam sessions evolved into a permanent band. This is precisely the spirit of the group, which lives and works as a small, loving community, where each musician adds their own emotional geography to the group’s sonic map.

Their first album, Muzyka czterech stron wschodu (‘Music of the Four Corners of the East’), released in 1999, was a statement of intent: to catalogue the soundscape of the East with the seriousness of an ethnomusicologist and the passion of someone who simply cannot stop dancing.

Dikanda’s frame of reference is, therefore, the East in a mythical and anthropological sense. A place that extends far beyond geographical boundaries: the Balkans, the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, India, Africa, the Gypsy world of the Carpathians.

Dikanda does not sing in Polish, nor in Macedonian, nor in Romanian, nor in Arabic. Or rather, it sings in all of these and in something else that does not exist in any dictionary. One of the most distinctive traits is the creation of made-up words in the song lyrics, creating a language of their own called dikandisz, the language of emotion and the heart. It is neither a trick nor a gimmick: it is the honest admission that there are feelings no existing language can contain, and that the only possible answer is to create a new one. At a time when identities are closing in on themselves and difference is frightening, they propose the opposite: a language that nobody speaks but everyone understands.

The result is music that communicates beyond linguistic boundaries: those who do not understand the lyrics grasp the gesture, the vibration, the urgency, with songs that oscillate between frenetic dances and hypnotic ballads, passing through irregular metres typical of the Balkans and Eastern scales full of tension and brilliance.