Two artists performing in the same city, on the same night, in different venues, making very different music but with the same totemic figure in their hearts.
Bandé-Gamboa and Scúru Fitchádu were both in Porto in October, invited in front of the assembled world music industry as part of WOMEX 21. Bandé-Gamboa is a project fusing Cape Verdean funaná and Bissau-Guinean gumbé in a modern take on the classic dance-band format; Scúru Fitchádu also uses funaná, but takes it into the loud, aggressive and hyperactive world of punk, metal and electronica. Both hold a common core – the work of Amílcar Cabral.
Cabral was one of the great African revolutionaries, an anti-colonial thinker and a noted poet. In organising against the colonial power of Portugal, his dream was to unite Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde into one nation of differing but complementary halves. He was assassinated in 1973, but the independence movement he spearheaded continued in earnest. Within three years, both countries had won their freedom from Portugal – albeit as two separate, independent nations. Cabral remains a crucial figure and cultural touchstone within those countries and across the continent.
Scúru Fitchádu is the solo project of Marcus Veiga. Born in Lisbon to Cape Verdean and Angolan parents, Veiga grew up hearing the wisdom of Cabral. “The entire narrative involving Cabral was recurrent whenever there was talk of the colonial war and independence,” he says. “As a teenager, I didn't pay much attention, but when I started to wake up to conscious hip-hop and punk, I started to research revolutionary movements. It was from there that everything became clearer: Amílcar Cabral was a major figure in the struggle for the independence of the African people. He played an important role in ending the colonial power.” It was those awakenings that allowed Veiga to explore his own roots, musically and politically. Funaná is party music – based around fast-paced accordion and iron scraper – but it’s also a symbol of resistance. It reflects the blues of everyday people and was banned under colonial rule. With Veiga’s unique mix of powerful, punky, political party music, it was unquestionable that Cabralista philosophies would be at the centre: “The whole combative attitude directly draws on the liberation movements of Amílcar Cabral, Frantz Fanon and the Black Panther Party. I was born and live in the country that colonised, humiliated, kidnapped, raped and murdered my ancestors. I always try to establish a parallel between African guerrilla decolonisation movements and the present day, by writing verses or using samples that elaborate ideas of physical and mental colonial liberation. Here lies my manifesto. It opened doors for the way I make my art, and gave me ethical principles for how I live my life. Similar to so many others who have Cabral as a reference, we find guidelines for good conduct in his work as a strategist, writer and poet.”
Cabral’s post-colonial vision also inspired the founding of Bandé-Gamboa. The project started as an album by two all-star bands: one from Guinea-Bissau on Side A, one from Cape Verde on Side B – a reflection of Cabral’s ambition of the two countries united. The album was released in 2020, and the project has since evolved further, joining the two bands into one for live performances. Bandé-Gamboa was the brainchild of Portuguese producer Francisco ‘Fininho’ Sousa, who explains how the figure of Cabral is central to his work: “Cabral did not intend to dilute Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau into one identity; he celebrated the diversity and difference between the countries. We do the same. This project aims to respect the culture, but refuses to look at culture as static. It always evolves. That’s where Cabral comes in. He said that revolution was a cultural act. We place the future of the music in the hands of the most talented musicians, exactly where it should be.”
Fundamental to both Veiga’s and Sousa’s musical messages is the erasure of African struggles within the histories and education of Europeans. Scúru Fitchádu and Bandé-Gamboa are taking over where schools in Portugal are failing, by bringing Cabral and his teachings to wider attention, and with it broader topics of African liberation and anti-colonialism. “The narrative that was given to me in schoolbooks showed the Portuguese Empire as a sophisticated and benevolent coloniser of the wild, limited, disposable Africans,” says Veiga. “That story is still told in schoolbooks and Portuguese civil society today.” And Sousa notes that that vitriol extends to Cabral himself: “The difference between what I had been told his ideas were – shallow revolutionary rants – and what they turned out to be – beautifully written, innovative, deep humanist ideas – is a measure of the cultural bubble us Europeans live in. We are born in an epistemic prison. In many ways, he liberated me.”
Bandé-Gamboa and Scúru Fitchádu make very different music, but bring their audiences into the same anti-colonial collective. On a Saturday night in October, Porto – once one of the most important cities of the Portuguese Empire – was rocking to the message of the hero Amílcar Cabral.
Photos: Scúru Fitchádu live at WOMEX 21, by Yannis Psathas; Bandé-Gamboa, by Patricia Pascal.