Land, People & Power in Guinea-Bissau

Open your ears to the sounds of

revolutionary Guinea-Bissau.

Released posthumously in 2021, A Lua Ki Di Nos (The Moon is Ours) illustrates the short-lived decade of the artist’s recordings and the spectrum of international emotion from which these songs were produced in 1970s Guinea-Bissau. The airs of revolution were at an all-time high, and from the joviality of “Pintcha Kamion” to the brooding of “Na Kolonia,” it is clear from this compilation it was a decade that required the space for joy, grief, anger, satisfaction–but never apathy.

The War of Independence in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (1963-74) was the first armed struggle in Black Africa to put the principles expounded by figures like Frantz Fanon and Che Guevara to the test. The beloved leader, Amílcar Cabral, would ultimately be written into history for his practical contribution to the body of knowledge of revolutionary armed struggle, education, and certainly culture. 

Cabral balanced the significance of national culture by grounding it within the armed struggle. Cabral shared several of Frantz Fanon’s perspectives on the development of national culture. Fanon was clear that culture could only be authentic and useful to a nation-building people if it was actively developed in tandem with the concerted effort of the people, which in Guinea-Bissau was an armed struggle. National culture evolves as the revolution progresses. In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon dictated that “the struggle itself in its development and in its internal progression sends culture along different paths and traces out entirely new ones for it.” (245) Similarly,

In a 1971 speech recorded in his book Our People are Mountains, Cabral asserts that the “problem of liberation is also one of culture. In the beginning it’s culture, and in the end it’s also culture” (64). As the title of the book implies, Cabral, an agronomist by training, also tethered culture to land. “This is culture, comrades’ asserted Cabral in Resistance and Decolonization, “to really understand the concrete situation of one’s land to transform it in the direction of progress.’ (122) In alignment with Fanon’s humanist perspective, such progress must be carried out by the masses of people. Cabral clarified this point in an interview with Basil Davidson when he stated that, 

“The principal character of our army is that we are not military people–we are armed militants. After independence, after we have realized our goal, the major part of these people have to go back to cultivate the soil.” (The Rise of Nationalism, 35:00-35:25)

Cabral declared that land, geography, and environment are catalysts of culture. He explains:

"there are certain types of economic existence and geographical environments that give rise to certain types of songs; the people who live in the mountains have certain types of songs; those who live with cattle have their type of dance; those who live alone in the forest, without cattle, have yet another type of dance." (Cabral 117)

In other words, there is no form of authentic culture which develops apart from the social and ecological environment in which it is created. Fanon summarized this point when he dictated that culture emerged from working and fighting “with the same rhythm as the people to construct the future and to prepare the ground where vigorous shoots are already springing up" (233). José Carlos Schwarz was a pioneer in creating a musical culture that was culled from traditions that are literal and metaphorical products of the land in which they were created. Indeed, the name “Cobiana” chosen by Schwarz for his band bears witness to the importance of the land-culture axis.

Cobiana, or the forest-dense province of Caboi in Guinea-Bissau, writes historian Eve Crowley in her article "Contracts with the Spirits: Religion, Aslyum, and Ethnic Identity in the Cacheu Region of Guinea-Bissau," were dedicated to spirits like Mama Djombo, one of the most important deities in indigenous Guinean culture. Developing geographically on the “margins” and “periphery” of society, during the height of slave trade with Arabs and Europeans, Caboi stood out as a “center of power in its own right, but this authority was of a religious nature." With Mama Djombo being one of the spirits closest to the “High God,” and possessing the ability to assist supplicants with a range of issues from agriculture to curses, Caboi not only provided geographic safety, but provided a significant “continuous alternative to other political systems" (Crowley 571). Caboi constituted the benefit of peripheral location and its spiritual prestige, creating a safe haven for Bissau-Guineans. Thus, for many of the supplicants who fought the war, the struggle was not merely between “two political powers, but between two cosmological orders and the ritual and spiritual resources they controlled” (Crowley 575).

It was against this background Schwarz, or Zé Carlos, and Cobiana Djazz emerged. In a 2006 documentary entitled, “José Carlos Schwarz, a Voz do Povo” (Jose Carlos Schwarz, the Voice of the People), Bissau-Guinean filmmaker Adulai Jamanca recovered the legacy of Schwarz, largely unknown outside of Guinea-Bissau, through intimate friends and comrades, from noted African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) leader Filinto Barros, to Schwarz’s wife Maria Teresa Loft Fernandes. 

On December 6, 1949, Schwarz was born into a well-to-do family, with a German father and a Guinean and Cape Verdean mother. Schwarz would grow into his adolescence just as Cabral and the PAIGC began to firmly agitate the colonial state. Originally discouraged by his father in pursuing the arts, Schwarz secretly learned guitar by joining the band of a close friend, Ducko Castro Fernandes, called The Apaches (Voz do Povo Parte 1 04:55-05:55). In secondary school, Schwarz’s artistic talent and charisma gained the attention of the Portuguese colonial authorities in Guinea-Bissau and was recruited into the Popular National Action initiative.

`In Amílcar Cabral: The Life of a Reluctant Nationalist, historian António Tomás writes that the initiative was part of the broader colonial “Better Guinea” project under the new Portuguese general, António de Spínola, who tasked with the overseeing the counter-resistance. In identifying the radio as one of his “main targets,” and through talent like Schwarz, Spínola’s cultural projects were meant to appeal to “nativism” and therefore “reinforce tribal identity of the Guineans” as well as “exploit ethnic grievances” to draw in African troops and poke holes in the PAIGC’s objective of a united, nationalist front (141). In 1968, Schwarz left Guinea-Bissau for his higher education in Portugal, where he began to meet leaders of the PAIGC, like Filinto Barros. However, Barros recounts that he and his comrades were initially “very wary of him, ours was a revolutionary organization, we wanted radical change for the country.” In contrast, Schwarz “seemed critical of the war,” Barros describes, “he thought the war had been premature…because the country was not ready yet.” Apparently, after briefly going back to Guinea-Bissau, Schwarz returned Portugal with several deputies from Popular National Action with whom he “started a youth movement called ‘Roda Livre,’ so he could spread Guinean culture.” (Parte 1 08:25-12:26)

However, throughout his time in Portugal, despite his reservations about the war, Schwarz remained ideologically open, and Barros was among the several who took on the challenge to convince Schwarz of the position of the PAIGC. Indeed, Schwarz underwent a successful radicalization and as the decade came to a close, he returned to Guinea-Bissau and met fellow musician Aliu Bari, becoming the nucleus of Cobiana Djazz which would grow to include members Mamadu Bá, Samaké, and Ernesto Dabo. Among his band members, Schwarz learned to play the traditional sounds of the country because “he wanted his writing to be inspired by traditional rhythm and to sing creole instead of Portuguese.” Ducko Fernandes recounted that “Aliu already played the traditional way, and that was what Zé Carlos was looking for, so together they set about finding a way to make truly Guinean music and to sing it in creole.” (Parte 1 12:35-13:37)

But what is “truly Guinean” music? Fanon asserts that “in an underdeveloped country during the period of struggle, traditions are fundamentally unstable and are shot through by centrifugal tendencies” (224). "Decolonization," Fanon writes, "which sets out to change the order of the world, is, obviously, a program of complete disorder" (36). Because of such disorder, all the traditional rhythms that Schwarz and his bandmates may have encountered are disrupted in a way that resists cohesion and routine. The disorder is the process through which culture is transformed:

"culture has never the translucidity of custom; it abhors all simplifi­cation. In its essence it is opposed to custom, for custom is always the deterioration of culture. The desire to attach oneself to tradition or bring abandoned traditions to life again does not only mean going against the current of history but also opposing one's own people." (224)

However, on one hand, Fanon also dictates that “this per­sistence in following forms of cultures which are already condemned to extinction is already a demonstration of nationality,” insofar as it is a rejection of colonial culture and power. On the other hand, Fanon critiques such persistence as “a demonstration which is a throwback to the laws of inertia,” insofar as it is predicated on an “extremely obvious objectivity which seems to characterize a people.” Rather than accurately characterizing a people and their living culture, the “extremely obvious objectivity,” (237) is a construction of  “the inert, already forsaken result of frequent, and not always very coherent, adaptations of a much more fundamental substance which itself is continually being renewed.” “The man of culture,” Fanon continues, “instead of setting out to find this sub­stance, will let himself be hypnotized by these mummified fragments which because they are static are in fact sym­bols of negation and outworn contrivances” (224). Yet, Schwarz was able to attach himself to customs and transform them into the rhythm of the revolution that was taking place. Fernandes asserted that Schwarz took “underground Guinean music, gumbé basically, modernized it, rearranged it for modern instruments, made it known and gave it prominence as mainstream Guinean music.” (Parte 1 13:37-14:06) However, it was not simply a matter of an ideological approach, but of technology.

Technology

The radio became a key site for transmission of doctrine and information and the manifestation of national culture. Initially, Cabral and the PAIGC disseminated ideologies and information through a newspaper they called Libertação. But with the illiteracy rate being among the chief concerns, it was the radio which transformed and catalyzed the ability to inform the masses and influence cultural and national identity.

Tomás writes that the “radio became the main link between the militants of the party, as well as a fundamental component of its propaganda campaign". Though initially there was an unauthorized (by Cabral) station which transmitted at local levels, the PAIGC’s first official broadcast on Rádio Libertação (Radio Liberation) was heard across Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde on August 14, 1967. The station was made possible by “the donation of a transmitter and a studio by Sweden,” and largely operated by Amélia Aráujo, known through her radio personality, “Maria Turro” (140). News of the ongoing battle, interviews with Portuguese deserters, with PAIGC leaders including Cabral himself, as well as educational and cultural programming were among the central programs heard on Rádio Libertação.

On the construction of cultural and national identity, historian Alexander Reza writes that what became Rádio Libertação also became a “repository of Guinean music culture, recording the songs and music of militants who came to Conakry from across the country” (872). This also meant that multilingualism was a natural part of the musical culture brewing over the radio. Inheriting a diversity of musical and linguistic traditions, Schwarz was able to transcend the terrestrial diversity by converging the various ethnic sounds of Guinea-Bissau and give it a nationalist dimension, through the use of Portuguese Creole or Crioulo. Schwarz’s, wife Maria, recounted that “no one sang creole in those days, especially not modern music, it just wasn’t done." The use of creole was a veritable resistance: Schwarz developed songs with words “that the colonials didn’t understand.” (Parte 1 14:15-15:13) Reza concurs to Maria’s statement through the discovery of “notes responding to the Portuguese and Creole broadcasts the PAIGC put out over the radio,” in which they cite “'the difficulty of following the Creole, and that they are unsure of the quotations they have noted because of the speed with which they are talking'” (872). Under Schwarz, music and the radio became a critical intersection of resistance which took on a nationalist dimension. 

But it was no quick and easy feat: Bari himself lamented that “we spent nearly a year rehearsing with no chance of performing…we wanted to record, but there was no tape recorder either” (Parte 1 13:59-14:20). This would change, though, with the help of radio host Oscar Barbosa who told Schwarz and Bari, 

“Man, I’m going to record all this music for you and get it played on the radio…this could have massive impact, first it would help rally the people, and second, it’d be the first time the music of Guinea-Bissau gets heard on the radio in creole." (Parte 1 14:20-14:45)

Barbosa recounted that the band was an immediate hit, “the feeling among Guineans especially in the city of Bissau was quite extraordinary, I mean, all anyone could talk about was that music” (Parte 1 15:26-15:35). However, the resistance did not just begin or end with sound or language, but with the physical movement of people. In a 2003 interview, Aráujo recounted how the team responsible for broadcasting “recorded music from all, or almost all, ethnic groups…when they came to Conakry to get supplies and weapons, we used the opportunity to gather a group together and record,” (Reza 872) demonstrating the necessary causal link between those engaged in armed struggle and national culture.

People

Another way Schwarz was able to transform calcified custom into the living culture of a people was through humanizing the realities of armed revolution. On the impact of Schwarz’s artistic practice, Maria Fernandes, “people were becoming more aware of what was going on because of the messages in Zé Carlos’ music, and because he sang about everyday life. He sang about women, about children, about the minutiae of daily life" (Parte 1 18:48-19:11). Of the most influential songs of Cobiana Djazz included in the compilation is one dedicated to women, “Mindjeris De Panu Pretu,” (Women Wreathed in Black), which Aliu Bari asserted "was the song associated with the revolution" (Parte 1 16:00-16:05):

Women wreathed in black,

Weep no more

This here is our land,

When one of us falls in battle

Pray if you can for our safe return home.

Because this here is our land

And no matter where we roam,

Or how many times the world spins ‘round

It always ends up here.

Grieving is just as much a part of armed struggle as the corporal sacrifice made by the average combatant. Further, the importance of the land is emphasized, perhaps even conflated with a heavenly abode in the afterlife, as Schwarz sings that when one of the combatants die, to pray for their safe passage “home,” which always “ends up here” –here being Guinea-Bissau. 

Perhaps more entertainingly, he also sang about the revolutionary potential of the local intoxicated elder, "Tiu Bernal" (Uncle Bernal).

Early in the morning a calm look in his eyes,

Uncle Bernal, his knees still weak from the booze,

(Tiu Bernal!).

Uncle Bernal shot a jet from the skies,

Bits flew off, setting the bush ablaze,

(Tiu Bernal!).

The Portuguese were mad,

That’s their hard luck,

(Tiu Bernal!).

Tomorrow, Uncle Bernal he too can say,

I too did my bit today!

Though the upbeat rhythm of “Tiu Bernal” is a far cry from the lamenting sound of “Mindjeris De Panu Pretu,” the message is clear: everyone has a place in the revolution and Schwarz himself practiced what he preached. Bari reflected on the moment in 1972 that he gave Schwarz bombs, telling him to “take the bombs, but don’t do anything with them, we’ll have a meeting tomorrow to decide where we should put them.” Schwarz, however, took matters into his own hands, and with the help of his wife, “took the small bomb in a shoe box,” wrapped like gift, and planted the timebomb “under a PIDE [International and State Defense Police] inspector’s car.” Bari described that Schwarz thought it was General Spinola’s car. Panic ensued in Guinea-Bissau, and Schwarz, Ducko Fernandes and Bari and were later arrested and imprisoned in Ilha Das Galinhas until Guinea-Bissau won independence in 1973 (Parte 2 00:40-04:30).

Approaching upon independence, Cabral was assassinated by his own party on January 20, 1973, leaving his brother Luis Cabral to assume political leadership as the first president of the independent country in 1974. Now free under Luis’ government, Schwarz left Cobiana Djazz for appointment as the Director of the Department of Arts and Culture in the new government, while also forming another band called Kumpô. Later, through discovery by the South African singer Mariam Makeba, he was able to record a single in New York, “Diju di Galinha,” (Chicken's Island) included in this compilation, which Makeba also re-released on her 1989 album Welela (Parte 2 13:56-14:12). However, reflects Bissau-Guinean diplomat, Fernando Delfim da Silva,

“Zé Carlos was dreadfully disillusioned. He envisioned a wonderful country, one of the few [movements] who’d meticulously prepared Guinea-Bissau’s future. But he was also the first among those involved in politics and in the arts to denounce the deviations from the ideals. And the erosion of the struggle’s hopes for progress and development.” (Parte 2 13:08-13:55)

Schwarz’s music became increasingly critical of the new government, and as a result, he was sent to Cuba, reflects Maria Fernandes, “under the pretext he was going to set up the Guinea-Bissau embassy in Cuba and study music there” (Parte 2 14:35-14:48). On May 27th, 1977, on a flight to Cuba, Schwarz was killed in a plane crash under uncertain circumstances. Barbosa recounts how upon hearing reports about a Bissau-Guinean diplomat, he had a “strong presentiment that it was Zé Carlos,” but that he could not announce it on the radio because he had no confirmation. So, instead, he laments, “I got all Zé Carlos’ records, and started playing his music on the radio non-stop” until he got confirmation from President Cabral, wherein he then made the announcement on national radio (Parte 2 16:29-17:55). Despite the unfair end between himself and the state, the state continued to sponsor cultural projects that included his poetry. The work of Schwarz appears in two state-sponsored anthologies entitled Matenhas Para Quem Luta! (Greetings to Those Who Fight) in 1977, and Antologia dos Jovens Poetas (Anthology of The Young Poets) in 1978. “In fact,” James Kennedy writes in “José Carlos Schwartz: Bard of Popular Mobilization in Guinea-Bissau,”Matenhas Para Quem Luta! "bears the subtitle 'Momentos Primeiros da Construçao' (First Moments of Construction) taken from the title of one of his included poems.” Kennedy continues:

"The fact that nine years after his death, he is still considered one of the most popular poets of his country, reflects the impact his creative genius has had on the masses both during the final stages of the struggle for liberation and the critical first years of independence." (92)

On the anniversary of Schwarz’s death, Bissau-Guineans gather in memory of the musician who shaped the country’s national culture, and sing the lyrics of his song ‘N na nega bedju’ (I refuse to grow old):

I refuse to grow old

My knees musn’t wear out

For the road ahead is still long

I refuse to grow old

My eyes mustn’t lose sight

For I wish to witness everyday reality

I refuse to grow old

My hands mustn’t lose strength

For I may not be able to stay in order to rebuild.

I refuse to grow old

For the love I have for you Guinea

For the love I have for you Cape Verde.

Indeed, Schwarz died at the young age of 27 years old with the love for his country; and it was perhaps this love that drove Schwarz in all facets from, music to revolution. Yet, while the intimate lives of many of the 20th century revolutionaries are often seen as irrelevant, and several others in turmoil, survived by his wife and two sons Naman and Remna Schwarz, they discuss that intimate love being directly connected to Schwarz's wider political message. Indeed, it was such minutiae of daily life, as his wife Maria Fernandes discussed, that had it's part in the revolution.

Remna, his youngest, discusses how even before Schwarz "had a revolutionary or Guinean consciousness, he had an African consciousness. And what he wanted was for the culture of Guinea, the culture of Africa to become important" (Parte 3 00:38-01:03). As Naman describes, it was this goal that made his father, "the touch-stone for that period," making his music "the model for all modern music in Guinea." At the same time, "his music wasn't commercial," Naman continues, "it was music that touched people, that spoke to their souls. I think that's what's missing nowadays" (Parte 3 01:08-01:30). Remna emphasizes this point by asserting that all

"Zé Carlos' songs and poems came from the heart. I can never forget that. You have to let your heart guide you. That's how we have to interpret Zé Carlos' poems. That's how we have to transmit them to the new generations." (Parte 3 03:50-04:15)

The same heart that produced music for the revolution was the same heart that produced poetry and music for his family, especially his wife. Remna swoons that "their relationship was so strong, so loving and passionate, almost incredibly so" (Parte 3 01:50-02:00).  He constantly wrote poems and songs for Fernandes, even while in prison. One of the last poems he wrote for her was just before his death while in Cuba, indicating to the longevity and breadth of his love for both his family and the revolution:

I desire a thousand women in you

To love only you

Only you in thousand

He said you are my eyes,

The safe-haven of my desire...

If by chance I should lie to you,

I won't explain where I'm going,

I'll simply disappear.

Fernandes gleans as she reflects on the poem, which was never set to music until Remna transformed it back in 2006. Both Remna and Naman continue their father's legacy as they pursue their own musical and political journeys. While Schwarz’s body of musical artistry is largely unknown outside of Guinea-Bissau, his legacy is a permanent fixture in the nation’s cultural identity. For all his initial reservations about him, Filinto Barros describes Schwarz as a,

"A staunch nationalist who went to galvanize art and who played a very important role, even surpassing us. We say the pupil surpasses the teacher, and he certainly surpassed us, we have to admit that in terms of what he did for the struggle. Our contribution was run of the mill stuff, but rarely did someone like him come along." (Parte 1 19:48-20:15)

Moreover, his work is reflective of the critical nature of musical culture in liberation movements across Africa and its diasporas, even as it often got co-opted into use by reactionary post-colonial governments. The posthumous legacy of Schwarz’s Cobiana Djazz was transformed into a state-ran label, “Cobiana,” where they distributed music from emerging, patriotic artists, perhaps most famously, Super Mama Djombo. Beginning as a group of children, the band would assume the name of the most important deity in indigenous Guinean culture–Mama Djombo–who was rooted in the province of Caboi (Cobiana). It is there that perhaps Cobiana Djazz and Super Mama Djombo converge not just in name but in a multi-layered history which extended Schwarz’s musical legacy far beyond his own reach.

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