Cape Verdean Creole, Afro-Dominican Guitar Fireworks: Elida Almeida; Yasser Tejeda Spin the Globe

Review: Elida Almeida, and Yasser Tejeda at Music Haven on Sunday, July 26, 2026

“This is…how people dance, in the U.S.?” asked Elida Almeida, mock-skeptical, glancing in feigned confusion at too many fans seated at Music Haven Sunday night behind too few dancers up front.

Elida Almeida, above; with band, below

She soon changed things, energizing the audience by first revving herself. Elegance gave way to kinetic excitement that lifted everything through call-and-response vocals and her own increasingly abandoned dancing in mostly upbeat songs. The turning point came, however, in her quietest moments.

Almeida topped a twin-bill of hybrid cross-ocean singers; she combined Cape Verde’s blend of Africa and European cultures in music that leaned toward Africa while opener Yasser Tejeda’s celebration of Afro-Dominican traditions felt Caribbean.

Almeida started singing offstage as her four-piece band grooved strong. She came on mid-song in glowing silver that changed colors with the stage lights. She said Sunday’s show was only the second on this tour, hailed her tiny island nation’s surprising World Cup success and at first sang in the understated style of world’s best-known Cape Verdean export, “barefoot diva” Cesaria Evora (RIP).

Seldom introducing her tunes, Almeida let them speak for themselves; bold, beat-powered surges of song whose meanings spoke through inflection and gesture – until she said her next, “Txika,” was a weapon aimed at an ex-boyfriend.

After another bold-fun dance-y tune, things got personal again. She told how she wrote her first-ever song at 17 to express and resolve troubles. In fervent quiet the aching, healing, uplifting “Nta Konsiqui” had just simple guitar riffs behind her – a major change from his aggressive riffing in upbeat tunes. Opening herself, she brought the audience into where the music led.

After that, she steered everybody around with a compelling, confident swagger, using singalongs to engage everyone from singing faces to fast feet. She kept things simple, no more than a syllable or two, mostly; and she shrewdly reprised some songs. Just when it seemed they’d stopped while the beat was still fun, she’d turn a hard stop into a pause, spurring things on again with renewed musical force.

She ended as she’d begun; leaving the stage while her band still grooved on in farewell. They’d earned their solo spotlight swan-song: keyboardist Kalu Ferreira, drummer Cau Paris, guitarist Jery Bidan and bassist Mayo Bass. Nobody soloed much, and didn’t have to; Almeida shone the star power, but Bidan’s guitar underlined her music’s African origins with treble high-life style runs.

Kinetic west African zip was one of many guitar colors opener Yasser Tejeda used to grab everybody in the confident grip of a trio riff explosion.

Yasser Tejeda, above; with band, below

Like Almeida, Tejeda drew fans in with singalongs, starting right away with “Nuestra Raices” hailing all in the Dominical Republic’s complex population. The branches of the orange tree cited in “En Al Naranjo,” the linking of disparate peoples in “Universo Ancestral” and the bluesy tribute to ancestors in “La Vereda” all carried similar sentiments of unity. The tunes’ variety exploded from Tejeda’s guitar as much as from the words he sang, in Spanish. Bassist Pedro Fortunato and drummer Jonathan Croncoso in strong support, Tejeda’s guitar sailed all over. Blinding-fast jazz-rock runs, heavy-metal chord clangs, folkloric fundamentals, reverb eruptions – he reached deep into the six-string tool-box.

Tejeda said his musical mission was to fly past the stereotypical expectations of merengue and bachata, as confining Dominican styles, to a wider world of Afro-Dominican expression. While he introduced his praise of women in “Tu Ere Bonita” as a merengue and “Cascada” as a bachata, neither felt cliched. “Amor arrayáno” mourned a love doomed by the border between the (Spanish-speaking) Dominican Republic and the (French-speaking) Haiti. But then he closed with the tolerant, universal “Todo Va a Marchar” asserting – like John Lennon’s “Imagine” – the love in his chest has no borders or religion.

Neither does his music, or Almeida’s.

The Music Haven season continues Thursday with the comedy of Second City Touring Co., with Irish guitarist John Doyle and his Quartet on Sunday with the Murphy Beds opening.

Gallery