Until April 25, 2024, BLITZ publishes a list of 50 songs that paved the way for the freedom achieved 50 years ago. These are songs that, during the Estado Novo, foreshadowed the change that occurred on April 25, 1974, and gave shape to a cultural revolution that long preceded the political revolution that put an end to the dictatorship. The texts are written by Luís Freitas Branco, author of “The Revolution Before the Revolution” (Zigurate, 2024), to be published this month, a book that documents the way in which Portuguese popular music opened the doors to the cultural, social and politician that triggered April 25, 1974. Every day, this list will ‘receive’ a new song.
8. ‘N’biri Birin’, by N’gola Ritmos (1964)
You N’gola Ritmos, the most influential group in Angolan music in the 60s, visited Portugal in 1964, with a pass on RTP and the recording of three consecutive EPs; 60 years later, from “N’biri Birin’ to ‘Monami’, these songs remain absolute classics of the Kimbundu songbook. To the naked eye, they were just adaptations of traditional melodies, however, the leader of N’gola Ritmos, Liceu Vieira Dias, imprisoned for ten years in Tarrafal, intended that these sembas represent the independent voice of the subjugated population in the musseques, the suburbs of Luanda . The regime did not make the same ‘mistake’ again: N’gola Ritmos never entered the studio again.
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