My life as a musician, Ney Miranda, a first-person account

I was born in 1973 on a small island called Brava - the smallest island in Cape Verde. Cape Verde is made up of just 10 small islands, located off the west coast of Africa. My parents gave me the name Emanuel Miranda, nickname (Ney).

Nov 15, 2025 - 13:11

Nov 15, 2025 - 13:20

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My life as a musician, Ney Miranda, a first-person account

As a child, I already lived with musicians in my family. My father played the violin, my grandfather, my uncles... I'm also the fifth generation of the great Eugénio Tavares' family. In other words, I was surrounded by music all the time. I started playing around the age of 6; my first instrument was the ukulele. I clearly remember going to a Carnival parade where there were lots of people singing and dancing. There were also musicians playing, and I was mesmerized looking at the ukulele. When I got home, I picked up my cavaquinho and just started playing, out of the blue... and from then on I kept learning more and more.

When I was a kid in Brava, some friends invited me to join a local band - it was the first band I ever played with. But we didn't have any real instruments, more homemade ones. Then, when I was about 12/13 years old, my family and I emigrated to the United States. When we got there, life was very different from what I was used to: the food, the culture, the way of life... but I quickly adapted to the American way.

I started playing in church when I was around 14 - I was a choirboy. Over time, I remember the first time my cousin took me to a concert where he was performing with his band, called Cabo Verde 77. He called me on stage to play a song and, being so young and with a bigger guitar than me, I caught the audience's attention! People came up to the stage to see that cute little boy play. And while I was playing, they started giving me money. I think I went home with about 300 or 400 dollars that night. In the 1980s, that was a lot of money - especially for someone my age. That was my first performance on a big stage in the US, but it definitely wouldn't be my last. A few years later, I started being asked to play in different bands, when I was about 16/17 years old.

I played with the Brothers Band, a little band we formed with friends from school, but as they needed a guitarist, I ended up switching to guitar. Then, a bit older, around 20 years old...

I was asked to play in the best and biggest band at the time: Jamm Band. At that stage I was learning keyboards and synthesizer. The lead singer of the Jamm Band, Bius (God rest his soul), saw me playing keyboards and was impressed by how quickly I was learning. So he invited me to join the band. I was overjoyed, because at that time everyone was talking about how good the Jamm Band was. For me, joining a badass band like that was an honor and a privilege. That was around 1991-1992.

From then on I began to be recognized by many top musicians. In 1991, I was invited to travel to Cape Verde with the band Os Pecos to perform. But at that time I was already playing bass. That's when I started traveling the world. Another band that called me was the Mendes Brothers, well known in the PALOP countries. I started playing with them and we traveled a lot - to Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea, South Africa, etc. I also performed with them in Portugal. At the same time, I started making a lot of my own recordings and was invited to record with great Cape Verdean artists such as Bana, Tito Paris, Mirri Lobo, Grace Évora and others.

I'll never forget the first "real" band I played with: my cousins' and brothers' band, The Troubadours. It was the first band that paid me to play - I was about 15. I'll be forever grateful to them. I was young and they were older, but they helped me become a better person through music, always guiding me down the right path.

I'd also like to talk a bit about the band I helped grow up with: Kola Band - a photo appears in the text. It was just a group of friends who got together to play at parties and events, and who ended up recording an album in 2000, probably entitled "Tchoro d'Amor". Other musicians joined in over time.

Advancing to 2025... Since then I've played countless shows in different countries and done a lot of recording work, including with new artists such as Dari G, Bidonga, Benvindo Cruz, Kirino do Canto, Tchesco, Delfin Di Tete - just to name a few of the albums on which I've featured on at least 10 tracks.

I'm currently working on my own Cape Verdean jazz/fusion album, with about 8 songs. I'm not sure of the name yet, but it will probably be "Tchuba di Noti", which means "Rain at Night".

Stay tuned. More news soon.