Archive for December, 2002
The musicians are the ones with the product, the power. Everything is happening.
You are about to be introduced to marrabenta, a kind of music designed to express happiness that is emerging from the streets of Maputo, Mozambique that is not just rhythm and percussion, but is music where people dance and sing until they “burst.” The story of marrabenta is a deep one, one that is now bringing together the old with the new, one that is enabling new, young musicians, often street kids, to enter the modern music scene and join with the old timers to pay homage and respect to their roots. This is music designed to create productive and constructive dialog, music that hopes to make Mozambique a better place. To think that the Portuguese colonialists once repressed it, and now Portuguese musicians embrace it, is to understand the power of this force for change. Read the rest of this entry »