Carmen Souza few times, once on a family trip when she was ten and again as an adult in 2010, she grew up speaking Creole and eating Cape Verdean cuisine. While still a child, she began singing gospel music in the church choir. Her parents maintained close ties with the diaspora, and Souza's childhood was filled with the music and culture of Cape Verde, along with that of the former Portuguese colonies of Angola, Brazil, Mozambique and São Tomé. Souza's father, Antonio, a merchant sailor, insisted she should learn English and German. After spending just one year at college, she left to
Angola–Brazil relations and Portuguese, and Brazilian merchants in the then-illegal transatlantic slave trade. Music and dance A "cross-fertilization" of musical cultures and dances occurred in the Atlantic triangle beginning in the 17th and 18th centuries via cultural exchange. As a result of this exchange, both countries share a rich history of mixed Afro-Iberian musical traditions, such as the prevalence of the guitar, or "viola". An example of early dance exchange is the "umbigada", or belly blow, a "basic feature of many dances imported to Brazil and Portugal from the Congo-Angola region". Angola–Brazil relations Angola–Brazil relations refers to the historical and current bilateral