Mário Lúcio

Mario Lucio (or Mario Lucio Sousa) is one of the most recognizable figures of Cape Verde’s cultural and music scene, both locally and internationally. Say the name Mario Lucio and he is instantly recognizable as a musician, a singer-songwriter, and one of the country’s foremost and leading composers of all time. He is the country's most internationally acclaimed writer, the poet who marked a turning point in new Cape Verdean poetry with the book "Birth of a World", one of the main thinkers of his generation, the author of "Manifesto a Criolização," and the Minister of Culture who launched the new epistemology on culture, with the book “Meu Verbo Cultura”.

As Cape Verde’s most sought-after performing artist, Mario Lucio has played in all the 5 Continents; North America (United States), South America (Brazil), Europe (Austria, Belgium, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovenia), Africa (Ghana, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Senegal), Asia (China, Macau, South Korea) and many others.

Composing in Cape Verde’s leading music styles such as Morna, Funaná, Batuque and Coladeira, Mario Lucio’s signature songs and arrangements are found in an array of albums and songs most of which were interpreted and recorded by the late Cesaria Evora and including the country’s emerging and established singers as well as artists as far afield as Brazil, France and Italy.