Cape Verdean multidisciplinary artist Djam Neguin exposes his vision of Afrofuturism through the prism of his archipelago while remaining faithful to tradition on his latest single.
Whether it is music, dance, theater or other forms of performance, Djam Neguin always strives to enhance the Cape Verdean national culture through his artistic expression. That’s precisely what he’s showcasing in the “Ka Bu Squeci Tradison” music video, the first single from his five-track EP Autofagias, to be released later this year. Literally meaning ‘don’t forget the tradition’, this bewitching manifesto with one foot in afrobeats and the other in afrohouse highlights a movement that Djam Neguin intends to carry on his shoulders: CV futurism. That is to say a Cape Verdean version of the Afrofuturist current. Djam Neguin elaborates, ‘the proposal is to live the CV-futurism not only in music, but also in the audiovisual, in fashion, to begin to assume a more African identity and a new visual aesthetic (…) In this case, apply to Cape Verde what would be the future Cape Verdean, and it is an exercise of imagination, creation, invention of a collective that we can become.’
In a recent interview for the newspaper ‘Expresso das Ilhas’, Djam Neguin explains that this single is a kind of reminder to stay connected to where you come from, with your roots and your ancestors. He explains: ‘The song addresses a central theme in our journey as Creole people, which is emigration, this desire to leave and a very mysterious relationship with what is beyond the sea. And it’s always the desire to seek better living conditions, only here the difference is that if in most of narratives that exist about emigration the idea is always to go to the Western European and American world, in this track the departure is to another universe, that is to say a metaphysical universe or even outside of planet earth’. Through various subjects, all this and more can be found at the core of Autofagias EP.
Listen to “Ka Bu Squeci Tradison” in our One Dance playlist on Spotify and Deezer.
