Sara Tavares

"When I walk around with my friends, it’s a very, very interesting community"

"We speak Portuguese slang, Angolan slang, some words in Cape Verdean Crioulo, and of course some English. In Crioulo there are already English and French words. This is because slaves from all over the world had to communicate and didn’t speak the same languages. We are a metisse culture."

"Our generation feels very lost because there is no culture specifically for us; that talks about our reality."

"There is a big, big generation of Cape Verdeans and other Africans here in Lisbon, in Paris, in Boston, all over; with a kind of messed-up identity."

"I was in Zimbabwe a few years ago, and I saw some really drunk people dancing,We were watching them, and they were always almost falling, and then they would catch themselves. Just like those people dancing, I also want to dance with that kind of freedom and balance."

"I'm a very simple guitar player...I would write my songs as lullabies. I would write little poems for myself to lift me up."

"It's a whole inner process of dealing with my issues, and I think the music is medicine and a cathartic process for me,So that's why I do it — for me most of all."