Puxa is one of the world’s least-known dance musics. It emerged on the equatorial islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, weaving together Angolan semba, Cape Verdean coladeira, Haitian kompa and Brazilian rhythms. Six years after Léve Léve Vol. 1 – the first systematic compilation devoted to music from the islands – Bongo Joe follows up on 6 March 2026.
History you can dance to
Léve Léve Vol. 2 brings together 15 tracks from the 1970s and 80s – nearly an hour and a half of music by groups such as África Negra, Sangazuza and Sum Alvarinho. The label describes it as »one of the most diverse scenes in the Lusophone world«: music that took shape after independence in 1975, as the islands began to renegotiate their colonial past. Some of the songs were recorded in the courtyard of the RSTP studio, simply because the building itself was too small to hold both bands and audience at once.
Bongo Joe does not frame puxa as a folkloric footnote, but as a transatlantic pop form, tightly interwoven across geographies. A music that carries colonialism, migration and everyday life within it – without spelling them out. Dance music that tells history.
