Mário Lúcio e os Kriols (CV)

Mario Lucio  is one of the most recognizable figures of Cape Verde’s cultural and music scene, both locally and internationally. Musician, singer-songwriter, and one of the country’s foremost composers of all time. He is the country’s most internationally acclaimed writer, the poet who marked a turning point in new Cape Verdean poetry, one of the main thinkers of his generation and former Minister of Culture.

Composing in Cape Verde’s leading music styles such as Morna, Funaná, Batuque and Coladeira, Mario Lucio’s signature songs and arrangements are found in an array of albums and songs most of which were interpreted and recorded by the late Cesaria Evora and including the country’s emerging and established singers as well as artists as far afield as Brazil, France and Italy. Mario Lucio ’s permanent research and perfection of Cabo Verde’s traditional music has given the country’s sound a fresh air of modernity, poetry and originality and this is evident in the 9 albums he has released since 1995.

Founder and leader of the former musical group Simentera, an ex-libris of Cape Verdean music, he is also a multi-instrumentalist and arranger of various albums by Cape Verdean solo artists. Mario Lucio has earned his rightful place in his country’s artists hall of fame and because of the high quality of his compositions, arrangements and philosophy of his albums he has become a reference about anything music and culture in Cape Verde.