Singer and songwriter Gerard Mendes alias Boy Gé Mendes was born in 1952 in Dakar. In the cosmopolitan capital of Senegal lives a large Cape Verdean community with Malians, Senegalese and Guineans. As a child sang Mendes all happy in the Catholic choir, at parties, in markets and in piano bars in old age. At the time he coverde The Rolling Stones and The Beatles and played rhythm & blues and salsa.
With his group The Beryls built a reputation during tours by Senegal. When he emigrated to France in 1976, he was asked the Cabo Verde Show reinforce a hundred percent Cape Verdean group of French and Dutch Cape Verdeans occurred. The band opened Mendes' eyes and heart to his Cape Verdean roots and he began composing in Creole. He went solo under the stage name Boy Gé Mendes. His song Grito De Bo fidge was the first international hit Cape Verdean. After exhaustive international tours Paid Mendes early nineties a break and traveled with his guitar by Brazil, the United States, Senegal and Cape Verde, where he eventually settled. On his ninth album Noite The Morabeza (1999), we hear Mendes' light tinted velvety voice and sensual, relaxed mix of reggae and jazz with musical influences from Africa, Brazil and Cuba. (SvdP)more
