Award-winning vocalist, composer, and educator Kavita Shah’s latest album, Cape Verdean Blues, is the culmination of a diaspora’s quest to find a spiritual home. The carefully curated album of traditional Cape Verdean music is also a tribute to the charismatic and unapologetically individual artist Cesária Évora, and a love letter to her breathtaking archipelago and its welcoming people. On Cape Verdean Blues, Shah’s ethnographic research on the island of São Vicente, and her bold self-possession have enabled her to achieve a rare feat: creating a world music album that feels like a homecoming.
Shah is a global citizen and cultural interlocutor whose work involves deep engagement with the jazz tradition, while also addressing and advancing its global sensibilities. She is a lifelong New Yorker of Indian origin hailed for possessing an “amazing dexterity for musical languages” (NPR). Shah speaks 9 languages—she is fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and French—and incorporates ethnographic research into original music.
It’s been a profound sojourn in sodade for Shah as she’s found solace and support in the music of Cape Verde. “I have been through a lot of loss. It marks who I am,” she says. “But we can all relate to the fleetingness of life, that is universal. My hope for this album is that it brings people a sense of comfort—the same feeling I had when I first heard Cesária’s voice.”
Location: The Creativity Center
