Afropop Worldwide

Elida Almeida is a major player in a new generation of Cabo Verdean female singers who have risen, quite gloriously, in the wake of Cesaria Évora’s storied career. Évora, the “barefoot diva,” grew up in poverty, singing for tips in Mindelo on the island of São Vicente from the age of 16. Finding that music could not support her, she abandoned singing, only to be “discovered” and revived in 1985. From there, she began a late-life career singing in the great concert halls of the world and hailed as the Queen of the Morna, the morna being the deeply melancholy and nostalgic Cabo Verdean cousin of the deeply melancholy and nostalgic Portuguese fado. When she died in 2011, Évora was one of the most in-demand international singers anywhere, and to this day, visitors to the Cabo Verdean islands are inundated with her image and sound. She is beyond question a national treasure.

But perhaps her greatest legacy is the generation of young women who have followed in her footsteps, many of them signed, as Évora was, to the Lusafrica record label based in Lisbon. Elida Almeida is not only a proud member of this generation of recording artists, but also one of its principal composers, writing for other new-generation divas from Nancy Viera and Mayra Andrade to Lucibela. When we first met her in 2017, Elida spoke of her upbringing and early career. Then in 2018, when she performed at the Lincoln Center Atrium she spoke about her third album, Kebrada. In January, 2025, she returned to New York, and to Lincoln Center, to give one of the standout performances at the annual globalFEST extravaganza. A seasoned, powerful performer, she arrived (just barely, due to a visa snafu) with a superb band of musicians, mostly based in Lisbon. Her most fourth album, Di Lonji (2023), is yet another sterling example of her composing chops and vocal finesse. Afropop’s Banning Eyre caught up with her during her soundcheck to hear the latest in an extraordinary career. Here’s their conversation.

Photos by Banning Eyre.

Banning Eyre: Elida, so nice to see you again.

Elida Almeida: Nice to see you again, too.

The last time we spoke was seven years ago when you released Kebrada.

Wow, time flies.

What have you been doing since then?

A lot of things. One of them is a celebration of ten years of my career, which I did last year. We did a vinyl and so many singles and videos and albums after Kebrada, so a lot of things happened in these seven years.

Tell me about your latest album, Di Longi.

Di longi means “far away.” It's the name that I chose because I think I am far away from Cabo Verde, from the countryside. So many things have happened to me that I never imagined. It’s also about the way that I see that I have a lot of work to do yet to get where I dream to be one day. There’s more to do.

Well, you’ve come far, and you're still young.

Not so young!

Well, from where I sit… Anyway, let’s talk about what you’re going to perform tonight.

So tonight, I'm gonna try to be to bring all these ten years to the stage. It's a mixed lineup we have today. I'm gonna sing a song from my first album “Nta Konsigui.” That was my first composition. Then we’re going to do “Dimingo Denxo” from Bulimundo. That's one of the biggest groups that we have in Cape Verde. I re-recorded this song, so I'm gonna try to bring the audience to Cape Verde to make them feel the warm temperature in Cape Verde. I think we're gonna have a good moment together.

I love your version of that Bulimundo song. I’ve been to Cape Verde twice, so I know what you’re talking about. It's such a great environment, such a beautiful musical environment too. Last time, we talked about you as a composer, because so many artists sing songs that you've written. You said the reason that they do is because you sing about their lives, about life in Cape Verde. Is that still the case? Are you still living here?

No, I’m not. Actually, as I said, a lot of things happened in these seven years. I went to Lisbon in 2019 to live there. And you know, Lisbon, it's like a little island of Cape Verde, with so many people that have their lives there. Right now, all of my family is in Lisbon—my mother, my little sister, my son, everybody. And I lived there until 2023, last year, and now I'm living in Germany, in Hamburg, in the north.

What made you move to Germany?

I made a family, and I started a new life there. Sometimes it's a good change too, you know? But I'm still in Cape Verde. I think my head is always in Cape Verde. I watch all the news. I'm inside of everything that happens in Cape Verde, politics, financing, everything that we are passing through in Cape Verde. I just arrived from Cape Verde. I did the New Year’s Eve show in Praia, the capital, so I am always in Cape Verde.

Good, good. And you're still writing songs that other singers adapt. I remember I asked you then if you wrote songs for particular singers and you said no. You just write songs and if they like them, they pick them up.

Yeah, of course, sometimes I make a song that when I finish the song, I feel like, Lucibella can sing this song. I think that's because we are friends, so I know her taste. Actually she just recorded two songs of mine on her new album.

Moda Antiga. That's a wonderful album, one of my favorites from last year.

Yeah, it's a beautiful album. And this new generation in Cape Verde has started to sing my songs, and it's nice. For example, I tried to write something for a singer named Indira, and it was different, because it was a rap. It was different to hear the beat and try to bring myself to this style. But I like what I wrote, so it was an adventure, an experience.

I imagine that living in Europe, whether it's Lisbon or Germany, you're exposed to a lot of different kinds of music. Is there anything that's particularly excited you recently that was kind of a discovery?

The new pop, the new Portuguese pop. It's nice. They have something fresh and they are also starting to mix with our thing, sounds from Angola, from Guinea Bissau, right now they are more mixed than before. So that’s interesting, and it's different. In the past, I never stopped to hear the pop from Portugal, but right now it's beautiful.

That's interesting. So you feel like there's more openness and inclusion, and just in recent years.

Maybe four or five years ago it started. That's something nice and something that invites you in. You know? Whoa, I can feel some influence from Africa in the music right now. I like it!

I think that kind of reflects what's happening worldwide. African music has a much higher profile now than it used to, even though so much of it is coming from Nigeria and South Africa. Those artists seem to be on top commercially, but it helps across the board. At Afropop, we've been covering African music since the ‘80s so it's nice to see it finally getting so much attention.

Yeah, to open the mind and start the adventure, for example, one artist from Portugal, Mariza, has a duo with a group from Cape Verde, Supa Squad. We didn't expect this duo. And we were like, “No, she didn't. She did!”

Mariza was born in Mozambique.

Yeah, yeah. She's African too.

You spoke in 2018 about a tradition that you were trying to bring back. I’m talking about tabanka. What's the update on tabanka?

I'm trying, I'm trying. I'm still trying and I think I'm on the good way because “Bersu d'Oro” is the most streamed song that I have in all the platforms. That is one of my tabanka songs. So I think I am on my way to finally see that tabanka is still here. It's fresh and can attract attention from young people. “Bersu d'Oro” is number one of all of my songs. That means something, you know.

That’s from the Kebrada album, back in 2017.

Yes, but it's still number one of my streaming. I did another tabanka that we're going to sing today. That’s “BeDJera” from my last album. After my last concert, every crew person and all of the staff continued to sing the song. So, for me, that’s a nice thing.

What's special about tabanka? I can hear that it’s a lilting, celebratory kind of beat. But where does it come from? What's its story?

Tabanka was a part of the fight we had during the colonizer moment. It was a way that African people in Cape Verde used to communicate between themselves, without the Portuguese understanding what they were saying. And they used to dance, like in the video clip for “Bersu d'Oro.” So we have one time in the year that is special for tabanka. When it’s Carnaval in San Vicente, it's tabanka in Praia. It’s our thing, from Praia.

So it goes back to that time of resistance against colonialism. That's interesting.

Yeah, it's beautiful to see how the the Cape Verdean people dress up like Portuguese people and and joke about it. They joke about the government with their dress. That’s what you see in the clip.

Elida, you are part of this post-Cesaria generation of female singers in Cape Verde. It’s quite amazing the number of really talented artists, and you as a writer who writes for many of them are a big part of it. It seems like there's community there, solidarity, friendship as opposed to competition. I mean, of course there's some competition.

Of course. It's life.

But how would you describe this generational wave of emerging creativity?

We are part of a revolution, because, like you said, it's the generation that started to see that it's possible for a woman to be this big. A woman can do a tour, can be away from home and sing for the world. So this generation started to believe that, and with that, our parents started to say, “Hmm, music could be a profession. It could be work, not just a hobby. It's a project; it's a dream; it's work.” And so after Cesaria, the old thinking in Cape Verde about music started to change. When I go around in the world, people say, “Cape Verde music! Oh, you have such beautiful music!” I'm so proud every day to be part of Cape Verdean music. Each time I go in Cape Verde, I hear the new voices that start to come up. Oh, my God! We don't have space for so many artists, and the incredible voices, men, women, everybody. When we talk about music from Cape Verde right now, we talk about a lot of women—woman, woman, woman, and after comes some men. Before it was man, man, woman. That feels good, because we did it.

Well, it's a beautiful thing, because as you know, in so many parts of the world, and certainly so many parts of Africa, music is not considered a good thing to pursue, especially for a woman. I was just so struck when I went to Cape Verde and saw Cesaria's image everywhere. There's such a sense of pride there. I was at a conference this week where someone was saying that today, artists have more power to influence people and more credibility than politicians.

Of course. They need us when they are in the moments of election. They need us because we bring people together; we touch the hearts of the people, and I think we do a good job of educating people. And we do all this with music, with our lyrics. I have that song that was my first composition, “Nta Konsigui.” Until today, 10 years after, it touches people, and now I've started to meet young people who tell me their mom loved the song, and their mom showed them: “You're gonna like this.” This song talks about hopefulness, about the life of Cape Verdean people, hopefulness. I dream, and I fight for something, and one day I'm gonna get there. So that's why all Cape Verdean people love this song. They just close their eyes and sing with me. And when I sing this song, I close my eyes and just sing. [She sings]

You talked about music as educational, and messages that are important. So when you write songs now, what are messages that are most important for people to hear in this moment?

In Cape Verde? Or in the world?

Maybe in the world.

When I came to Lisbon, to live there, I paid attention to one thing. In Cape Verde, we thought that domestic violence was a Cape Verdean thing. We are all the time angry about it. Every day, we hear the news that some man killed some woman. And when I got to Lisbon, I was like, “No. This is not Cape Verde. It's around the world.” I was so, so disappointed, because in whole world, every day, we have this kind of case, that some man took the life from a woman, because, I don't know, because she's done with him, because she said, I don't want you anymore. It's crazy. So I already made a lot of songs about this, about the emotional violence, about physical violence, and I'm not done. I will not get tired of talking about it.

Good for you. Looks like they need you back at the soundcheck. Have a great show tonight.

Thank you!