Tiffany B. Brown

a mish-mosh of stuff

Music classification and iTunes (or Cape Verde ain’t nowhere near Latin America)

I bought two CDs (yeah, I still do that :-) ) by Cape Verdean artists* today, Rogamar by the legendary Cesaria Evora and Balancê by Sara Tavares.

Now, for the geography-challenged, Cape Verde is waaaay over on the other side of the Atlantic, off the coast of Africa (roughly Senegal). Yet, weirdly, when it comes to the genre (as classified by the GraceNote database used by iTunes), both artists — or at least, both albums** are listed as Latin.

Sonically, both CDs sound like they could easily be some nouveau bossa nova, or Brazilian folk. The similarities make sense considering both Brazil (home of bossa nova) and Cape Verde were once Portuguese colonies and both have a mix of European and African musical styles and cultures. Indeed, if you played “guess the region” most people would say “Latin America,” “Brazil,” or maybe “Cuba” — all places with music that is both Spanish or Portuguese and African, no less one than the other.

Yet Cape Verde is still not a Latin American country. It’s a few thousand miles away from South and Central America. And truth be told, Tavares (if not Evora) has an awful lot in common (sound-wise) with other African styles of music typically labeled “World.” True, the “World” label also covers music by South Asian sufis and Afropean collaborations. But at least it’s (a little) more geographically accurate by virtue of its vague inclusiveness.

So I guess my point or my question is this: does the Latin classification help those music fans who might not otherwise think to check out Cape Verdean music, despite its sonic similarity? Or does it reinforce the idea of Africa (and Africans and African music) as one big, indistinct monolith of culture and sound? (Feel free to argue some middle ground or no-man’s-land in the comments.)

For the record, Balancê is dope. Evora is always good for some mellow dinner party type stuff. I also highly recommend Di Korpu Ku Alma by Lura, who is also from Cape Verde.

(*To get all technical about it, Tavares was born in Portugal to a Cape Verdean-Portuguese family and recorded much of Balancê in Lisbon. Evora is from São Vicente, Cape Verde.)
(** I own four Cesaria Evora albums. Two are classified as world. Two as Latin.)

  • http://7andacrescent.com/ Frank ‘viperteq’ Young

    Maybe it has to do with the fact that not a lot of commercial music come from Cape Verde? I mean if a region isn’t popularly known then the people responsible for the various classification sites might not know of it or how to associate music that they do hear of from Cape Verde. Just a thought…..

  • http://7andacrescent.com Frank ‘viperteq’ Young

    Maybe it has to do with the fact that not a lot of commercial music come from Cape Verde? I mean if a region isn’t popularly known then the people responsible for the various classification sites might not know of it or how to associate music that they do hear of from Cape Verde. Just a thought…..

  • http://www.allaboutgeorge.com allaboutgeorge

    I don’t think it reinforces a monolithic view of Africa. It’s messy, yes, but I think it’s a useful, purposeful, thank goodness the world is complicated kind of messy. I’d like to see someone try to add metadata about music that included historical/lexical references, heh.

  • http://www.allaboutgeorge.com/ George

    I don’t think it reinforces a monolithic view of Africa. It’s messy, yes, but I think it’s a useful, purposeful, thank goodness the world is complicated kind of messy. I’d like to see someone try to add metadata about music that included historical/lexical references, heh.

  • http://www.tiffanybbrown.com/ tiffany

    I guess ‘reinforces a monolithic view’ is better phrased ‘ignoring the sonic diversity of a continent that we tend to view as a monolith.’

    There are tons of styles on the continent, from Afrobeat to morna, to raï to rock to Konono No. 1’s electro-traditional thing. And while I understand that Tower isn’t about to subdivide 5011 ways, something about tagging it Evora and Tavares as “Latin” just seems wrong to me. I understand why (and the messiness of it) from a music marketing perspective. But it still feels wrong. “Latin” covers bachata, salsa, Reggaeton, Tejano, and Afro-Peruvian folk. But African music is sometimes Latin? Instead of “African”?

    Or maybe they’e taking a linguistic approach (in that Portuguese is also a Romance language descended from Latin)?

  • http://www.tiffanybbrown.com/ tiffany

    I guess ‘reinforces a monolithic view’ is better phrased ‘ignoring the sonic diversity of a continent that we tend to view as a monolith.’

    There are tons of styles on the continent, from Afrobeat to morna, to raï to rock to Konono No. 1’s electro-traditional thing. And while I understand that Tower isn’t about to subdivide 5011 ways, something about tagging it Evora and Tavares as “Latin” just seems wrong to me. I understand why (and the messiness of it) from a music marketing perspective. But it still feels wrong. “Latin” covers bachata, salsa, Reggaeton, Tejano, and Afro-Peruvian folk. But African music is sometimes Latin? Instead of “African”?

    Or maybe they’e taking a linguistic approach (in that Portuguese is also a Romance language descended from Latin)?

  • Garry Mendez

    Being a Cape Verdean with a last named that is spelled Spanish style I know the messiness of which people speak. The story of how my name got that way is too long for a blog comment but suffice it to say it’s extremely hard to reverse people’s thinking and get them to re-categorize you once they’ve decided that you’re Dominican or Puerto Rican or anyplace they’ve heard of (in other words, not Cape Verde). The same holds true for Cape Verdean music. It’s a slippery slope. One day your music is Latin, the next day people are asking you where in the Caribbean is Cape Verde (yes I’ve gotten that question).

  • Garry Mendez

    Being a Cape Verdean with a last named that is spelled Spanish style I know the messiness of which people speak. The story of how my name got that way is too long for a blog comment but suffice it to say it’s extremely hard to reverse people’s thinking and get them to re-categorize you once they’ve decided that you’re Dominican or Puerto Rican or anyplace they’ve heard of (in other words, not Cape Verde). The same holds true for Cape Verdean music. It’s a slippery slope. One day your music is Latin, the next day people are asking you where in the Caribbean is Cape Verde (yes I’ve gotten that question).