Migrants

Lúcio is a seminal character in Cape Verdean culture, a singer, composer, poet, novelist, playwright, painter and politician who spent five years as his country's minister of culture. After four albums recorded with the band Simentera and five solo recordings, Migrants is his tenth release and, as befits its title, finds him venturing far beyond the morna, funaná and batuque of his island home to create music with no borders, no labels and no flags.

Sounding like a cross between Caetano Veloso at his most off-beat and an acoustic Manu Chao, his Creole poetry is a plea for us to recognise our common humanity. ‘Migrants (Shakespearience)’, for example, is a gentle lament inspired by the true story of a tourist ship in the Mediterranean rescuing a boat full of lifeless migrants, which led to the shocking spectacle of tourists suing for compensation because the incident had ‘spoiled their holiday.’ Opener ‘Mi So’ is an improbably infectious mix of harmonica, trombone and saxophone, like a New Orleans funeral band transplanted to the Rio carnival. Elsewhere there are plangent guitars, bursts of playful vocalese, echoes of bird song, pizzicato fiddles and mandolins while Lúcio's warm baritone voice is for the ages.