“Voei de Mim” is the latest single from Dino d’Santiago’s new album, Badiu which is, in the words of “[…] a scream. It’s grieving to go my way.”
“The set of songs that make up this album were inspired by the journey of the Badiu people from the interior of the island of Santiago to the metropolises of America and Europe, to my umbilical block. Music is the great passport of Cape Verdean culture in the world. Present in all the remarkable moments of the country’s history, it is through it that ancestral memories are catalogued and transported to the future. I am more optimistic than ever about the future, willing to give voice to poetry but also to life, as it is, beautiful and tragic.“
Dino d’Santiago returns to sing the stories of Cape Verde and its vast diaspora, climbs the mountains of Assomada in the interior of Santiago, the island that received the largest number of enslaved people brought from the territories where Senegal and the Gambia are located today and which earned it the title of: the most African of the islands of Cape Verde.
The place where the black population, taking advantage of the chaos caused by the pirate attacks on the city of Ribeira Grande, fled from captivity to the mountains of the interior. And these groups of enslaved fugitives called themselves, ‘Badius’ (strays). A term historically derogatory but that from the twentieth century was being reappropriated and promoted to symbol of national resistance and pride.
This ‘Badiu’ that now presents, is the result of community work, with many borders but without limits. A work packed by the batuku, cathartic, raw and black, which allowed new generations of Cape Verdeans to reconcile and learn to claim their African heritage.
It is from this basic genre, feminine and badiu, that Dino d’Santiago builds dialogues with the world of electronics, zouk or hip-hop. Giving voice to the stories, anxieties and joys of the Creole nation that has the Atlantic as an extension of its territory and music as the only refuge for joy.
The artist performs on the Heineken Stage on July 7, alongside the likes of Glass Animals, Seasick Steve and Inhaler. Tickets can now be purchased here.