MUSIC: Punk, Funk and African Singing Add Up to Become Fado

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Nov 19 1996 (IPS) - In the expanding market of ‘world beat music’, one of the most curious stars is a 25-year-old Portuguese crooner who dresses in flowing capes, sings passionately about the sea and death and tries to wed African singing and punk rock.

Paolo Braganca, born in Angola and one of the surprising musical stars in Portugal in recent years, is now hoping to make a splash in the United States with his 1990s update of ‘fado’, Portugal’s national song form.

Judging from his triumphant debut in Brooklyn’s St. Ann’s Church this month, Braganca may be on the verge of stardom here. Certainly it helps that he is being backed by Luaka Bop, a record label owned by singer David Byrne, formerly of the U.S. band Talking Heads.

Braganca and Byrne share a goofy, alienated charisma, apparent in everything from the stiff posture Braganca assumes onstage to his creepy, but completely sincere, wail. And Braganca, like Byrne, believes that older song forms, like fado, can be just as rebellious and shocking as newer musical genres.

Braganca in fact shuns many of the new fado groups who are now popular in Portugal, calling them “yuppies who have never had to fight for anything”. By contrast, he says, “The original fadistas were far more punk.”

The young fadista carries himself like a punk rock star as well, dressed in black, pitching his ethereal voice against buzzing violins and African-derived rhythms. On his new album, ‘Amai’ (to love), he even includes one song with a hip-hop beat reminiscent of James Brown’s 1970s funk, and an English song by rock star Nick Cave.

The core of his style, however, comes from the mixture of African, Brazilian and Portuguese styles — created by Portugal’s colonial era — that comprises fado. Fado, which is meant to be a naked, even melodramatic, show of emotion, intends to display the ‘saudade’ (or sorrow) of the colonial experience.

Braganca knows that experience personally. He was born in colonial Angola, and his family did not leave for Portugal until 1978, three years after Portugal granted the colony independence.

“I feel I stopped being a child when we left Angola, when I was twelve,” Braganca says. “When you feel something, you feel it, no matter how old you are.”

Braganca incorporates the anguish of fado into every song, flinging his arms out as he sings hypnotically of love and loss. The fadista also puts the emotions of saudade into various non- fado genres, from Galician pop tunes to a Peruvian standard like ‘Maria Lando’.

Because of Braganca’s desire to combine various other genres, one can also hear snatches of passionate flamenco, airy sambas or booming opera in his singing.

The common thread throughout is a bitter, poignant look at the difference between dream and reality, between ideals and life — the outlook, Braganca believes, that fado and the expatriate experience of many Portuguese has created.

For Braganca, respect for fado is a type of patriotism. “Portugal gave worlds to the world, you know? That was part of its mission,” he argues. “Fado came out of those musical forms, from Brazil, from Africa, from Europe. And if we lose that connection, the world loses too.”