a gift from Angola

In the mid 1950s, the band Ngola Ritmos performed at the Teatro Nacional (National Theater) in Luanda’s baixa.  The venue’s name referred, of course, to the Portuguese that nation embraced Angola as an overseas territory.  This was not custodial colonialism but fierce possession dressed up in lusotropicalist discourse.  Angolan ‘folklore,’ which Ngola Ritmos represented, served to encapsulate and perform difference, making quaint what was potentially explosive cultural difference.  The Portuguese nation would subsume Angolan specificity in a demonstration of the Portuguese skill at adapting to the tropics.  Yet when Ngola Ritmos sang that night at the Teatro Nacional the emcee re-inscribed the divide between musseque and baixa, African and Portuguese, thus disrobing the lusotropicalist fantasy. 

continue....

1-Ngola Ritmos - Muxima
2-Ngola Ritmos - Django Ué
3-San Salvador - Enzol’eyaya
4 -Kaboko Meu - Na rua de São Paulo
5-União Mundo - Amanhã vamos à procura da chave
6-Mestre Geraldo Morgado - Mini saia
7-Minguito - Sant’Ana
8-Ngola Ritmos - Nzage
9-Duo Ouro Negro - Kurikutela
10-Sara Chaves - Kurikuté
11-Elias Dia Kimuezo - Ressurrreição
12-Lilly Tchumba - Paxi Ngongo
13-Gingas - Lamento
14-Luís Visconde - Chofer de Praça
15-Quinteto Angolano - Kupassiala Kua Aba
16-Dimba Dya Ngola - Fixe
17-Os Kiezos - Rumba 70
18-Vum Vum - Muzangola
19- José Viola - Oholwa
20-Ruy Mingas - Monangambé
21-Teta Lando - Mumpiozzo Ame

1956-1970


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