MARIO LUCIO is one of the most recognizable figures of Cape Verde as a musician, a singer-songwriter, and one of the country’s foremost and leading composers of all time. An internationally acclaimed writer and author of "Manifesto a Criolização”, the most current work on the phenomenon of Creolization in the world.
Singer, guitarist, composer, poet, writer, thinker and even former Minister of Culture: Mario Lucio is all these things and more for Cape Verdeans. A champion of creolization, the artist's work is a sensitive and passionate tribute to the cross-fertilization that has shaped his country's culture.
Mario Lucio’s signature songs and arrangements are found in an array of albums and songs most of which were interpreted and recorded by the late Cesária Évora and country’s emerging and established singers as well as artists as far afield as Brazil, France and Italy.
50 years after the independence of Cape Verde and the other ex-Portuguese colonies, Mario Lucio releases an album, ‘Independance’, celebrating this great moment of change in Lusophone Africa.
The title of his seventh opus, ‘Independance’, includes “dance”, a play on words referring to the return of previously forbidden folk dances and the opening up of the country to dance music from Angola, Congo, Guinea, Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal…
A resolutely festive album, in which Mario takes pleasure in recalling that era of his childhood, filled with joy and music.
PRESS
“While celebrating independence, and in a festive way, Mário Lúcio does not fail to have a lucid and uncompromising look at African independence processes in general.”
PUBLICO (PT)
“…a festive and danceable album which seduces immediately and totally.”
LE MONDE (FR)
“On July 5, 1975, Cape Verde became the second Portuguese colony in Africa to gain independence. Mario Lucio was 10 years old… So many festive memories can be heard in his seventh solo album, ‘Independance’.”
LE MONDE WEB (FR)
“Fifty years on, the elegant ambassador of Atlantic Creolité celebrates this festive era… lively dance music, a real breath of optimism in these grey times.”
TELERAMA (FR)
“A melodious, euphoric political ballad with the heady timbre of harmonies from the Portuguese-speaking archipelago.”
L’HUMANITE (FR)
“with the album ‘Independance’, Mario Lucio continues to preach for a gentle ‘Créolité’… with graceful musicality backed by lively rhythms.”
TELERAMA SORTIR (FR)
“Another great name in Cape Verdean music, Mario Lucio.”
FRANCE INTER (RADIO FRANCE)