Carlos Alberto Lopes Barbosa   

Songwriter, poet 
Mindelo, Sao Vicente 
1947 Praia, Santiago 2020 

Kaká  Barbosa is one of the names that rise linked to the interventionist music which marks the period immediately prior to and post-independence in Cabo Verde. 

His themes were recorded by the two main musical groups of this epoch, Os Tubarões and Bulimundo. His productions were not restricted to political circumstances, though a political attitude marks his lyrics. Whether it be through his critical reading of the multi-party regime phase in the early 1990’s, or, through the lyrical capturing and portrayal of the sentiments of farmers as they confronted nature and the battle for survival.

Nha Fé ê fundu sima mar

Nha Speransa tem kôr di fodjada

Ma kusas ta toma si lugar

Ó ki agu disponta na labada…”

Kaká Barbosa, in “Kor di Fodjada”

In Guinea-Bissau, in 1974, he was influenced by the music of Bembeya Djaz, from Guinea-Conakry.

From his adolescence in Assomada (His birth in São Vicente was due to the temporary work re-assignment of the father, a police officer, to that island), his memories included sounds from Sinatra and Belafonte to the Beatles as well as the Brazilian hits of the epoch and the morna-Never Funaná. 

Occasionally a “koladera”, but the forté in Santa Catarina, were the mornas and sambas he would recall. But it was in the livelihood and the rural traditions of Santiago that he would harness and transpose the material for his compositions grounded in a rhythm which he denominated as “funanbá”, a symbiosis of funaná+semba+rumba, he would later reveal in the autobiography  Claros d’alma & solos (unedited). Kaká reasoned “I never wanted to be just another composer mornas, the koladera or Funaná. My aim was always to experiment with and introduce music”.  

As a poet, it was outside of Cabo Verde, between 1971 & 1973- a period in which he lived for some time in Germany and subsequently working in the merchant marines, that he produced his first work entitled Vinti xintido letradu na kriolu. “When I began writing, I had no notion of the linguistic question- what I knew best was writing in my own language. It could well be that in the depths of my being I felt it natural to write in my language of the things of my land”. “At that time, I had not read Pedro Cardoso nor any of the poets who wrote in Creole. I only came to know these later on” he affirmed (Cabo Verde & a Música – Dicionário de Personagens). 

Many years later, under the pseudonym Albely Bakar, he began publishing also in Portuguese.

Kaká Barbosa was, since 1976, a pioneer in the Cabo Verdean Union movement, an area in which he was actively involved for 11 years. Later, he worked as an insurance specialist.  

He served as a member of the National Assembly for the PAICV in the electoral circuit of Santa Catarina in 2001 and 2006 and was a founding member of the Association of Cape Verdean Authors and the Cape Verdean Authors Society (SOCA). 

Songs

Codjeta; Dimokransa; Djú; Fri (Free) Son (música de Djinho Barbosa sobre o poema “Finaçon”); Joana; Kassubody; Kôr di Fodjada; Kortel di Rabidanti; Mi é Cima Mi Própi; N´Ka por Si; Mindel mind – Koladera rasgadu (parceria com Djinho Barbosa); Música na Finata 44 (música de Djinho Barbosa sobre o poema “Konfison na finata”); Nha Terra Aonte e Aoje; Resposta de D’zusper; Somada; Tabanca Tchada Grande; Téra madrasta; Trabu di kassa (parceria com Zeca di Nha Reinalda); Tributu a Manuel d´Novas; Txon di massa pé; Unidade e Luta.

Discography

Participation in Djinho Barbosa’s CD Trás di son, singing the songs “Mindel Mind – Koladera Rasgadu”, with Tó Alves and Djinho himself, and “Tributu a Manuel d’Novas”.

Published works

• Vinti xintido letrado na crioulo. ICL, Praia, 1984. Poetry, in Cape Verdean.  
• Son di Virason. Spleen, Praia, 1997. Poetry, in Cape Verdean.
• Chão terra maiamo. Praia, INBL, 2000. Poetry, in Portuguese.
• Konfison na finata. Artiletra, Praia, 2004. Poetry, in Cape Verdean.
• Cântico às tradições. Praia: e/a, 2004. Tales, in Portuguese.
• Gaveta branca. Praia, AEC, 2015. Poetry, in Portuguese.
• Descantes da minha ribeira. Pedro Cardoso Livraria , Praia, 2019. Tales, in Portuguese.

Unpublished works

• Terra dilecta – Caminhos cantantes. Poetry, in Portuguese.
• Claros d’alma & solos, autobiographical essay, in Portuguese..

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