The 6th album by DA CRUZ (Bern/São Paulo) is called “Baladas da Luta” (“Ballads for the Fight”), and that’s exactly what it sounds like. Profound, Brazilian urban music in an attack position against hatred, delusion & political short-sightedness. There are guests on this album like the British-Nigerian pidgin rap guru Magugu or Arnaldo Antunes, who was chosen by “Rolling Stone” as one of the hundred best artists in Brazilian music. There is heavy-blooded Afrobeat, angry Hip-Hop or a Brazilian disco flair. There are touches of Krautrock, Baile Funk or Soul – all held together by the warm voice of Afro-Brazilian singer Mariana Da Cruz. Mariana Da Cruz grew up as the seventh child of a cotton picker and a cook in Paranapanema, a small provincial town in the state of São Paulo. Recordings, concerts, music lessons; all that was unaffordable. Music, however, was an escape point even then – Mariana absorbed it through a small transistor radio in her nursery. She was already singing as a teenager in a club in the nearest big city, Campinas, where she studied to become a teacher: Bossa Nova, MPB, Elis Regina, Jorge Ben – all the classics – it was her basic research. But curiosity drove her first to Lisbon in the early noughties, later to Bern, where she lives today. It stands to reason that she would reflect on the world’s dislocations through her first home, Brazil. A country that anticipated all the developments we see everywhere today. “There is a fundamental alienation between politics and the people, there is burgeoning racism, social divisions, there is an ever greater injustice in the distribution of wealth, and there is this inexplicable yearning for authoritarianism”, she says. And she sings against all this. For more than 15 years. A key driver of her music is her engagement with her African roots. Whereby the situation here – as for all Afro-Brazilians – is somewhat complicated: “We know that our ancestors come from Africa, but we don’t know from where. You can’t do any research on that,” explains Mariana Da Cruz. “We’ve travelled a lot in the last few years for this search for traces, been to Burkina Faso, Bahia, Rio – and all these experiences and impressions flow into my music. Da Cruz is a radical independent project. All of their albums so far have been recorded, mixed & produced in their own studio. They have been released on their own label Boom Jah Records, except for two albums released with the American label Six Degrees Records. The core of the band besides Mariana includes Ane H., former singer and programmer of the industrial band Swamp Terrorists, Bernese guitarist Oliver Husmann and drummer Pit Lee.
I had the honor of chatting with Mariana and Ane H. of DA CRUZ about the new release, “Baladas da Luta”. We get deep into the need and reasons behind this album and how the music stands with Brazil as times get very unrecognizable. The power of the songs are clearly explained by Ane and Mariana and if you wonder if music does have the power to make a stand against or stand with a group who is in need of a shouting voice, this album will take you by the ear and show you. Not only do we talk about the music, the situations on a global level that do affect us all, there are questions asked on how we find one language to speak…to SHOUT…to unite. For me, these people making this music always opened my body to the grooves of the sound, but this record has my eyes and mind in concert with my heart and sense of equality and justice. There is power in these songs. Check for yourself.
