Bonga Kwenda: Music banned in Angola and Portugal - BBC

Angolan singer

In this Portuguese name, the first or maternal family name is Barceló and the second or paternal family name is de Carvalho.

Musical artist

José Adelino Barceló de Carvalho (born 5 September ), better known as Bonga, is an Angolan folk and semba singer-songwriter.^[1] He was born in Kipiri in Luanda in

Biography

Youth and athletic career

José Adelino Barceló de Carvalho was born in the province of Bengo, and left Angola when he was 23 years old to become a track and field athlete, becoming the Portuguese record holder for the metres (Angola was at the time one of Portugal's five African colonies).

He had already begun his singing career at the age of

Musical career

Colonial period

Carvalho abandoned athletics in , concentrating solely on his music, and immediately became famous in his native Angola, as well as in Portugal. After the Carnation Revolution in April , he would become a hit both with immigrants from the ex-Portuguese colonies, and Portuguese of both African and European descent.

He has released over 30 albums, singing in Portuguese and Kimbundu, his native language.

Bonga kwenda biography of mahatma After growing up under Portuguese colonial rule, he became an outspoken supporter of Angolan independence, and used the pseudonym, Bonga Kwenda. He was later forced into exile in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, where he recorded his first album. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.

While Angola was still a Portuguese colony, Bonga was an outspoken supporter of independence. This led him to be exiled from Angola in the early s.

At this time, Portugal was ruled by the authoritarian and conservative Estado Novo regime government, founded by Salazar. Barceló de Carvalho's status as a Portuguese star athlete allowed him the rare freedom of movement, which he used – under the name of Bonga Kuenda – to carry messages between exiled pro-independence African fighters and compatriots still in Angola.

Biography of mahatma gandhi In the sixties, when independence time was coming near, Bonga like some other young people of his generation, began to compose and sing in the capital city, Luanda, where he was studying. But the Portuguese colonial authorities didn't appreciate the young singers who expressed a culture typically Angolan, and Bonga went into exile in Rotterdam, Holland. The Capeverdean community of the city was already significant: men worked on the docks or for the Heineken brewery, women did domestic works. This community had its restaurants, bars, its Saturday night or Sunday afternoon dances. They were places where you put the world to rights, dreaming of independence, of the return home, and where you remembered with nostalgia and heartbreak your relatives who've stayed home.

When the Portuguese government and its political police (P.I.D.E.) realised Bonga Kuenda and Barceló de Carvalho were the same man, Bonga was forced into exile in Rotterdam, where, in , he definitively adopted the name Bonga and recorded his first record, Angola 72. His iconic track "Mona Ki Ngi Xica", which would feature on the soundtrack of Cédric Klapisch's film When the Cat's Away (Chacun cherche son chat),^[2] was introduced on this album.^[3] A warrant for his arrest was issued in Angola for the seditious lyrics of the album, forcing him to move nomadically between Germany, Belgium and France until Angola's independence from Portugal in , brought about by the events of the Carnation Revolution.

While in Europe, Bonga met other Portuguese-speaking musicians and adapted the sounds of semba to his already diverse music style.

Independent Angola

After independence, the new Angolan government took Angola's best solo acts and founded and supported an orchestra called "Semba Tropical".

The purpose was to revive the lost music industry, as described by a People's Republic of Angola ministry spokesman during the band's tour in Europe in the mids: "We had great problems because of the war for independence.

Bonga

He had already begun his singing career at the age of Carvalho abandoned athletics in , concentrating solely on his music, and immediately became famous in his native Angola, as well as in Portugal. After the Carnation Revolution in April , he would become a hit both with immigrants from the ex-Portuguese colonies, and Portuguese of both African and European descent. He has released over 30 albums, singing in Portuguese and Kimbundu, his native language. While Angola was still a Portuguese colony, Bonga was an outspoken supporter of independence.

When the Portuguese left they dismantled some of the basic structure by smashing and sabotaging equipment and we had to start from scratch. After independence there were no bands at all. Those which were formed were not active because they had no instruments." As it was the case under Portugal's colonial rule, only a tiny minority of Angolans (1%) were allowed to get an education.

Thus, the newly independent country, with relatively good infrastructure, and blessed with rich natural resources, was in fact badly mismanaged and plagued by corruption and failed central planning for several decades after independence from Portugal.^[4]

After Angola's independence Bonga lived for some time in Paris and Angola, before establishing his main residence in Lisbon.

As post-colonial life in Angola disintegrated into corruption, squalor, brutality, and an interminable and bloody civil war, Bonga remained critical of the political leaders on all sides. Bonga's voice of peace and conscience continues to make him a hero to the people of Angola no matter where he resides.

Bonga kwenda biography of mahatma gandhi Welcome to another episode of our Producer's Journey series, where we follow our co-founder and producer Mark Johnson along with the PFC film crew on a new adventure in the vibrant town of Lisbon, Portugal as we record new musicians for our next Song Around The World. The album, released in , is a mix of Latin guitar and semba, traditional Angolan music, reflecting patriotism and Angolan pride as well as the acceptance of other cultures. It describes Angola's struggle for independence from Portugal. The lyrics express the pain and suffering of the Angolan people under colonial rule and their hopes for freedom and a better future. The phrase "Mona mona muene" is repeated throughout the song.

He remains fiercely dedicated to the ideal of nonviolence, he states simply: "We must live without harming others."

Aged 74, he published in his thirty-first album Recados de Fora (Messages from Elsewhere).^[5] This included 9 new songs including Tonokenu, plus the covers of Sodade Meu Bem Sodade, a composition of Zé do Norte already sung by Maria Bethânia or Nazaré Pereira, and Odji Maguado composed by the Capeverdean writer B.

Leza and popularised by Cesaria Evora in her album, Distino di Belita.

Awards

Bonga received the distinction of "Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters" by the French government. The honorable mention was delivered by the Ministry of Culture of France in a ceremony on 10 December in Angola.^[6]

Albums

Compilations

Live

References

External links