Downbeat Spotlights Sara Serpa's Mixed Media Meditation on Colonialism, Racism, and Family History

Sara Serpa's Recognition is a multimedia work that blends compositions and vocals by Serpa, Super-8 films made by her grandfather in the 1960s, and text by African revolutionary thinkers, exploring racism and colonialism from both a personal and historical point of view. Downbeat's August issue includes an interview about the project:

Violence. Brutality. Segregation. Exploitation. These are the words that singer/composer Sara Serpa uses when she talks about the family legacy that she inherited—a legacy that her latest musical projects tackle head-on.

Serpa’s parents were born during the 1940s in Angola, then a Portuguese colony in Africa, and witnessed the atrocities committed against black people there. Later, after they’d moved to Lisbon—where Serpa was born—they participated in public protests against these injustices. Today, Serpa carries on her family’s commitment to social justice through her art.