Maputo Blues

Maputo Blues is a declaration of love to the music and artists of Marrabenta - a rapid, dynamic style of music performed by a band which combined drums, bass guitar, two lead guitars, keyboard an one or two trumpets.

This Mozambique version of African dance music turned out to be a rebellious new musical form during the forties and the fifties rendering expression to Mozambique's people increasing discontent with the Portuguese colonial rule.

Since ever, music in Mozambique has played an essential role in everyday life. Music acts as the expression of vitality and as the "narrator" of life under poverty and circumstances which in general are rather difficult to manage. In this sense, Marrabenta was popular music as its best.

In the central focus of the projected documentary there are the Glorious old Guys of Marrabenta as they are affectionately called in their country -, Lisboa Matevele and Francisco Mahecuane. They are the last living heroes of this rebellious kind of music, which over the last two years has experienced an unexpected comeback and which is now melting with the rebellious Hip Hop of the younger generation.

Together with their music, the reminiscences of the Glorious old Guys will form the subject matter of a narrative extending from the fifties until the present days. In delineating the Marrabenta there will be an exemplary portrait of the upheaval state of the flux of their country. In front of the background of the history of their music, colonialism and civil war will become perceptible as parts of the European heritage leaving behind deep traces in Mozambique's society, which has just began to catch up with all of this.

Listen to Lisboa Matavele and Alberto Mula