Batuque and Finaçon

This collection showcases two of Cape Verde's most traditional and resolutely African musical styles – batuque and finaçon – which are most often performed together and which hark back to early days of the slaving colony. They are sung by one of the country's greatest batuque singers: Senhora (Nha) Mita Pereira, who has been performing since the 1940s. Batuque and finaçon worked together to form a ritualised song and dance usually performed by women at social occasions. A crowd beat out the batuque (beat) on a folded loin cloth. A singer performs the finaçon, extolling, cajoling, lamenting and offering advice, and the crowd respond with a choral refrain. On this collection Nha Mita sings some 13 finaçon, including a funeral lament and a wedding song, together with songs complaining about the lack of manners in modern children, and hunting and harvest celebrations.

The only thing that's missing is the spectacle. As Nha Mita sings and the rhythms and chants become more and more emphatic, dancers would swirl and sway their hips and bottoms to the beat until they reached a state of trance-like frenzy. The music would bring everyone together, bonded by batuque and congealed into community. Listening to the spectacle divorced from its context and its performance is akin to watching a video of a wedding – the point is to be there, to participate. Fascinating though this CD is, and despite Nha Mita's great singing, this is surely one for collectors and musicologists.