By Miguel Vieira
FORCV Columnist

The late Katchas, founder of the legendary Bulimundo band, is widely considered to be Rei di Funana, king of Funana, the sensual music genre which is the most popular genre in CV dance-halls. Katchas was born and raised in a rural town of Santiago island and later obtained an Engineering degree in France, then returned home, and helped diffuse and internationalize Funana, a genre that had theretofore been confined to peasants in rural areas. But this column isn't about Katchas, it's about a disseminator of another peasant founded Cape Verdean music genre, Batuku; his name is Manuel Lopes Andrade, also known as, Tcheka.

Tcheka, who was able to broaden his horizon by traveling as a cameraman with the TCV, the National Television Corporation of Cape Verde, in the 1990's, is a rising star in the world music international scene. He's the male equivalent of the new divas, the so-called "aspiring new Cesarias", i.e., Lura, Sara, Mayra, etc... Whether in Paris, London, Madrid or Prague, Tcheka's captivating performances of vocal Batuku, a call and response and socially conscious music genre, that's commonly thought to be the province of rural Cape Verdean women, have progressively received rave reviews in European print and electronic media outlets. For example, the Times of London said the following about him "Tcheka has created a soundtrack to life in Cape Verde with so many tiny sonic details that illustrate the songs' subject matter that you feel as if they are no longer just tunes, but that you are in the middle of his world."


Tcheka

In the United States, also, be it in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York or San Francisco, Tcheka's exhibition of the infectious Batuku rhythm consistently receives favorable reviews. The U.S. based world-music central website states that he is "a sensational must see" folk music lyricist. This is noteworthy in light of the fact that Tcheka's performance style does not water-down his delivery style when in front of western concert audiences. Whether in a rural dance-hall of Santiago island or Fogo with a one hundred percent Cape Verdean base or in a Paris or Chicago club packed with sophisticated "world music" suburbanites, Tcheka's approach is the same. This may seem a normal thing to do but it isn't always the case.

Disseminator of real Cape Verdean folk music

Many folk music singers, thinking that an American or a European base of listeners would be turned off by world folk music in its most folksy form, water-down their performance delivery when in concerts; something they would not do for an "at home" audience. Tcheka, by contrast, consistently employs a uniform "at home" method of delivery with impressive skill to western world music listeners. As a result, he's captured a loyal following, the western world music aficionados who prefer to enjoy world folk music in its real, shall we say, raw form.

This explains why Tcheka's three well-written and well-produced albums, "Argui", "Nu Monda" and "Longi" have sold very well in those circles. And he will continue to sell well should he stay true to his raw, "terra-terra", style which one Chicago world music aficionado after having recently seeing Tcheka in a concert at the Chicago Old Town School of Folk Music emailed me and said that "he is better than Lura, better than Sara, better than Mayra, better than all the other ones..."

Being a Cape Verdean who's used to enjoying Cape Verdean folk music in their utmost folksy manner, I was not surprised by this revelation, because Tcheka comes from a port town in the Santiago Island, Ribeira da Barka, where folk music singers impress even the most jaded CVs who have heard this type of rhythm since infancy. However, for the Western public, who are just now beginning to get a taste of Batuku, their impression is positive. Thus, basically, other CV aspiring world music singers who wish to equal Tcheka's success, my advice for them is to return to the source. But in this instance, the source isn't political as Cabral suggested, it is artistic, that is, you the CV folk music singer, should you get a chance to play in front of a western audience ought to employ the same delivery style as you would use in a rural dance-hall in Cape Verde. The audience's reaction, as Tcheka’s success proves, will more likely than not, be surprisingly positive.