From their website:
“The music of Maputo-based Sigauque Project takes most audiences by surprise. With musical influences spanning across the continent – from a new take on Marrabenta to Senegalese Mbalak and Nigerian Afro Beat, with some smooth sounding jazz thrown in the mix, the band is a pan-African musical journey on the Mozambique stage.
While other musicians lean more and more towards fewer instruments and more techno beats, this band’s two singers, full horn section, throbbing bass, and rhythmic percussion creates an attention grabbing wall of fresh sounds. Listen closely, and you’ll hear that in addition to the local Portuguese, Changaan, and Sena lyrics, the vocalists sing in English, French, Swahili, and Zulu.
The band is the creation of Canadian-born Daniel Walter, a radio producer and musician who heads up a media company specialising in communication for social change, CMFD (Community Media for Development) Productions. What most of the audience probably don’t realise is that most of the tunes played by Sigauque Project were originally created and recorded by CMFD Productions as part of music and radio projects broadcast across Africa – this music has a message.
Some songs were created during projects specifically using music to speak out about a message For example, Musicians Against Xenophobia, which includes the songs Sigaouke and Sinjengomfula, brought musicians from Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa together to produce four songs about xenophobia and discrimination.
Other songs were produced as theme music to accompany serial radio dramas. Crossroads, Caminhos Cruzados, and Pistes Croissees, are regional variations to music for a radio drama of the same names, the story an old, corrupt police chief and a market woman who switch bodies, for a hilarious insight in how men and women experience life differently in Africa. “Bravos do Zambeze,” originally recorded with Isaú Meneses, also the theme song for a drama of the same name, is a mellow tune that warns of being prepared for impending floods.”
