Lonji

Just when you might expect Tcheka to consolidate his popular 2005 CD Nu Monda with more of the same, he surprises us with everything but. Lonji shows so many new dimensions to his musical world that it shames some of us who suspected the soft-spoken artist of having a narrow repertoire. These 14 tracks reveal a slightly futuristic and avant-garde approach to Cape Verdian music. They assemble elements of electronica, transatlantic percussions, and Creole rock – yet the album remains faithful to Tcheka’s Santiago roots.

Perhaps this difficult juggling act is a product of the singer’s collaboration with Lenine. The likable Brazilian maverick has taken his Cape Verdian colleague under his wing and produced a hybrid album that is so much richer and more diverse than the 2005 release that propelled Tcheka onto a world stage. Lenine has also brought together a solid backing band that gives the songs both an airtight tension and a rare tenderness. The group is built around the complicity between its leader and guitarist Hernani Almeida, as the two arrange all the songs. And then there is the songwriting capacity of the 34-year-old vocalist. Tcheka mixes in a poetic vision of childhood (in “Sabu”, “Tadja Korbu” and the re-arranged version of “Primeru bes kin ba Cinema”), with nigh-anthropological studies of the evolution of rural society or the clash of generations (“Lingua Pretu”, “Fla Mantenha”, “Tenpul Nona”, “Negul Pinha”, etc.). He also reveals an eye for audiovisual drama. Here he draws on his nine years as a cameraman for the national TNCV station in Praia. “For me,” he writes, “a song is a sequence of images, a succession of photogrammes (sic) that pass before my eyes. The melody unrolls like a story in my head and I write the text once I have experienced this vision.”

Thus, many of the songs are complex descriptions of an evolving world. They reveal a steely side to the Tcheka music laboratory that appears deceptively simple. His apparent timidity off-stage hides a man eager to explore the disruptions caused by urbanisation, globalisation and an increasingly hard-edged world – a world that pits generations against each other and throws up unlikely stylistic marriages. The simple cover of Lonji shows Tcheka standing defiantly on one of the numerous rocky beaches in what one imagines is his home island of Santiago. His arms are crossed and he challenges the listener with a direct, proud stare. Yet there is no aggression in his stance. It’s one of a man standing his ground and prepared to stand by the music he believes should be part of the twenty-first century. This latest album could prove him right.

November 2007
Daniel Brown

Patrick Labesse

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