Greetings from Cape Verde, where the sounds of samba, jazz and morna fill the air

Ricci Shryock/NPR

Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR's international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world.

Cape Verde feels like a country where there are more musicians per capita than most anywhere else. Music is interwoven with the sounds of daily life in this West African island nation. In the heart of the capital Praia, a city of under 200,000 residents, singers belt out morna ballads from restaurants — morna being Cape Verde's traditional music, with African and Portuguese influences. In the capital's outlying neighborhoods, older men are often sitting on sidewalks and strumming their guitars. The government even put the face of the country's most revered musician and singer — Cesária Évora, who popularized morna internationally in the 1990s — on the country's currency (the 2,000 escudo note).

Many of the musicians here have other jobs. The journalist Júlio Rodrigues, who I hired to help me report a soccer story ahead of the World Cup, is also a guitar player.

Every April, Cape Verde's musical identity reaches its apex, when Praia hosts two international events — the Atlantic Music Expo and the Kriol Jazz Festival. Last month, as a steady, pre-rainy season wind whipped off the Atlantic Ocean, the sounds of samba, morna and jazz filled the streets. I took this photo of Cape Verdean singer Ineida Moniz in performance at the Atlantic Music Expo.
 
A few weeks after the concerts wrapped, Cape Verde received good news about a special form of recognition: It will be the African Capital of Culture in 2028. But for now, the country's great excitement is about sports. For the first time, Cape Verde's national team — the second smallest nation by population ever to qualify — has reached the World Cup.

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