Fire Fire live goes into another dimension

Fogo Fogo began by performing classics of traditional Cape Verdean music for the Lisbon audience, but on the original album Fladu Fla they found their sound in a funan composed to suit the band. To open the year and start a new cycle, the song Nho Buli, recorded with Ferro Gaita, has already been released, a song that the group debuted live at their last concert in 2023 at B.Leza.

“Fogo Fogo started from a desire to play African music, namely Cape Verdean music. It all started with Joao and me, we decided to create a band that could play funana,” says Edu Mundo about the beginning of the band. On Saturday evenings, Casa Independente performed traditional Cape Verdean classical music such as Tubarões, Bulimundo or Ferro Gaita. The public has been there since the beginning of Fogo Fogo.

“We already had a lot of friends who followed the bands we played in, we already had a good, significant audience, but over the years, over seven years it had grown to such an extent that everyone couldn’t get in, they had to go to turn,” he tells Ed Mundo, the band’s drummer.

One of the features of Fogo Fogo is that the audience, even those who have no connection to Cape Verde, sing with the group in Creole. According to guitarist and vocalist Danilo Lopez, the Creole language spoken in Cape Verde is of Portuguese origin.

“As they say, Portuguese is not spoken well. The peculiarity of Portugal is that it is one of the few countries in the world, if not the only one, whose population sings in Creole. In other words, you have concerts in former colonies where the Portuguese themselves sing in this language. The language shows a little of Portugal’s connection to its former colonies. Funana is just another aspect of this.”

The group released an EP with Oh Minina and Nha Cutelo ahead of Fladu Fla, the original album released two years ago.

“Fladu Fla emerges as the result of working together during the seven years that we were at Casa Independente, studying the song repertoire of Cape Verde. This allowed us to become intimately familiar with the language and tools. It was natural that at the end of I don’t know how many years, playing these versions, we felt the desire to experiment with our own compositions within this African aesthetic, funana-oriented, but also not forgetting the influences of rock, psychedelism, afrobeat, reggae. Fla arises from the sum of all these things. It was a need to express myself in this language, creating my own repertoire,” says bassist Francisco Rebelo.

With Fladu fla they traveled all over the country, as well as part of Europe. “A month ago we were in Macau, which was the furthest we had ever been. We promoted our album as much as we could. He grew and developed live. Our inner musical dynamic, our connection, also grew when we took on our original songs for “Road. Live performances take on a different dimension, especially if we play every weekend. After two or three months, we are already performing the songs differently,” says João Gomes, keyboardist of the group.

“Our musical relationship has changed a lot and this single we just released, Nho Buli, shows that. The very ease with which we now compose and create new songs, in a sound that is already more Fogo Fogo than funaná, a language that increasingly belongs to us,” says João Gomes.

The new song Nho Buli was performed live for the first time at B.Leza, at the group’s last concert in 2023. A song that turns the page in Fogo Fogo’s history for 2024, a year that the band is preparing for many.” sweets” for fans. I always want to go to Cape Verde.

“We’ve been to many places, but we haven’t been to Cape Verde yet. It’s always a place where we obviously really want to play. And I think there are many Cape Verdeans who would like to see us. live,” guarantees João Gomes.

Nho Buli was recorded with the Cape Verdean band Ferro Gaita. “The collaboration with Ferro Gaita came about as a result of our meeting at the anniversary of Casa Independente, they were invited to play with us at our concert and there was an immediate sympathy and a very strong connection. We had a desire because it is also one of our biggest links. When we started, our repertoire was largely based on Ferro Gaita. In fact, one of the highlights of our concert is precisely the song Ferro Gaita, to which we invited people to continue performing, singing and dancing with us. That wish came true here, and I think it’s a very powerful theme. Very strong. It reflects very well what the connection was and what the relationship was between the two projects,” says David Pessoa, also the band’s guitarist and vocalist. As for Ferro Gaita, Francisco Rebelo adds that they accepted the invitation and recorded in Lisbon.

“It was a really fun session. Danilo writes in Creole, he is from San Vicente, and they are from Santiago, so you always have to do translations and adaptations. This whole process is a lot of fun. It was very dynamic. During the session we worked with Bino and Eduino for two days and it was really cool,” concludes Francisco Rebelo.