It's All In Your Head: Get Out Of Your Way

"I shouldn't be here because I should be dead" sings Bono on "Lights of Home," the second track on Songs of Experience, the long-delayed sequel to 2014's Songs of Innocence. It's not merely a turn of phrase. Two months after U2 unleashed Songs of Innocence on the world, Bono injured himself in a bicycle accident so severe he suspected he may never play guitar again…

The Cabo Verdean popular music genre of funaná is one that, up until a few years ago, had little representation in the wider global marketplace, and it’s easy to understand why. Outlawed by the Portuguese colonial government in the 1950s as too proud an expression of identity, it emerged into the local mainstream only in the 1990s, where it served as a sonic symbol of political activism during Cabo Verde’s shift to a multi-party government. In more recent years, popular sounds of the island nation have featured in several new releases – Analog Africa’s Space Echo and Legend of Funaná, Ostinato’s Synthesize the Soul – with funaná occasionally the focus.