Beto Diaz: “I learned to play guitar with friends”

Beto Diaz was born in Tarrafal, on the island of Santiago, but at the age of fourteen he left for the Netherlands. He took with him his passion for music. “I learned to play guitar with friends, we formed a practice group, and a few years later I was invited to join Rabelados, my first band. That’s when things started in earnest. I started out as a guitarist and after a while I started singing,” says Beto Diaz. He started by singing other people’s songs until he wrote his first song for the group, “Unidade e amor.” “A song that talks about the world and our difficulties between whites and blacks. At the same time, I wrote the funana “Santo Amaro”, which was a great success on the album,” Beto Díaz recalls about the beginning of his career.

The group’s name, Rabelados, is inspired by the community that, in the interior of Santiago, maintained its culture, traditions and spirit of independence in the early decades of the second half of the 20th century, despite restrictions imposed by the Portuguese colonial authorities. mode.

When asked what the spirit of a rabelado is, Beto Díaz replies: “A rabelado is a rebellious person. He is a man who does not like injustice. He fights for what he has the right to. If things don’t work out, he becomes a bit of a rebel. . But there is nothing bad about it, in fact it is a positive thing,” says Beto Diaz.

“After Rabelados’s first work, in 1989, I had a period when I was also invited to sing in the group Livity, but only at concerts, not on recordings. We spent a year or a year and a half together. It was a wonderful experience,” says the singer .

Beto Diaz’s first solo album, Sodadi, was recorded at the end of 1993 – beginning of 1994, it was then that “kabo zouk” entered the singer’s music. “I wrote a song called Sin Sabeba, which was a big success. From then on, I began to create an identity: This is Beto Dias,” says the singer, who has nine solo albums of songs in his thirty-year career. for example, “É kanormal”, “Nos amor tem futuro”, “Conta ku mi” or “Beneficio de Dúvida”.

Beto Diaz recently released the song “Bo ki ta dan.” “This is a warning to those who judge a woman for smoking a cigarette or drinking beer. Men often have the habit of saying that this woman is bad, she is not. But that’s not true. Because this woman at home is the woman who gives all the love and affection, feelings and emotions that people don’t even know about,” explains the singer, who was in Lisbon this month for the “Beto Dias e Amigos” concert, which was attended by Philip Monteiro, Suzanne Lubrano, Ferro Gaita, Grace Evora and Sandro Correia.