A jazz combo of black musicians I played with at the age of 17 triggered a kind of awakening: a different way of feeling, of moving, of being, when I was with black people, a way to feel at ease, at home. It has haunted me ever since that I was obviously white and at the same time I felt that there were no boundaries once black and white really meet in something universal like music. I dedicated my first album to this sensation, it is named "Black Inside."

Through the friendship with a Cabo Verde singer I finally visited this archipelago of ten islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Being invited to play with musicians like Bau, Bius, Tito Paris led to the decision to stay and fulfill my dream: to be a full time musician.

There is something so deep in their music, especially in the morna, which for me is the Blues of Cabo Verde, such melodies, such a groove, and great lyrics about life: the phenomenon of the "lost identity", being in the middle of nowhere and wondering where to belong, which parallels my issue. And a deep surrender and love towards life in its simplicity and natural beauty.

Mindelo, the city of music, theatre, pleasure, has been called "um brazilin", a little Brazil, "full of joy and colors", and it has re- awakened another longing in me: the music of Brazil and to spend some time there. For some months I had been playing with two Brazilian friends, a guitar player and a singer, in the streets and clubs of Amsterdam, all those Sambas and Bossa Novas, this year I met the Brazilian singer Mauricio Mattar who invited me to join his band and project in Lisbon.

So I am living on this tiny island Sao Vicente, with two great continents of music on either side, seducing me to visit and embrace their sounds and grooves. I discovered that in Africa - Brazil there is a link hidden: Cabo Verde, as the ca of Africa and the B of Brazil.