As music streaming has become widespread, global attention has become fixed on Spanish-language performers, and rightly so: That language fueled eight of the ten most-viewed music videos on YouTube in 2018.
But music with lyrics in Portuguese has also experienced a major boost the baile funk hit Bum Bum Tam Tam, by MC Fioti, became the first clip from Brazil to reach one billion views in September. And music from some regions of Africa, especially Nigeria, is increasingly popular as well Davidos single Fall is even enjoying some play on American radio.
Dino dSantiago, a Portuguese singer of Cape Verdean descent, hopes to further both these trends with Mundu Nbu. The album came out last year but continues to bubble: Como Seria was still one of the most Shazamed songs in Portugal earlier this week, alongside international pop hits like Bad Bunnys Mia and Calvin Harris Promises, and dSantiago released a video for the single on Thursday.
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Mundu Nbu is a poised hybrid traditional rhythms plus a low-end attuned to modern dancefloors, hand-played instruments smoothed over with gleaming electronics, lyrics in both Creole and Portuguese. The album also pulls styles from across the Portuguese-speaking world, with a focus on countries around Africa. Mozambique, Cape Verde, Angola, Brazil, Guinea, So Tom: each country had its own sound, explains dSantiago. Now we finally are combining those and transforming it into one unique sound.
DSantiagos parents relocated from Cape Verde to Portugal after the former achieved independence from the latter in the mid-1970s; they were devout, so he joined the church choir at a young age. In the Nineties, hip-hop came to Portugal, dSantiago recalls. Rappers always needed a singer, so they said, ok, lets bring Dino from the church, hes from our ghetto too, so its easy. I was the singer of the hooks, and then I started to write my own songs.
The singers church chops, combined with his apprenticeship as a hip-hop hook-man, helped him develop into an adroit, resourceful vocalist. Hes one of those singers who can track down a whole set of harmonies in a few minutes, bang, bang, bang, all beautifully in time and in tune, says Seiji, an English producer who made his name in the club scene in the 1990s and worked heavily on Mundu Nbu. (DSantiago is no slouch as a musician either: To start Raboita Sta. Catarina, which is as reverent as it is danceable, he played a guitar part and beat-boxed both bass and drums, according to Seiji.)
Exposure to hip-hop also informed dSantiagos lyrical sensibility, which he says is, activism focused, with a message that elevates. Collaborators describe dSantiagos project in grand terms: When Dino picks up a microphone, he carries the strength of a social utopia connecting all the different Portuguese-speaking communities that live around Lisbon, says Branko, a co-producer on Nova Lisboa. The beats hypnotize the population, dSantiago adds. But when theyre dancing, Im talking about slavery, about how African women are not treated well.
That hypnosis is achieved through rhythms that will likely be unfamiliar to most American listeners. One is batuku, which dSantiago calls the most ancestral rhythm in Cape Verde. It came from the slaves taken from Africa by the Portuguese, he adds. It was played by the ladies when they went to the rivers to wash the clothes. S B, an airy tribute to dSantiagos wife, melds batuku with the Angolan style known as kizomba.
The singer also relies on funan, which he traces back to the rhythm of workers cutting sugar cane in Cape Verde. Men from the countryside used to do it, and since my childhood funan was in my house, dSantiago explains. Everyone starts dancing, even if they dont know it the rhythm is that strong.
One listener who was introduced to funan by dSantiago was writer-producer-engineer Rusty Santos, who has previously worked with Animal Collective and DJ Rashad. At first I had to figure out how the drum patterns go, the between-the-beat places where you put the snare, Santos says. He got the hang of it and went on to co-write and co-produce the track Ns Funan. We slowed it down to 90 bpm normally funan is up at 134 bpm or higher so it had a different feel than the classic funan, Santos adds. Some of the percussion on the track is played with kitchen knives, a fixture in the genre.
In addition to Seiji and Santos, two other key figures in the creation of Mundu Nbu were Kalaf and Branko, both former members of Buraka Som Sistema, a Portuguese group that helped bring Angolan kuduro to a European audience and popularized a fusion dubbed zouk bass. Buraka Som Sistema created what we now call the sound of Lisbon, dSantiago explains. We have finally transformed that for singers using those types of beats. Now Nova Lisboa' a sly, pinging track co-written by Kalaf, Branko and the producer Pedro is the anthem in the city. One part of the mission is done: We put the songs in the club and the DJs didnt even need to remix them.
Another part of dSantiagos mission remains: To unite Portuguese-speaking listeners outside of Lisbon around his sound. The singer travelled back to Cape Verde this week to continue to promote his album, and he has a series of shows planned later this year. African music is still blowing up and of course the Portuguese-speaking countries are going to have a big part in that, Seiji says. Nigerians, Ghanaians and South Africans have set the pace. But Dinos already making sure that Cape Verdean music is part of the conversation.