{"id":111271,"date":"2022-09-08T14:40:10","date_gmt":"2022-09-08T12:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/?p=111271"},"modified":"2022-09-09T12:10:44","modified_gmt":"2022-09-09T10:10:44","slug":"scuru-fitchadu-forbidden-funana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/scuru-fitchadu-forbidden-funana\/","title":{"rendered":"Sc\u00faru Fitch\u00e1du and funan\u00e1\u2019s forbidden full circle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Somewhere off the coast of Sao Tom\u00e9 in the mid 1950s a steely frenetic sound spills over from the cargo ship\u2019s bunkers. Fast and grating, an 18 year old Victor Tavares punched his labored hands into the keys of his most prized possession, an accordian, over a two month boat ride to his native Santiago, Cape Verde\u2019s capital archipelago. Destined to become funan\u00e1 legend, Victor aka Bitori<\/a> was first met with harsh colonial oppression from fear of the rural sound\u2019s subversive powers. Later, in 1997, the silver mustachioed musician went into the studio and recorded the, \u201cbest funan\u00e1 album ever made<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward to 2022 inside a chic hotel once again on the island of Santiago, in Cape Verde\u2019s capital, Praia, with Sette Sujidade, ali\u00e1s Marcus Veiga. Marcus is the singer and leader of Sc\u00faru Fitch\u00e1du (Cr\u00e9ole for deep black) and wears his headbanging heart on his sleeve. His nose and ears are pierced, he sports a rivethead haircut and his black cutoff shirt and ripped jean shorts reveal a scattered series of zero-fucks-given tattoos. Over his shoulder, out past the window, the Cathedral Senhora da Graca glares white above the flamingo pink and sea green colonial buildings. Marcus was describing his funan\u00e1-punk sound. A distorted and guttural switch-up that plugs an urban edge into the accordion’s pastoral cry.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Outros \u00c2ngulos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cTo put distortion on the traditional stuff was not safe at the time,<\/em>\u201d Marcus shrugs with a bit of disappointment. \u201cThe most reluctant stuff that I encountered in this new (sound) was from Cape Verdean people.\u201d <\/em>Marcus looks outside past the beach-bay and towards Praia\u2019s center. \u201cFor me this is personal. This is the biggest test of my career<\/em>\u2026It\u2019s my first time in Cape Verde.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born in Portugal to first generation African parents, Marcus\u2019 story isn\u2019t unlike many diaspora kids from the 1980s. \u201cMy parents fled from war in Angola. My father was actually from Cape Verde, then immigrated to Angola, and met my mom. Then they went to Lisbon, Portugal.<\/em> It\u2019s like a regular second generation African living in Portugal. You’re too Portuguese to be Cape Verdean and you’re too Cape Verdean to be Portuguese.<\/em>\u201d In the identity wormhole Marcus pieced together his style from the Seattle alternative rock scene, UK punk and garage music before embracing Portuguese hip-hop as a fan and artist in the mid 90s. \u201cAnd at home, I was listening to what my parents listened to. It was traditional music from the islands here in Cape Verde and from Angola also,<\/em>\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Bitori and his famous funan\u00e1. Unlike other Cape Verdean genres, funan\u00e1, also called gaita after the migrant workers who perfected the sound spending months abroad working to buy accordions, is a fast paced, 2-beat, generally monotonic style comparable to Trinidadian soca. It\u2019s the uppity raucous cousin of Cesaria Evora\u2019s poetic and melancholy morna and the popular counterpart to the ballroom dance of coladeira. It\u2019s in this country\u2019s \u201cforbidden music\u201d that Sc\u00faru Fitch\u00e1du anchors its equally rebellious sound. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you have someone that is talking about how much they work and not getting paid or maybe the father in the church is starting to go crazy, they don’t go with the flow of society so they made it forbidden,<\/em>\u201d Marcus says admiratively of the old school funan\u00e1. The same tone is embodied in tracks like \u201cManus Planus Danus\u201d or \u201cBrothers Plans Damages\u201d off of Sc\u00faru Fitch\u00e1du\u2019s 11-track debut album, Un Kuza Runhu<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s like, enough talking, let’s start pushing,<\/em>\u201d Marcus translates, \u201cYou\u2019ve learned the books, let’s do some pushups.<\/em>\u201d It\u2019s not an apology to violence but, as Marcus explains, a preemptive measure for uncertain times.  Which is why the opening monologue fittingly comes from Huey P Newton, American revolutionary and founder of the Black Panther party. \u201cI want to head bang. I want to crowd surf. I want to dance,<\/em>\u201d Marcus continues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later that night, a group of locals and some international insiders gather in front of a pop-up stage in Praia\u2019s center for one of many shows in this year\u2019s Atlantic Music Expo<\/a>. The festival is a showcase of local talent for regional actors, but also a free live spectacle for locals to check-out artists from around the world. Old ladies sell their homemade grogue mixtures on the sidewalk and the city is layered with the smell of cachupa and fried fish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Vera Marmelo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The young and rowdy make their way to the front of the stage, a body of several hundred people await the show stirred by the island\u2019s first June rain in over four years. The air continues to drizzle when Sc\u00faru Fitch\u00e1du takes the stage. A well-equipped drummer, synth player and fellow singer rip directly into their electro-funan\u00e1-punk universe. Marcus screams in Kriol, the drummer bangs with precision, the techno bassline builds, and Marcus\u2019 savage co-lead stomps across the stage. They have the crowd\u2019s full attention. Rolling through a series of hardcore cuts with some experimental dub detours, the public slowly lets loose enough to jump, dance and howl. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, Marcus drops the ferrinho, puts his tongue back in his mouth, stops his head banging to go grab his accordian. Wielding the big, heavy box in front of him, Marcus takes everyone for a ride back into the past. The chaotic fusion is now finely centered in the country\u2019s funan\u00e1. Someplace, somehow, a chill runs up Bitori\u2019s spine. Marcus finishes his riff and the crowd gives its full embrace. Young kids’ eyes are wide with excitement at this rebellious spectacle. The parents and grandmothers smile from further back. Cape Verde\u2019s precious sound, once oppressed now expressed with headbanging freedom, is brought home imbued with industrial noise and new political power. Everyone claps and cheers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSc\u00faru Fitch\u00e1du is an excuse for me to approach a little more and more my African heritage,<\/em>\u201d Marcus\u2019 words coming back. \u201cIf I did other stuff, I\u2019d miss something. In this I can bring everything.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Un Kuza Runhu<\/a><\/em> is out now. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inside a chic hotel on the island of Santiago, in Cape Verde\u2019s capital, Praia, with Sette Sujidade, ali\u00e1s Marcus Veiga. Marcus is the singer and leader of Sc\u00faru Fitch\u00e1du (Cr\u00e9ole for deep black) and wears his headbanging heart on his sleeve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":111272,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11036,7833,7835],"tags":[4096,40893,35577,39768],"location":[7918,8212],"yst_prominent_words":[10758,9178,8407,18366,8414,24112,8447,23658,9415,8933,8402,8435,8543],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111271"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111271"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=111271"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=111271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}