Cape Verdean singer Mayra Andrade is arguably the first of the many talents that have emerged from Cape Verde over the years. Current, tropical and traveling pop that reflects the life of the Cape Verdean singer. Her brightly colored, multi-layered music offers a warm, adventurous unpredictability as she sings in Cape Verdean Creole, English, French and Portuguese.
After five albums of rich and enchanting arrangements, Mayra Andrade has chosen to return to the essence of her creative process, to the infinitely intimate. In ‘reEncanto’, accompanied by guitarist Djodje Almeida, the singer revisits her repertoire in the simplest of ways. It was in 2022, during the tour that accompanied the release of her previous album, ‘Manga’, that the idea of returning to the original formula was born. That of voice and guitar, the basis of Cape Verdean music, with which he took his first steps at the age of 15, in Praia. It's also the formula that accompanies the first part of the composition. The notes are strummed and scratched, on which emotions and words are fixed. A framework without the help of many musicians or the mechanics of studio recording. “I realized that, over the years and with each album, my audience had never seen me in this configuration, even though it's the key to my career.”
‘reEncanto’ is the beginning and end of a cycle for the singer. She has just given birth and become a mother. At the heart of this passage, the need to return to her origins reveals what has always driven her: “It was through the guitar and the voice that I discovered the emotional and physical pleasure of being in music”. Mayra Andrade reveals the most honest part of herself here, stripping away the essentials to take us back to her origins and the person she has become today. "Some of the songs were recorded a long time ago, at a time when I was searching for myself... In the meantime, my relationship with the stage and my voice, which has a real patina, have evolved with the experience I've gained. Now, I'm reclaiming my own songs and delivering them to my audience in an approach that touches my very essence." The singer presents tracks from her first album, ‘NAVEGA’, released in 2006, and ‘STORIA, STORIA’, released in 2009. There are also tracks from ‘LOVELY DIFFICULT’ (2013) and the recently released ‘MANGA’ (2019).
The audience responded, eager for a sense of wonder that slows down time, stirs the emotions with its chiaroscuro dimension and, above all, creates a conversation without intermediaries, where catharsis reaches its peak. And this exchange owes a lot to his stage partner, Djodje Almeida, whom he met while recording a contemporary dance show.
Mayra Andrade found in Djodje Almeida a friend, the support of someone she now calls “brother”. The result is ‘reEncanto’, a duet in perfect symbiosis for a session where the colors and rhythms transmit a redemptive energy.
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