Mario Lucio & The Pan African Band

The Cape Verde Islands have a population equivalent to half of Prague, but in the world of music they represent a powerhouse. On the originally uninhabited archipelago, musical influences from Africa, Portugal and Brazil have mixed over the past five centuries. A number of unique styles have emerged. Mario Lucio is one of the unique figures in the Cape Verdean culture and his talent goes beyond the musical field. He served as Minister of Culture, paints, and wrote 10 volumes of plays, poems, and novels. His new project with musicians from other African countries, the Pan African Band, is unique. Lucio rediscovers the roots from which contemporary Cape Verdean music arose. The band was one of the biggest surprises at the last Womex fair.

Mario Lucio was born on the main Cape Verdean island of Santiago in the last decade of the colonial era, when Cape Verde still belonged to Portugal. He lost his father when he was 12 years old, and at 15 he lost his mother along with his seven siblings. They found shelter in an orphanage set up by the army. In 1984, he received a scholarship to study law in Havana, and later became a member of the Cape Verdean Parliament. He founded the very successful group Simentera, composed for world-famous Cape Verdean artists including the singer Cesaria Evora, performed solo. He wrote the book Creolization Manifesto, in which he analyzes the mixing of ethnicities, i.e. Africans and Europeans, which took place in Cape Verde in a number of other former colonies. His last album, with the Pan African Band, was released symbolically for the 50th anniversary of the independence of Cape Verde and other colonies. The title of the album, Independance, is a play on words: "independence" is independence, but changing the second half of the word to "dance" means dance. By which Lucio refers to the return of African folk dances, which were banned in the colonial era for alleged immorality. However, the colonial regimes also feared that rhythm and dance created a secret bond between Africans and could become a signal for rebellion.