Zé Luis

Born in Praia, the Cape Verdean capital city on the island of Santiago, Zé Luis moved at the age of 4 to the islands of Principe and Tome, where he grew up among the plantation workers, assimilating the musical traditions and learning the songs of the workers who, like his parents, had come from different parts of Cape Verde to earn their living there. Today, back in the city of his birth, he enjoys a reputation both as a master carpenter and as the velvet-voiced interpreter of an extensive repertoire of mornas, coladeras, and mazurkas, which he has performed throughout Cape Verde since the 1980s. Zé Luis's vibrant and relaxed tenor tones provide a polished counterpoint to the rolling guitar rhythms and cascading cavaquinhos of his string trio. Exuberant and vital yet smooth as silk, these are Cape Verde traditions at their assured best. (Zé Luis is a Lusafrica artist).