Manga

Back in 2013, when Cape Verdean singer Mayra Andrade released her fourth album, Lovely Difficult, it was already obvious pop music was staking a claim on her repertoire. Although Andrade was never a singer to play by the book of her country's traditional music, her previous albums mostly disclosed her Brazilian and jazz influences. Lovely Difficult, on the other hand, searched for a more universal appeal.

Manga, Andrade's first record in six years, tells quite a different tale. She now digs deeper into the pop world, only this time around she is thinking less globally. This means that she sings in Portuguese and Creole, but also that her music is much more informed by the trends that are taking over African contemporary popular styles. There are a lot of electronic gimmicks and a couple of effects over her voice (as in ‘Afeto’), but she has never sounded so free. And that's particularly poignant, whether she's placing her vocals on the top of the smooth beats provided by African electronics wizards 2B and Akatché on ‘Manga’ or ‘Segredu’, or when she's summoning emotional intensity as on ‘Plena’.