Nídia joins host Raina Douris
World Cafe
Sense of Place: Riding the changing tides of Lisbon’s dance music scene
A tourist in Lisbon might go marvel at the tiled streets, enjoy some seafood and end the day by taking in a fado performance. It’s known as Portugal’s traditional folk music, but “tradition” is a tricky word.
Setlist
Oct
04
Nidia
Sense Of Place: Lisbon
- "Capacidades"
- "House Musik Dedo"
- "Mulher Profissional"
- "Chef"
The country has a complicated history of colonization spanning centuries; their presence in Africa had an incredibly devastating effect. Portugal played a significant role in the slave trade, transporting somewhere around 6 million enslaved Africans to South America between the 15th and 19th centuries.
These days, Portugal is no longer a colonial power. Instead, the country has a large and growing immigrant population. Many of those immigrants come from the country’s former colonies in Africa, and the musical traditions they’ve brought with them have begun to transform the sounds of Portugal.
In this installment of our Sense of Place: Lisbon series, we talk to producer Nídia, who is making electronic music that sounds like nothing else on the record label Príncipe Discos. Nídia’s parents are from Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau, and she grew up in Lisbon. Nídia’s music combines these histories, along with Angolan kuduro music into an electronic music style called batida. It’s just one of Lisbon’s many exciting electronic subgenres that Príncipe Discos is championing.