Nha Vida

If you can get past the cover, which resembles a Stock, Aitken & Waterman 12” from the late 80s, this is a pleasant enough debut album from one of Cape Verde’s rising stars. A past winner of the Young Singers Festival, Ceuzany made her leap to the Lusafrica label via a stint as lead vocalist in Santo Antão’s bestselling band, Cordas do Sol. She re-interprets songs from a plethora of contemporary songwriters here, and it’s Cordas do Sol’s Arlindo Évora who originally performed the bright, upbeat opener, ‘Último Chance’, rather compromised here by some gratuitous rapping. A string-accompanied duet with Fred Deshaves, ‘Antes D’um Conché Bo’, is easier on the ear, and suggests that Anglophone soul and R&B is much more of an influence on her vocal style than Cape Verde’s singing traditions. Even a keening morna such as ‘Doce Pombinha’ is rendered with more tonsil acrobatics than it was designed for. Which isn’t to say that it doesn’t work, or that Ceuzany doesn’t have an impressive voice. It’s deep, supple and possessed of no little finesse: sufficiently lithe to handle Latin jazz on ‘So Nos Dos’, it really comes into its own on the dynamic likes of ‘Pamar’ and the tender ballad, ‘Na Ondas De Bo Corpo’.