Codé di Dona, nickname of Gregório Vaz, (July 10, 1940—January 5, 2010) was a Cape Verdean musician and composer. He was born in Chaminé near São Domingos and lived in the locality of São Francisco, in the same municipality he was born has another Cape Verdean music expert Ano Novo. He is considered one of the chief figures of

funaná The ''funaná'' is a music and dance genre from Cape Verde. ''Funaná'' is an accordion-based music. The rhythm is usually provided by the '' ferrinho'' much like the use of washboards in zydeco, the saw in Caribbean ripsaw music, the scraper ...

, a music genre once known only in his native island of Santiago and achieved universal renaissance today. He was professionally dependent on agriculture as a farmer, he was also a flower keeper. Codé di Dona composed classic songs at the Cape Verdean National Repertory including "Febri Funaná", "Fomi 47" (Portuguese: Fome de '47, English: '47 Famine), "Praia Maria", "Yota Barela", "Rufon Baré", "Pomba" and others. Codé di Dona felt Cape Verdeans with the singularity of its songs and poets of his letters. His composition "Fomi 47", for example, was about one of the most historic problems that struck Cape Verde, the 1947 drought, the

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accom ...

and emigration to São Tomé e Príncipe. Image of a part of the ship "Ana Mafalda" was part of an imaginary collection of Cape Verdeans, it was sung as a hymn by other singers. He later married and had children, one of them was Lúcio who would later become a singer. Codé di Dona was a famous player of accordion (concertina), a paradigmatic instrument in funaná. This instrumental quality made him recorded two albums, the first ''Kap Vert'' in 1996 and second ''Codé-di-Dona'' in 1998 which achieved gold in Portugal in the same year. Codé di Dona performed in a couple of stages and concerts in Cape Verde as well as Europe, mainly Portugal, France and Switzerland. His music later appeared and was sung by other artists, including Bulimundo, Finaçon, Simentera, Zeca di Nha Reinalda, Lura,

Mário Lúcio Sousa Mario is the Italian, French, Croatian, Spanish, Portuguese, Bulgarian, Greek, and English form of the Latin Roman name Marius. In Croatia, the name Mario was among the most common masculine given names in the decades between 1970 and 1999, and ...

and more. He died in 2010 at the age of 69, after his death, the Cape Verdean minister of culture Manuel Veiga said that "Codé di Dona" was a musician that marked the Cape Verdean culture in music. Also Cape Verdean president

Pedro Pires Pedro de Verona Rodrigues Pires (; born 29 April 1934) is a Cape Verdean politician who served as Prime Minister of Cape Verde from 1975 to 1991, and later as President from 2001 to 2011. Life and career Pires was born in São Filipe, Fogo, Ca ...

said:

"Este artista conseguiu interpretar o sentir mais profundo da alma cabo-verdiana, através das suas composições com destaque para o género funaná, de que foi um dos seus maiores expoentes."

Legacy

Since 2014, he is featured on the $1000

Cape Verdean escudo The escudo (sign: ; ISO 4217: CVE) is the currency of the Republic of Cape Verde. One escudo is subdivided into one hundred ''centavos''. Amounts are generally written by using the () as the decimal separator, such as for 20 escudos, or for ...

banknote. It displays the coast of where he once lived.

References

External links

Funaná rapido
Listening example, by Codé di Dona (accordion) and his son Lucio di Dona (ferrinho). Fro

a report (in German) about a project to document Cape Verdian rhythms {{DEFAULTSORT:Code Dona Cape Verdean musicians Cape Verdean composers 1940 births 2010 deaths People from Santiago, Cape Verde