Daily Tune On - Margareth Menezes and “Elegibo” Get You Moving
Brazilian singer from Bahia, Margareth Menezes gets you moving. Her African influenced Brazilian songs infuse a song with the best of both worlds, the beautiful sounds of the Portuguese language and Brazilian rhythms mixed carefully together with African percussion, drums, and sometimes reggae. She is an infectious singer very popular in Bahia and Brazil, and many other parts of the world.
An awarded Brazilian pop star she came to the attention of David Byrne when he was exploring Brazilian music and singers. She later toured with him in Europe and the U.S. Most familiar with her “Kindala” album, which has been a favorite of mine for a number of years, I have only had the opportunity to see her perform live, once. She played at Central Park’s SummerStage during the Brazilian film festival several years back and the audience loved her! The second she got on stage everyone got up and started moving to her grooves and didn’t stop until the end of her encore performances. It was truly energizing. Her second album “Elegibo” stayed in first place on the billboard world music charts for 11 weeks when it was released, and Rolling Stone rated it one of the five best in the world under its world music category.
Below is a YouTube performance I found of Margareth Menezes singing her song “Elegibo” in Brasil in 1994. It will give you a good feel for the love she has for her music and the love her fans have for her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VfXiRNXgM8