Baltazar Lima Barros 

Mindelo, São Vicente, 1949 

Singer, songwriter 

With the right to be remembered whenever talking about intervention music Nho Balta was a member of the PAICG in the 1960s and early 1970s, having joined the party’s naval unit in Conakry, after training in Ukraine and Georgia. His first contact with the activists of the struggle for independence was in Holland, but before that, when he emigrated at the age of 17, he had lived for some time in Sweden, working as a seafarer. In 1974 he went back to Sweden and, the following year, being invited to perform in the USA, he ended up staying there. 

His first albums were made in Portugal and Holland. His first recording was as a vocalist on the LP Música de Cabo Verde – protesto e luta, edition of the PAIGC Cultural Services, from 1973 – which Nho Balta reissued on CD in 1997 by NT&T Productions.

As a solo artist, he recorded some works in Portugal accompanied by the group Black Power, from 1976 onward: Tartaruga (single with Nho Balta and Norberto Tavares); Oh África! – in which he puts lyrics to the famous “Malaika” theme, a traditional Tanzanian song that Miriam Makeba popularized in the 1960s; Nô ca podê comunicâ; and Nho Balta. In Holland, with Duca Morais and Frank Cavaquinho, among others, he recorded Nho Balta ma Voz de Pove. In the USA, recorded Terra longe, Havemos de voltar and Grogue e metade dum home.

Recordings by Nho Balta can be found in the compilations Música de intervenção cabo-verdiana (1999) and Evocação de Amílcar Cabral no folclore cabo-verdiano (2003), prepared by Rui Machado and published by Sons d’África. 

Discography 

• Tartaruga, EP, VCV, Lisbon, [1976]. 
• Oh África!, LP, VCV, [1976]. 
• Nô ca podê comunicâ, LP, VCV, Lisbon, [1977].  
• Nhô Galvon, EP, VCV, Lisboa, 1976 (single with songs by Nô ca podê comunicâ). 
• Nho Balta ma Voz de Pove (Terra Livre), LP, Salamansa Records, Rotterdam, 1977 (in Portugal appears with the title Mel d’ abelha, VCV, s/d). 
• Nho Balta, LP, VCV, Lisbon, [1978]. 
• Terra longe, LP, Mário Silva, Rhode Island, 1983.  
• Havemos de voltar, LP, André Gomes, Boston, [1985].  
• Grogue e metade dum home, LP, Bali, Rhode Island, [1986].  
• Nova aurora, CD, NT&T, New Bedford, 1997 (this is the CD edition of the LP Música cabo-verdiana protesto e luta, of PAIGC, in which Nho Balta appears as vocalist).

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