CESARIA EVORA -THE ISLAND SONG BIRD

CESARIA EVORA

Cesária Evora a.k.a. Cize, is an internationally renowned singer from Cape Verde. Cesária was born on August 27th, 1941 in Mindelo, São Vicente Island, Cape Verde. Cesária's love affair with music began at early age. Her late father, Justino da Cruz Evora, played cavaquinho (a small four-stringed guitar), guitar and violin. Among her fathers friends was B. Leza, Cape Verde's favourite composer. Cesária was seven when her father passed away. Cesária used to sing from the bandstand on the main square accompanied by her borther Lela on the saxophone. At a young age Cesária went to stay with her grandmother. She was educated by nuns an experience she has no fond memories of as she claims that it made her 'despise all moral structures.'

Cesária later met a Cape Verdean musician Eduardo who is claimed to have helped her sing on Radio Mindelo. Her reputation soon spread through out the neighbouring islands. She sang traditional Cape Verdean music style referred to as Coladeira and Mornas which are songs of sadness, sorrow and yearning.

Cesária the “barefoot diva” prefers to perform without shoes

In 1975, Cape Verde attained Independence and Cesária stopped performing in public, sinking into a prolonged bout of depression made worse by excessive drinking. This silence lasted about ten years. They say that she wandered naked and wild through the streets of Mindelo in the grip of a "feitiço" (an evil spell). Cape Verdean musicians despised her because of her extremely low social standing.

While she was singing at a restaurant in Lisbon Portugal to make money for her return ticket home, she met José da Silva who become her mentor and official producer. José fell in love with Cesária’s magnificent voice, and he invited to come and make a record in Paris. Cesária was 47 then and had nothing to lose and, never having been to Paris, she agreed. In Paris she recorded the album La diva aux pieds nus (The barefoot diva) which was released in 1988.

Cesária was again hopping from bar to bar, making a little money here and there. Being responsible for her two children and her mother whose sight was failing, she had to earn a living for family which at the time lived in a dilapidated house in Mindelo.

"... in all those years when I sang in bars and in front of strangers I sometimes had an idea I might someday be successful outside my country. The thought never stayed with me for very long, but here I am."
Source: Africanmusic.org

Cesária returned again to France in 1991 to record a new album Mar Azul, which was immediately play-listed on the FIP and France Inter radio stations.

Miss Perfumado album was released in 1992. With more than 300,000 copies sold to date in France, many see it as Cesária’s masterpiece. The album was released in the USA in 1999 and was nominated for the coveted Grammy Awards. Her music has garnered a total of six Grammy nominations. Cesária's won a Grammy award for her album Voz d'Amor in 2004 for Best Contemporary World Music Album.

“So I began singing again for good […] I don't believe in dreams or fate […] What delights me today is the happiness of having got through all the years of suffering to better enjoy the life I live now. At home, we say it's better to drink the venom first and the honey later. Now, I'm drinking the honey.”

MUSIC VIDEOS

Cabo Verde

Angola

Jacek Jaglowski has an awesome series of Cesária photos click here for more

TEXT SOURCES AND MORE INFORMATION

Cesária Evora Official Website

Cesária Evora on Myspace

YINKA SHONIBARE - THE AFRICAN TEXTILE ARTIST

Yinka Shonibare MBE
"my art mainly basically explores issues around identity and its about my bi-culcutural background in a way."

British-born Nigerian textile Artist, Yinka Sonibare is an internationally recognized contemporary artist. Yinka Shonibare was born in London in 1962, and moved to Lagos, Nigeria when he was three years old. He moved back to England when he was 17 years old. In the 1980s he studied in London at the Byam Shaw School of Art and graduated from Goldsmiths College in 1991. Whilst in art school, he began with life drawing and later his art work became politicized focusing on global issues. One of his teachers once asked him why he made art work that addressed Western society and events and not authentic African art.

As a joke, Shonibare began to ask himself what is authentic African art. What does it constitute? What does it mean? He grew up in Lagos and felt that he had no special key into ethnic or authentic art as he sees himself as a cosmopolitan citizen.

Shonibare then visited a batik material store in Brixton market in London. He discovered that the 'dutch wax' fabrics he chose to use in his art pieces was originally manufactured in Holland by the Dutch as they were trying to copy Indonesian Batik designs. The Dutch industrially had produced the fabrics for sale in the Indonesian market. The mass produced fabrics failed to appeal to the Indonesians as they did not like the industrially produced versions and so the Dutch merchants began selling the fabrics in West Africa. The English also started to manufacture the fabric in Manchester. Many people think this are authentic 'African fabrics' and he likes the 'fakeness' of that. Today in West Africa, and in many parts of the African continent, the patterned fabric is now an important and distinctive element of the African culture and symbolic of African identity.

At the Victoria and Albert museum in London, in the costume section, Shonibare questioned the issue of class in relation to the colonial history. He was amazed at the scale of the paintings and decided to transform the paintings on canvas into the fabrics. (for more watch video interview here)

A professional theater costumer makes the dresses used in his art pieces. Shonibare has enjoyed increasing international renown with his western historical figures dressed in the Dutch wax African print.

Yinka Shonibare has taken part in numerous international art exhibitions. In 2004 he was nominated for the Turner Prize. Yinka Shonibare is represented by Stephen Friedman Gallery, London; and James Cohan Gallery, New York.

He has a son Kayode Shonibare-Lewis who hopes to become a computer games artist.

"the idea for me using Victoriana as a metaphor came from Margaret Thatcher in the 80's was talking about returning to Victorian values."

"I was thinking: Okay, so where do I stand? I live in England. I'm from Nigeria. Nigeria was colonised by the British. The Victorian era was the height of colonialism in Africa. How do I relate to the repressive Victorian regime? So Victorian for me actually means conquest and imperialism. And so, in a sense, it is actually my fear. So what I then decided to do was actually confront my fear and face my fear. And the way to confront my fear, to actually parody that fear. A lot of the work that came out of my desire to face my fear and to turn it into parody. The irony of all of this is that -- since my work has actually been about what imperialism means and how that relates to my own identity -- it's quite ironic that I was then made a member of the order of the British Empire." Yinka on Chris Boyds Blog click here for more

This work was inspired by a painting called Portrait of The Reverend Robert Walker Skating, 1784 by Sir Henry Raeburn

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, 2008

La Méduse

"Swan Lake. It's my version. The film is called Odile and Odette. Odile being the bad character and Odette being the good swan. So what I've done... I've made two characters, one black, one white. And they dance opposite each another with a hollow frame in between them, so you get the illusion that one is a reflection of the other."Yinka on Chris Boyds Blog

Scramble for Africa, 2003, 14 figures, 14 chairs and table

" a recreation of the Berlin conference in the 19th century...It was when Africa was being divided up. It was in Europe. They had this conference in Berlin. And the conference was called Scramble for Africa. So on the table there's a map of Africa drawn. So it's merely capturing a moment when all these brainless people got around the table -- headless, brainless -- to actually divide up the spoils amongst themselves. See if they have original entitlements to it." Yinka on Chris Boyds Blog



"Diary of a Victorian Dandy," commissioned by the Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA) in London as a public art project for the Underground.
Shonibare makes reference to a dandy ( an outsider in the 18th century who pretended through imitation to be part of the upper class in society and was happily rewarded with the benefits of that position). In this photographic works he produces, Shonibare also plays with role reversals between classes and castes, between black and white. In the series Diary of a Victorian dandy, for instance, a black dandy is featured surrounded by white servants. In a humorous way, Shonibare shows us how European prosperity is connected to the imperialistic exploitation of the overseas territories.Source: Absolute Arts
Photos by Arobotar

I had the pleasure to attend his art exhibition at the James Cohan gallery "Prospero's Monsters" in New York. AMAZING!!!

TEXT SOURCES AND MORE INFORMATION
Yinka Shonibare Official Site
Video Interview of Yinka Shonibare
Vlisco website to purchase the fabrics used in the art