Bonga
Bonga is a living icon of Angolan culture. An unavoidable reference in semba, the music from which he emerged as a composer and vocalist, with a charisma and openness of spirit inherited from the rebita past, the vibrancy of the old carnivals and the artistic effervescence of the Luanda musseques of the 1950s, he has built a cultural and political heritage that is fundamental to the history of the last 40 years of Angola and the Lusophone African diaspora.
Born in 1943 in Porto de Kipiri, at the age of 23 he became an athletics sensation in Portugal with Benfica. From 1972 onwards he concentrated solely on music, when his active role in the communications traffic of the Angolan and Portuguese anti-fascist resistance was discovered.
Throughout the rest of the decade he recorded new albums with new collaborators, moved to Paris and gave his first concerts in the United States and Europe. In the 1980s he decided to reinvent himself with the formation of the band Semba Masters, bringing together hand-picked instrumentalists to resist the then progressive trend towards the disappearance of the traditional semba matrix, travelling and playing iconic stages around the world, from the Apollo Theater in Harlem to the Olympia in Paris.
In Portugal, where he also chose to live at the time of the "Reflexão" LP, he was the first African artist to perform solo for two consecutive days at the Coliseu dos Recreios, and the first to win Gold and Platinum Discs for his sales success.
Having celebrated his 70th birthday in 2012, the year in which he released his 30th album "Hora Kota", covered in affection by the mantle of the inter-generational public that follows him listening or discovering him, and collecting international institutional and diplomatic distinctions, it is a privilege to be able to see and hear and dance to a performance by the Master, accompanied by a band with guitarist, bassist, accordionist and drummer, in which Bonga pontificates in voice and dikanza.
05 July, friday
22h15 - EVA Senses Hotel & Rooftop EVA
