Vera Cruz is a Cape Verdean singer, composer and stage performer who came of age in a crossroads between three musical continents – and who is not easy to define in terms of genre and style. Born into a family of solid musical traditions, Vera began her career in 1997, as a student in Brazil, with reggae band Namastê. She left the band in 1999 to found the Afro Reggae band Obá with Kwame Gamal, Márcio Rosa, Paulo Matabele, and Talina Pereira. These years of shifting between the Brazilian and Cape Verdean musical cultures strengthened Vera Cruz as a performer and widened her perspective as a future composer.  

 

In 2002, Vera went home to Cape Verde to venture into several solo projects. She performed in several international music festivals, like the first and second editions of FestiJazz in Praia, as well as in the world-renowned Baía das Gatas Music Fest.  She covered artists like, Miriam Makeba, Orlando Pantera, Ildo Lobo, Wyclef Jean, Bob Marley and Youssou N’Dour, paying tribute to some of her greatest influences.

 

It was during this period that Vera Cruz began composing in earnest, and concentrating more and more on crafting her own work. An example of this is the song Sulabanku, the result of collaboration with guitarist Paló. Sulabanku exhibits very strong African references and exemplifies Vera’s lyrical and rhythmic exploration beyond standard Cape Verdean musical forms like Batuku, Morna, Funaná and Coladera.

 

Being largely self-taught up to this point, Vera Cruz headed back to Lisbon to hone her musical skills with proper formal training. Her intense involvement in Lisbon’s cultural scene broadened her scope as a performer and led to her participation in a number of theatrical and cinematic projects, as well as in various poetry festivals – such as Palavras na Cidade – a Lisbon affair sponsored by the Gulbenkian Foundation – Caminho da Poesia, in Oeiras, and CidadiPoesia, in Cape Verde. Vera has been back working in Praia for the past two years, and has re-immersed herself in the local music scene.

Her new project Sakuta! Presented in 2011, Krioll Jazz Festival, third edition. Sakuta! is built around the subject of Cape Verdean femininity, and features songs like Badia di Fora, as well as an adaptation of Maya Angelou’s Phenomenal Woman, called Fémia. The album also has the island of Santiago – Vera’s home island – as a central theme. Danilo Silva – the talented Cape Verdean guitarist – was an important part of the creative process in songs like Katrisamentu and Kartada. In Cape Verdean, the word sakuta means to listen; for this artist, it is a synopsis of her own memories and of stories told, lived, and felt.