Sodade
Sodade is a melancholy state of mind, such as B. Weltschmerz, which can express itself in a certain music style.
origin
The word is the Cape Verdean expression of the Portuguese term saudade . The Portuguese settlers brought it with them when they settled the previously uninhabited islands in the 16th century. Its importance was changed over the centuries by the West African slaves who stayed on the islands and mingled with the European population. The Cape Verdean sodade describes a very complex mood of longing. For those who live in Cape Verde it is a longing for a paradisiacal land in the distance (e.g. to be found in Balthasar Lopes da Silva , the “Cape Verdean Goethe”: Pasargada), for those who have emigrated, the longing for the more understandable for us Family, the places of their childhood, the islands west of the Pillars of Heracles , which ancient Greek geographers called the Islands of Bliss ( Macaronesia ).
Music genre
The sodade is most intensely expressed in the morna , the musical style probably first developed on the island of Boa Vista . From there, the Morna conquered all the Cape Verde islands. Only on Santiago do music styles with West African roots clearly predominate. Cesária Évora from Mindelo , the so-called cultural capital of Cape Verde on the island of São Vicente, was the uncrowned Queen of the Morna, who first celebrated great success in Europe before her talent was also recognized in her homeland.
Love for home
A nowadays clear social phenomenon of the sodade is possibly the return of many migrant workers, especially from the USA, to Cape Verde. Instead of spending their retirement years relatively securely in a Cape Verdean neighborhood in Boston or New Bedford , they prefer to build a small house on the island of their birth or where the relatives who have stayed behind live and accept the significantly more difficult living conditions.