Dany Silva is one of the leading names of Cape Verdean music in Portugal. His name will be forever associated with the promotion of Creole rhythms and dissemination of mornas and coladeiras in our country, but it was the song "old white, red and jeropiga" that made him an immortal artist in the memory of the Portuguese.
In 2012 you recorded the album "Love in adjective".
Dany Silva: I did not record it, I participated in this album, me, Vitorino and a Cuban singer. In this work I participate with 3 or 4 themes, the idea was a create a triangle of the Atlantic, Portugal, Green Cape and Cuba.
What you removed from this experience? I'm sure there was an exchange of views on the music of your respective countries?
DS: What happens in the case of Vitorino is that it is popular Portuguese music, alentajana and there was no great difficulty, because I know him for several years and even know this brother, Janita Salomé. Regarding the Cuban musician, we hear a lot of this kind of sonorities in Green Cape, is a song with rhythm and dance and Cape Verdean by nature like to party. On this album I had four poems to musicalize and did a show in Guimarães where we realized, in the rehersals, we were following similar paths. After all, this global world in which we live and hear music everywhere, especially those that we liked, poems led us to these sides, but it was funny. This concert was recorded live and then later released on CD and it was an interesting work, because it gave me great pleasure to do.
Danny Silva you are very fond of musical partnerships. Why, you do this repertoire, which is extensive?
DS: I do it especially whith performers that please me and the songs too.
In my career I have done many duets, not only in my work, as I appeared on others people records. Usually, it is a way to gain experience and a different way to display a theme, I compose a song and it give me "joy" to hear someone else sing it. I choose the people, see how they sing and feel the music, it gives me great pleasure to do this kind of experiences. Typically, these duets have come out with a lot of quality and I do not remember any exception.
With over 40 years of career, which is to your view the record that best defines you as a musician?
DS: It's hard, because all work, especially those who are recorded or edited, has to do with me. There is one that marked my career, the first album I recorded in Portuguese, was a single, then was lucky, was a huge success, which is "old white, red and jeropiga". It was a hit, but I do not speak only of that, people came to see me from the younger, to the oldest. These forty years in all the shows I did, I leave this song to the end to see if people forget about it, because I played it hundreds of times, but people asked always to sing it and was not only in Portugal, but in Angola and Mozambique and I was invited to play in France and other countries because of this theme. Even in this EP I wasvery linked to the a blues theme was sung in English, it had a good acceptance in the interim, but that does not reach the heels of "old white, red and jeropiga" which gave me and put me up there. This theme appeared because when I contact the record company, Valetim de Carvalho that was more powerful of the time in Portugal, it was at the time of the explosion of Portuguese rock music, Rui Veloso, the GNR and Já fumega, I was prepared to make Cape Verdean music, my country, which at the time was little known and was part of the contract to sing in Portuguese, because it was the wave. From there was born the song and just to add that later there was another album that marked me, I convinced the recordor label to write themes of Cape Verdean roots and sung in Creole, was my first LP, called "slut Moon" and where it was included a very old morna, from the island of Boavista, "the moon and the witness" and this theme gave me a great pleasure and when people, not Cape Verdean began to hear it , began to sing it anda huge acceptance as well. As well as the "Creole of St. Benedict" which is a more African theme, which has a joyfull tone at the time that Lisbon area we called it the released zone because of Cape Verde restaurants and taverns and is a theme that is also part of my route.
Is there any musical project in mind, or not finished and you would like to write?
DS: There's a lot to do still, I'm 68, but I can still do much more, provided I have health. I have a project that started in 2007, are songs that I did not composed, not recorded but are songs that I love, from others, are duets, I began to recorde them and how did not have a record label to support me, I made my own production, with economic costs that I backed myself and with the support of the musicians who participated. The musical material each recorded with love and affection, or paid a third of what should pay of copyright and this record I just complete it two years ago, as I cannot get behind a marketing machine so it is in drawer. I've contacted several companies, but we have not reached agreement, not by economic issues, I want the album to be treated well at the level of production and not less, by respecting the people who participated in this work, most have a made career in Portugal with great sacrifice and I do not want this album appear mistreated, to have an adequate cover with a production to match and an acceptable distribution in the whole country and Lusophony, but still could not get a record label to accept these terms and so it is in the drawer, I heard it once in a while, waiting for an opportunity arises, or sponsor.
It has a title this record work?
DS: I do not have it, but I could call it the songs of my life around that, because I wanted people to understand that are the subjects that I like the most and I have "rage" I have not I come up with them, because they are beautiful.
Currently more people value the Cape Verdean music precisely the work done by Dany, by Tito Paris, Cesaria Evora and other names.
DS: Before me, Tito Paris began recording because it had its own record house and passed by Senegal before arriving in Paris, but there were others before him that went unnoticed because there was a ghetto so to speak. That area of São Bento was frequented by those who were in Green Cape, or who had come from Angola also to listen to music, but the companies were not interested much. So it is that the Bana opened a bar in Largo do Rato, attended by Africans in general and with the money that was winning was making his records, with his record company that was a home distribution, through friends, through crates that were taken to France to sell to the colony of Cape Verdean emigrants, then he made second editions, but he recorded more work in Creole and there was the recognition he deserved.
But when it comes to Cape Verdean music in Portugal your name is always remembered.
DS: Yes, it's true. When I recorded the single with two sides, I could not do a concert with two songs, then what did I do ? Sing Cape Verdean music first and then the middle sang one of the song and more coladeiras and mornas and then face b. Building on the success of "old white, red and Jeropiga" I was spreading the Cape Verde music. It was this that marked much people who wrote critics to my concerts, it turned out to associate my name to the promoters of Cape Verdean music. The Angola music was heard little, only heard about the duo "black gold", was basically it, then later, after the April 25th appears a great poet and Angolan composer Rui Midas, who recorded, but as he was linked to the MPLA it was forwarded to the government and very rarely sang. In the last 10 years the Angolan music appears stronger thanks to Kuduro and Kizomba, I think it appears behind the widely reported that the Cape Verdean music had, in particular with Cesaria Evora. Then there is another very important phenomenon to the music of Angola and Green Cape which was the appearance of Zouk, the music of the Antilles that it was sang in Creole.
New generations still recognize that legacy.
DS: In Green Cape youth is very trench to the roots. Like the foreign rhythms such as reggae and hip-hop, but make up in Creole, they release their genuine mornas, or coladeiras.
So the Cape Verdean music is in good health and is recommended.
DS: This good health and recommended more and with very good people sing in it.
And the Portuguese musicians are sensitive to this kind of African sound?
DS: Vitorino, a few years ago, made a new album and recorded with Joan Rosa. I even made a translation in Creole, I did a duet with Tito Paris and the generation enjoying traditional music like fado, also began to be interest in the Cape Verdean sound.
