Zé Viola

Inspired by the accordion of “Garda e seu Conjunto”, who in 1958 toured Catumbela, Zé Viola echoed the history of Angolan Popular Music, for having translated and interpreted, from Portuguese to Umbundu, two songs by Amália Rodrigues, the legendary voice of Portuguese fado. José da Silva, commonly known as Zé Viola, never met his father, having lived with his mother, Nina Tchilombo, and with his stepfather, named Kakinga. For reasons related to the assumption of paternity of the children of the first marriage, the stepfather divorces his mother, and Zé Viola starts to live in the maternal grandfather's pouch, located in Monte Belo, in Benguela, near the Balombo mission. Zé Viola was born on April 14, 1942, in Balombo, Ucolo village, and was taken at the age of ten by his brother, Silvano Tchipamba, to the village of Catumbela, to take care of the son of a Portuguese, an accountant for the Railroad from Benguela. The boss's niece, Emília de Oliveira, advised him to study, having bought him the “Maternal Booklet”, by João de Deus, and a slate, which at the time served as a notebook, where he learned to read and read. write. That is how the second booklet concludes. Afterwards, he meets the girl Maria da Conceição, daughter of the boss's neighbor, who, at just ten years old, transmitted everything she learned to Zé Viola. In this condition, he is able to complete the first, second, third and fourth classes at home. It should be noted that, as a servant, Zé Viola did not have access to the official school in Vila da Catumbela. At the home of the first employers, he stayed for about eight years and then went to Maria Cohen de Macedo's house, still in Catumbela, where he worked until 1964. Music, in fact, entered the life of Zé Viola when, in 1957, he discovered the viola. First he made several tin violas by hand and then one wooden violin, until he bought a second-hand acoustic viola from a Cape Verdean trader. Then, the Benguela Railway workers made a monetary subscription that added 2,500 escudos, and Zé Viola bought an electric guitar, when he composed, continuously, the song “Adeus violão de lata”, a song that symbolizes the end of the use of tin guitars. With the help of the book “Method without a master”, and through a process of self-learning, he learned the first guitar chords and became known in the streets of Catumbela by the “young man of the viola”, who played for anyone who wanted to hear, he had then 18 years.