The Lisbon-based musician’s bold take on Angolan kuduro and quickfire rap are infused with a true survivor’s energyAfter a few years when pop was all about emotional bloodletting, now stars are refusing to be defined by trauma – see recent records by Kesha and
Selena Gomez, which celebrated survival over suffering, and Frank Ocean’s promise that he’s trading vulnerability for fantasy.
Pongo, 27, mainlines a similar philosophy. As a child, she and her family fled Luanda for Lisbon to escape the Angolan civil war. In Portugal she experienced intense
racism, and claimed that the
police abused her when she made a domestic violence complaint. Despite these hardships, her
music is defiantly joyful: “a place to be happy with my memories of Angola”, she has said.