Elias Diá Kimuezo

Dear Tropicalistas, today i come to you with  Mr. Lukala originaly but the whites made his family take this name out that because it is the name of a tribe. Elias Diá Kimuezo one of the most important musicians in Angola in the last century. Elias was awarded in 1973 with the title of “Best Angolan Song Performer” and a very important detail he never sung in a European language. Composer with multi poetic resources in the songs written in Kimbundu, Mr. Kimuezo is an artistic personality with strong roots in the culture of popular knowledge. The pseudonym, Kimuezu, refers to the full beard he wore. His texts and melodies are the most representative songs of the history of popular music in Angola all inspired by the expressiveness of the Kimbundu culture.

Everybody know Angola very well and today in Europe the music coming from this country is popular not only because of Kuduro but is reaching the people trough  many African vintage compilations where old classics are pressed in new LP’s productions. Such new productions created and commercialized in the most cases in Europe or USA and consequently world wide touch a sensible aspect in the music business with this kind of music. Today we experience a lot of Europeans and north-Americans, that under a supposed strong love for lost African music are digging everything they can find to put in their new compilations. A kind of neocolonialism where the music can be commercialized outside the countries where it was founded.

At the end only the same people like always are making money with the work others, the “colonialists”. With the roots in the Kimbundu culture Elias music appears in a time where Angola was under the Portuguese colonial control and in 1974, as fruit of intense political mobilization work, Elias and Chico, his younger brother, were arrested by the colonial authorities, for subversion, and sent immediately to St. Nicholas, in the salt-works field No. 1,  barrack No. 3, from which they came after clarification of the decolonization process, at a time when the Portuguese colonial system was forced to release all prisoners by amnesty.

[headline size=”small” align=”center” color=”b5210a”]The collection of hits[/headline]

“Os Grandes Sucessos Vol. 1″ is the title of a collection with Elias day Kimuezu classics. Produced in 2005 by the lable of the prestigious Cultural and Recreation Centre Kilamba. The CD, recorded with the new monitoring and instrumental conception of the Maravilha Band, is at present, the only record reference of the composer’s career, especially for those who want to know, a substantial part of the whole work. The DD with the songs: “Agostinho Neto”, “Nzala“, “Kwiku”, “Mwalunga”, “mother of regret“, “Xamavu” “Mona Ndengue“, “Zom, Zom“, collecting folk songs and one of the first songs performed by Elias day Kimuezo, “Chamavo”, a nostalgic song about the old market collapse, situated in Marcal a neighborhood where the singer was born, and “Resurrection”, a song that had the special participation of Lourdes Van -Dúnem.

Full track list:

1 Agostinho Neto
2 Xamavu
3 Entrudu
4 Kwieku
5 Lamento de Mãe
6 Mona N’dengue
7 Mwa Lunga
8 N’zala
9 Ressureição feat. Lourdes Van-Dúnem
10 São Nicolau
11 U N’gamba
12 N’zon N’zon

Enjoy Elias! Garra!

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOTh1GbqYEg

English text based on bio in Portuguese language: here