{"id":772,"date":"2026-05-27T15:09:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T15:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestusamoverss.com\/?p=772"},"modified":"2026-05-27T15:09:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T15:09:43","slug":"greetings-from-cape-verde-where-the-sounds-of-samba-jazz-and-morna-fill-the-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestusamoverss.com\/?p=772","title":{"rendered":"Greetings from Cape Verde, where the sounds of samba, jazz and morna fill the air"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n<\/div>\n\n \n Ricci Shryock\/NPR\n \n <\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Cape Verde feels like a country where there are more musicians per capita than most anywhere else. Music is interwoven with the sounds of daily life in this West African island nation. In the heart of the capital Praia, a city of under 200,000 residents, singers belt out morna ballads from restaurants \u2014 morna being Cape Verde’s traditional music, with African and Portuguese influences. In the capital’s outlying neighborhoods, older men are often sitting on sidewalks and strumming their guitars. The government even put the face of the country’s most revered musician and singer \u2014 Ces\u00e1ria\u00a0\u00c9vora, who popularized morna internationally in the 1990s \u2014 on the country’s currency (the 2,000 escudo note).<\/p>

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Many of the musicians here have other jobs.\u00a0The journalist J\u00falio Rodrigues, who I hired to help me report a soccer story ahead of the World Cup, is also a guitar player. <\/p>

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Every April, Cape Verde’s musical identity reaches its apex, when Praia hosts two international events \u2014 the Atlantic Music Expo and the Kriol Jazz Festival. Last month, as a steady, pre-rainy season wind whipped off the Atlantic Ocean, the sounds of samba, morna and jazz filled the streets. I took this photo of Cape Verdean singer Ineida Moniz in performance at the Atlantic Music Expo.\u00a0A few weeks after the concerts wrapped, Cape Verde received good news about a special form of recognition: It will be the African Capital of Culture in 2028. But for now, the country’s great excitement is about sports. For the first time, Cape Verde’s national team \u2014 the second smallest nation by population ever to qualify \u2014 has reached the World Cup.<\/p>

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