OTHER ISSUES MMVV: 2013

CARMEN SOUZA

CARMEN SOUZA's voice is hard to describe, because it recalls Nina Simone and Billy Holliday, Sarah Vaughan or Carmen McRae, it also has a little Joni Mitchell and a touch of Ricki Lee Jones. If this young singer, born in Lisbon of Cape Verdeans parents, has shown anything, it is that she has completely assimilated these and other influences and transformed them with her own vocabulary. Her new album, Kachupada is a delicious cocktail of rhythms of the archipelago, brilliantly enhanced with elements of contemporary jazz and Afro-Latin music. Dazzling, passionate and extraordinary, SOUZA once again demonstrates the wide range of her skill as a singer, performer and songwriter.