Celina Pereira is not only a singer of mornas from Cape Verde's, it's a recolector of the oral past of her country. A tireless work audible through its multilingual audio-books that bear the Cape Verdean culture to the four corners of the world.
Let's do a retrospective of your career and remember the first album which was released in 1986.
Celina Pereira: It was before in the 70s in 1986 was released my first LP.
Only sung in Creole.
CP: Yes.
This record work coincided with a turning point in Green Cape.
CP: Yes.
The date was not by chance or was it?
CP: It was by chance, but there is always happy coincidences and I think what happened at a particular time.
Looking back and for these 29 years of democracy in Geen Cape and there is talk that the new generations, even in music, are forgeting the Creole substituing it by Portuguese. How do you feel about it all?
CP: I do not feel that young people are forgetting the Creole, because it's always the mother tongue, we hear in the bellies of our mothers, I think it is indelible. It is even a writing movement, especially in social networks, sms messages, in which adolescents always write in Creole. The language is not forgotten, what I feel is that there is less rigor in learning the Portuguese language, because we see the poor conditions of the Portuguese learning with applicants of higher education come to Portugal.
But it also did not have to do with the fact that they put aside the language of the oppressor people.
CP: Yes, the colonizer. You know that in all situations of history, in the life of a country there are more fanatical people for some things. I'm not criollista, I was born in a country that being so small as it is, but being a bit scattered throughout the world, is a nation with a universal dimension and we live in a time when the more languages we speak, the better we live. I was born speaking Creole and learn to speak Portuguese is a privilege, I turn out to be bilingual, but is even greater honor to be multilingual because we live in societies and worlds of that nature. As proof I edited a few years back some audio-books, always featuring of my multilingualism. I began to edit this type of format in 1991.
Soon enough you began to edit audio-books, formats which, as a rule, are associated with public who cannot read?
CP: I chose this format because it is a way of recording and transmission of what I wanted to do, I learned that in a much more evolved country from the one I live, which is the US. I had a first contact with this country between the 90s, when came out my first work on traditional tales. A story teller of Cape Verdean showed me an audio book, by the way, a number of which had already been launched in the US terrritory. I began to think that the way I wanted to tell my stories would also like that, you could hear and read them. Turns out that same time was invited to go to South Africa, to a conference, had contact with a cause that I advocated of protecting blind children and began to think the best way these children follow my book would be if they hear the story, they would be able to read it, but it could have an inscription in Braille, which until now could not done baceuse they say it is more difficult, it is more expensive for several reasons. I chose this format because it was the way I found to be able to cover the largest number of listeners, or people who could "drink" what I wanted to pass on my country's culture.
You recognize, however, that your name was always associated with Cape Verdean music and the style of mornas. And how does the audience of Cape Verde and around the world, faces the music and culture of your country?
CP: There is always a huge curiosity about Green Cape and know it's the best flag of my country, although I have the heart in another, which is Portugal, where I chose to live. Green Cape is a country best known for music in recent years and by the voice of a woman who has disappeared which is Cesaria Evora, she was a singer of mornas and coladeiras. I am a teal of mornas, and never sang only this style, having come over the years doing a research paper on oral traditions, involving the "urcas", "roda” songs, counter-dances, "rabolhos" and "brincadeira” songs. What I feel is that mornas is an element that has been applauded, raise as a flag of the Cape Verdean people, by our poets, intellectuals, our composers, because it is our soul, it is as fado and it's really this musical style that unites all people, not the drumming, nor is "tabanca", nor "coladeira" or the "mazurka". Mornas are composed in Portuguese and Creole is where I feel the fullness that all poets mean. Note, "coladeiras” is a genus involving some facets of daily life, but only have, for example, the satirical side. Mornas, on the other hand, are satirical, about love, longing, are a starting point, there is a whole rainbow of emotions. I've done shows in Cape Verde, I was in St Vincent two years ago and essentially sang up mornas and I felt that the people wanted to hear it, was not there to dance, they wanted to hear the melody attached to words and are the essence of what I continue to do.
But, if you give importance to the word, the story how in the end you make the selection? Having a broad range.
CP: When I recorded my first EP 45 rotations, the inspiration was my mother, by the way, I learned to sing mornas at home. It is true that I also learned choral singing in high school, where they taught mornas in Portuguese, at the time there was taught the creole. The first person I "drank" was my mother, also from an uncle who died relatively young and the truth is I have gone after older people to teach me. I might add that at a certain stage of my life, lately I have not done it, I've been 20 years with a micro-cassette recorder that was required when I was visiting family in Green Cape, because I always had a great curiosity to know of myself. I usually say that the colonizers did not teach me anything about me, taught about it, cities, rivers and mountains of Portugal. Did not teach me about the streams of St. Anthony or St. Nicholas or Santiago and to know me as colonized or formerly colonized, I always wanted to know about the "mazurkas", the counter dances when my mother talked about it I did lots of questions, by the way, my curiosity and intuition has led me to know about these things. I'm a half-breed, a country with a rich culture that is not confined to mornas and coladeiras who were the colonial taste, because at the time was what they liked to hear more.
You said the went after old people recording, because these musical styles were only of oral tradition?
CP: Yes, you know the African culture is essentially based on oral tradition, that populate African societies, so that there are some ethnic groups, such as mandigas in Guinea-Bissau, for example, are great counters and stories singers, tell stories of kings, kingdom emperors, everything is always sang and oral. This tradition is lost if we do not record and in Green Cape there has never been a concern to make an ethnological basis or anthropological if you want the Cape Verdean musical culture, there has been occasionally some things and I have this responsibility because they do not know other cape verdean artists who have made this survey, has been a struggle.
At what age you started doing this?
CP: I have done this since I was 30 years old. I began to pursue my mom on vacation after breakfast to tell me stories, "roda” songs and teach me the oldest things. I repeat, my intuition led me to look for things, to dig if you want.
This demand continues, has been a landmark in recent work that you have developed.
CP: Yes, my work on Cape Verdean story telling is an example, was released on vinyl in the '90s, is a work done essentially in Creole and translated into Portuguese and English. Then I realized, as I am training teacher, who knew that only speaking in Creole I did not reach the general public, we are talking about 300 million Portuguese and decided that my next work would be in that language. It's my latest audio-book and this translated into English and French. But the talks, the stories are in Portuguese and can say that this collection of CPLP tales continues to be my fight, because having directed this work, always said that in the confines of Angola, Mozambique, and Green Cape where teachers do not have electricity, which does not reach the internet how can they hear me? It needs this format, because I do the telling of stories and then there are other artists who have done so.
What is the feedback from these Cape Verdean readers, they shall revise their childhood and comes to you to address these memory?
CP: Yes, it has happened things that surprised me. I did the launch in the Netherlands and the USA and you cannot imagine how older people younger than me and my age who has come to me to tell me, "God bless you I had never heard these stories, not this ditty" when the first record of short stories came out in Portugal, I gave an interview do not know what channel and there was a group of ladies who called for the Cape Verdean Association, because they had my contact wanted to know when would I release it because they wanted to buy the album was not for the grandchildren, but for them, there were "roda” songs that had never sung in Green Cape until I address this matter and release these songs. Thanks to Isaura Gomes, president of Mindelo Chamber, made my foray in schools was in 26 schools over a month took up a musician with me and in the end she told me "you are stealing my popularity because street children only speak of Celina Pereira ".
And now what is your next project?
CP: My head does not stop. At this time is already in publishing an upcoming audio book, I do not know when it will come out with another collection of traditional tales. It's a story I wrote in honor of my mother, but it will be a multilingual audio book, I want to continue in this area. Due to the current societies I cannot edit anything in only one language, it will not be written only in Portuguese, will also be published in English, Creole, Spanish. It's just a story, but I will not tell you the title, is already being translated.
But people can purchase any of your other audio-books where? In online stores?
CP: No, my latest audio-book that is "history of the drum open world" is sold out, the former it is too. At this time in the Cape Verdean Association in Lisbon has still 3 or 4 copies and unfortunately I am no longer in the market, even in Green Cape you cannot find them.
Why not make more copies?
CP: Because it has been an adventure of mine, of my pocket, my first LP I paid it, my work on tales was paid on borrowed money from my mother, my brother, the whole family, I had almost no support. There were two institutions that are indicated on the back cover on vinyl that I dropped because they promised and then did not give anything. I've been doing "crazy" because of this my healthy insanity to walk behind the traditions. I'm sorry, because all that has been done is for my personal pleasure, but is serving a cause that I have taken as a mission. Incidentally, a friend of mine says that only women have this ability to face a mission and bring it to an end and this is my cause that I imposed myself and which I will never give up. I feel that Green Cape needs it, because we have to invest in children and its their future showing their identity and not by spontaneous generation. I have green eyes because my maternal great-grandfather was white, light hair and blue eye. With my questions and talking to my mother I learned I and my brothers have a Madeiran ancestor. We are not here by chance, now, I walk behind the mornas, we do not have in Green Cape serious research, I have no memory of what is written about mornas to cantadeiras and singers who've been to Portugal in the 30s, the first colonial exhibition and after the exposure of the Portuguese world, in the 40s, we do not have that record. I still find it a huge gap, we must do it in terms of training of future memory to our children and grandchildren. I think this is my spirit teacher for life, all do I gave classes for only three years, I find it curious that this will be with me until the end of my days, because I only know that I know nothing.
