Label: Lusafrica
Country: Cape Verde
Release Date: 2005.05.17

Fans of Cesaria Evora have been kept in short commons for some years by a relative dearth of new material and emerging talent. But Lura, who was born in Portugal of Cape Verdean parents, is clearly a contender for latter’s throne. The beautiful young singer describes herself as a country girl and as such, is more interested in rural styles like the funana, bataku and the European, colonial-based mazurka than in the more urban morna, a barroom blues associated with the elder diva. Her songs, many of them self-composed, deal with small-town realities like a mother’s advice to her son in hard times, an unplanned pregnancy, uninhibited holiday celebrations and other tales that might well be discussed on a neighbor’s door-step. This is not to say that she is a narrow-minded provincial or hide-bound traditionalist; her arrangements are paragons of acoustic elegance, owing as much to R&B, Argentinean tango, post-Tropicalia Brazilian pop and French chanson as hometown firesides. Her voice, a clear mezzo-soprano-to-alto, ranges from girlish to smoky but as her material tends toward upbeat rhythms, it is her sun-drenched, precisely calibrated melodic sense and crackerjack phrasing that anchors each tune. The title track, a frenetic hip-swinger sung as a duet with Zeco di Nha Reinalda, could make a stone dance. (by christina roden)