Lúcia de Carvalho is an alchemist, a seeker of sense, a kindler of essence. Her voice transmits vibrations that heal and transform; her drum transmits the voice of the ancestors, inviting us to reconnect with our deepest selves. Born in Luanda, she left the Angolan capital for Portugal with her mother and two of her four sisters, then when she was 12 years old she and her sisters were taken in by a French foster family in Meistratzheim, a little village in the Alsace region. Her African roots resurfaced in an unexpected way when a Brazilian band happened to play in her village: it was with that band, Som Brasil, that during 10 years she took her first musical steps, progressing from backing vocalist to lead singer, moving from dancing to drumming. In 2008, she decided to embark on a solo career and write her own songs. After releasing her first EP in 2011, she met Edouard Heilbronn, a young bassist from Alsace, who had just spent three years roaming distant parts of the planet. What was bound to happen, happened, and they began to share their life and their music, working together on their compositions, playing everywhere they could, gifting audiences with Lúcia’s dazzling solar energy. After a long journey both musical and initiatory that took them to Brazil and Angola, Kuzola (‘Love’ in the Kimbundu language of Angola) was born: an album (2016) and a moving documentary that retraced Lúcia’s quest for her roots and offered some answers to her questions about her own identity. If Kuzola was a quest for meaning, the quest this time is for the essence. It has enabled her, always in partnership with Edouard Heilbronn, to strike out into new territory on this her third album, recorded and mixed by Jean Lamoot (Mano Negra, Noir Désir, Alain Bashung, Dominique A, Souad Massi) at Studio Ferber in Paris. Of course, Africa and Brazil are still there on Pwanga, forming the heart of Lúcia as she lives and writes to the beat of the drum, finding words, melodies and rhythms on the same impulse; a raw diamond that her accomplice polishes, enriching the harmonies and sonic imagery and turning the songs on the album into travel films. Other outstanding participation in this luminous repertoire are the illustrious Brazilian singer Chico César, the powerful and warm voice of singer Anna Tréa, and two veterans of Angolan music: percussionist Galiano Neto and producer-guitarist Betinho Feijo, known for their long-standing work alongside the great Bonga Kwenda. While the virtuoso Zé Luis Nascimento (Mayra Andrade, Ayo, Cesaria Evora) knew how to enhance the essence of each title with his original and varied vocabulary between Brazilian, Eastern, and Western percussions. Pwanga (‘Light’) is the title of Lúcia de Carvalho’s new album. It allies gentleness to power, meaning to essence, the light to the deep roots of a tree born in Africa, whose branches embrace the world, whose ?owers appear as songs. Her own name proclaims her vocation and has done right from the very beginning. Lúcia, ‘light’, of Carvalho, ‘the oak’ in Portuguese: the strength of the tree. A revelation that aptly sums up her poetic and human quest: “to root the light.”