Afro-Portuguese Beats

I was sitting in bed reading some reports for work last night and realized that I hadn't tapped into my love of Afro-Portuguese beats in a long time. So instead of reading reports, I started my virtual crawl through the wide wide web and my music library to hear some of my favorite beats and came out learning a few new things as well. So here is a brief list of what I discovered

1) Cape Verde produces a ridiculous amount of stunning music. It really is nuts and I love it all. From Lena Timas to Sara Tavares , Simentera and Bana it's all great. But of course no one delivers the goods like Cesária Évora

2) With the likes of Waldemar Bastos and Bonga coming out of Angola, Luanda seems like the ultimate place to catch a live local group and just dance the night away.

3) My big surprise was that one of my favorite songs from the movie Habla con Ella (great great movie) was actually from a Cape Verdean singer, Bau. This song is SO beautiful!!

4) Mendes Brothers - Cape Verde by way of Massachusetts

5) Finally, for those of you, like me, that are just scratching the surface of such rich fun music, iTunes brings you Afro-Portuguese Cafe a compilation of musicians from Portuguese speaking Africa....its a great way to learn about so many artists out there that you may not know but are producing great beats.

There are so many more artists out there I hope this helps in your discovery of good music!

Oh...and if you know of anyone I should be listening to, PLEASE tell me. Thx