Duga Nota is dedicated to the merger of cultures. Whatever happened in Brazil did not stay there; it went global. Of course, I am talking about the divine influence of African music that is reflected in the West like the moonshine in a lake, sparkling in the whitewater of samba and oozing the still waters of Bossa Nova. Just as blues influenced the New World in the North, so did the samba in the south. The global reach of Bossa Nova introduced us to another aspect of African influence and has changed the course of the painful twentieth century for the better. Of course, the African roots are most clearly visible in contemporary African music, a fertile field that was always generously open to overseas influences, growing wildly on the strong local roots. The richens of the African music can only be compared to the explosive, saturated intensity of the African clothing, whose colors seem to be stronger than life itself, at least compared to the life in the gray of Europe. This is why this gift of merging colors is incomparable and why the culture of rock, springing out from its African roots, was so much better than the life Europe knew before. As soon as the music left the strength of this marriage, it whithered back to its pale and insignificant shadow, the one we listen to today. Thus, tonight we shall celebrate the roots.
