Elida Almeida and Blinky Bill Deliver the Bouncing “Nha Bilida”

<p>With a history forever intertwined with the trade winds, the music from the Cape Verde islands is always changing, always incorporating new sounds, while somehow maintaining a strong identity. Elida Almeida, for instance, stands in that most-Cape Verdean of traditions, the Cesaria Evora-esque songstress, while welcoming in the production work of Kenyan artist/producer Blinky Bill, who produced the latest single, “Nha Bilida,” for her new album <em>Gerasonobu, </em>out on Lusafrica.</p> <div class="video-container"><iframe loading="lazy" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/-eBNFXYmCYc" allowfullscreen="" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0"></iframe></div> <p>The album’s title translates to “New Generation,” Almeida claiming her place at the front of Cape Verdean song in the 21^st century, but the subject matter of “Nha Bilida” is an even-newer generation behind that one&mdash;drawing from Almeida’s anxiety on becoming a new mother at 16. </p> <p>The Blinky Bill production does a great job of taking the characteristic Cape Verdean rhythms, and sliding them from <em>cavaquinho</em> onto more universal piano and synth lines. Bill here brings the buoyant feeling of his own work to a wholly different place, somehow surpassing the sum of its formidable parts.</p>