We are at Stop 7 on our Grand Tour and we have arrived at the first of the six island nations in Africa, Cabo Verde.
As I'm sure you know, Cabo Verde is a group of ten islands situated in the Atlantic between 300 and 450 miles due west from Senegal. I was lucky enough to visit five of the islands when I had a holiday there in 1995. Some of them are as flat as the proverbial brinhola with great beaches, while others are volcanic with some pretty wild scenery, as my photos from Santo Antão show.
In those days the only way to get to Santo Antão was by ferry from Mindelo, the main town on the island of São Vicente and birthplace of Cabo Verde's best known musical export, the late Cesária Évora. We can't really do Cabo Verde without Cesária. On today's selection she teams up with Ismaël Lô from over the water in Senegal.
During the course of this series we will be featuring the catalogues of a number of labels that are doing a great job of reissuing African music of varying vintages - the likes of Sahel Sounds and Habibi Funk for North Africa, Analog Africa for West Africa and my old friend Awesome Tapes From Africa for a bit of everything.
To that list you can add the Ostinato label, who have proved invaluable in compiling this post as they have put out three albums of music from Cabo Verde, all of which are worth getting hold of. We have drawn on two today (the Grupo Pilon compilation narrowly missed out).
First up is Jovino Dos Santos from "Synthesise The Soul", which features local musicians in the 1980s getting to grips with these new-fangled instruments that members of the Cabo-Verdiano diaspora had started bringing to the islands.
Then we have Etalvino Preta, who you can find on "Pour Me A Grog", a compilation of 1990s funaná - a musical style described in the blurb as "a trans-Atlantic sibling to Colombian cumbia" - and a must have for all you accordion fans.
Moving us vigorously into the 21st century we have Netos De Cabral. A female trio, their name means "Grandchildren of Cabral". My guess is Cabral refers to Amilcar Cabral, who lead the nationalist movement for independence from Portugal in Cabo Verde and Guinea-Bissau until his assassination in 1973, and not the Portuguese word for goat. Despite that we will still dedicate the track to our favourite Portuguese goat herder, George.
I have not been able to find out much about Netos De Cabral but I can tell you that today's track comes from a 2008 album called "Midnight" on which they have taken the 1990s funaná sound and turned it up a notch.
We round things off with some Mandatory Africa Reggae courtesy of one Ras Jahknow. Mr Jahknow is originally from Cabo Verde but now appears to be based in Australia, or at least he was in 2014 when he released his album "Jah Sta Li", the title track of which we share with you today.
"Africa Nossa" - Cesária Evora (featuring Ismaël Lô)
"Bo Ta Cool" - Jovino Dos Santos
"Mulato Ferrera" - Etalvino Preta
"Casa Ku Mi" - Netos De Cabral
"Jah Sta Li" - Ras Jahknow
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