On Luso Noir, eleven major voices from Angola, Cape Verde and Mozambique sing praises to various forms of the Saudade, a poignant musical expression of world-weariness inherited from the Portuguese conquistadors. Sadness, longing, gentle melancholy - none of these translations can quite capture the full depth of Saudade's emotional pull. The Portuguese empire ruled its African colonies for 500 years, dissolving in 1975 after a series of bloody revolutions. The Saudade remained, not only as a musical genre but also as an approach to life, a unifying cultural legacy that has not only survived, but thrived. The post-independence, African perspective is presented musically by the singers on this compilation.
