Azagaya, ‘people’s rapper’ in Mozambique, dies

Mozambican rapper Azagaya has died at the age of 38, Television Mozambique (TVM) reported Thursday, citing a family source, without specifying the cause of death.

Azagaia is the artistic name of Edson da Luza, the author of the interventionist lyrics that earned him, among other things, the title of “folk rapper”.

“I am extremely shocked. There is no doubt that the music and culture of Mozambique is in mourning. The world has lost a unique rapper,” Mozambican culture minister Eldevina Materula told Lusa in response to the news.

Azagaia became famous for his open criticism of the country’s governance, so much so that in 2008 he was even interrogated by the Prosecutor General’s Office (GP).

Three days after violent demonstrations that paralyzed the capital, Maputo launched the “People in Power” theme due to rising prices.

“I was asked if music can incite people to violence,” he told Luce after being heard at PGR, where he answered “no” because “a work of art can be interpreted.”

“We don’t fall into the old story anymore / We went out to fight the scum / Thieves / Corruptionists / Scream at me for these people to leave / Scream at me because people don’t cry anymore,” Azagaya said into the microphone.

The poems were not broadcast on public radio and television, and deputies from the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), which had been in power since independence, pointed to him as the opposition’s interpreter.

In 2014, he caused controversy when he appeared on a TV program rolling a “marijuana” cigarette, justifying it for therapeutic purposes, and after having already been detained twice by the police.

A few months after the scandal, he announced his retirement from the Internet.

“I think I will give something that can cost me my life and prevent me from seeing how my children grow up,” he said, without specifying what threatens him, and saying that everything has already been said in the two albums “Babalaza” and “Kubaliva “.

He moved to Namaacha, his birthplace, 75 kilometers south of Maputo: “If I am destined to die, I prefer it there,” concluded the “rapper”, the son of a father from Cape Verde and a mother from Mozambique.

Also in 2014, he announced that he was suffering from a brain tumor and a fundraising campaign was set up that raised €20,300 to pay for surgery in India.

Fans from Mozambique, South Africa and Angola took part in the campaign.

Edson da Luz returned to the stage a year and a half later, in a Maputo nightclub concert in April 2016, but he has since remained in a much more low profile position in the Mozambican artistic scene.

Among other titles, he has been referred to by fans as “the people’s rapper” and many have identified him as the author of the “As Lies da Verdade” theme.

The track is taken from his album “Babalaze” (meaning “hangover” in the Changan language), an adaptation of the poetic work “Babalaze das Hienas” by the late Mozambican poet José Craveirinha.

“What if I tell you / That the opposition in this country is hopeless / Because people have been taught to be afraid of change / What if I tell you / That the opposition and the government are no different / They all feed on the same record / And everything is the way they want,” says the text of one of Azagaya’s iconic themes.