Chico Antonio is an icon of contemporary Mozambican music – multi-rhythmic and multi-melodic. His artistic career of over 40 years has generated an unmistakably Mozambican musical style with such creative intensity that it is hard to classify whether you’re inside or outside the country. When you listen to Chico Antonio – the pinging of a modern guitar beneath the gentle breath of a flute, or the dragging beat of the drum in sweet dispute with the timbila – you wonder, is it Afropop? Afro rock? Or Afro jazz? And the answer is always the same – it’s Chico Antonio! Chico Antonio’s music offers an accurate record of the last 40 years of Mozambican history, including the famine and the war of the 1980s, and the rural exodus that turned the cities into villages of cement. His music – a symbiosis of traditional beats with stylized urban rhythms – reflects his own life story: from being a young cattle herder in the countryside to a street kid and then a virtuoso musician on stage. Chico Antonio embodies the recurring stories of violence against children in rural Africa – the clear expression of poverty – followed by the violence in the cities, where the child flees, attracted by the frenzy of cars and by the turmoil of outdoor markets and the colourful kaleidoscopic night. Chico Antonio was a prince of the streets of Maputo, where he arrived in the early 1960s, fleeing parental violence in the Magude region of Maputo province. In Maputo city, the homeless boy was taken in by a white couple, Tereza Lili Ferreira and José Ferreira dos Santos, “who were my parents of affection and caring.” With the help of his “parents of affection,” Chico Antonio was welcomed into church residences: first, the San José Catholic mission in Lhanguene, where he went to primary school and first came in contact with music, and later the Presbyterian Khovo home. He learned music by playing trumpet in the church and at social events such as weddings. In 1990, Chico Antonio won the Radio France International (RFI) prize for African music for “Baila Maria,” sung as a duet with Mingas, the great marrabenta diva. The award allowed him to continue his music studies in Paris, where his tutor was the king of Makhossa soul, Manu Dibangu. In Paris he studied piano, music arrangement and studio recording. Chico Antonio returned to Mozambique, mobilized by Manu Dibangu to reflect on the multiculturalism of his country and launch a new project, Amoya Studio and Art Gallery. He wanted to deepen his investigation and use of traditional Mozambican rhythms and marry them with modern international rhythms in the direction of “world music.” His refined new style set him apart in the panorama of contemporary Mozambican music, and Chico Antonio was invited to do tours of Europe and Africa and became a regular contributor of music for documentaries, films, videos and stage plays. The street boy Chico Antonio is still alive in his memory, and in his conversations with friends he emphasizes that “we all have the ability to reach much farther than where we started out: all we need is the opportunity…” Now ... Chico Antonio offers us the opportunity to savour these memories in a breathtakingly explosive musical experience!