After a lifetime of poverty, Évora found huge success aged 51 with 1992 album Miss Perfumado. As Cape Verdean singers celebrate her morna ballads on stage, those who knew her recall her power, pride and constant smoking
Cape Verde, an archipelago nearly 400 miles off the coast of Senegal, is home to around 530,000 people: about the same population as Leicester, and for decades the country’s music was very little known beyond its borders. Then, in 1992, Cape Verdean singer Cesária Évora released her album Miss Perfumado.
The album became a crossover hit across Europe, selling 500,000 copies in France alone, while in the US, Évora became the biggest selling African artist of the 20th century. Miss Perfumado showcased Évora’s sublime voice – smoky, weary, bruised yet seductive – singing Cape Verdean mornas: mournful ballads sung in the Kriolu language which blends old Portuguese with west African languages, with backings that have the same cross-cultural mix. A concert at London’s Barbican next month will celebrate Évora’s legacy with morna performed by rising Cape Verdean singers (Ceuzany, Elida Almeida, Lucibela, Teófilo Chantre) and Mayra Andrade, a celebrated vocalist who was mentored by her. “These concerts honouring her are important,” Andrade says. “She put Cape Verde on the map and we Cape Verdeans are determined to keep her name and music alive.”
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