Performance - 6 July 2013
Bonga is considered a superstar throughout Europe and Africa. He has recorded 30 albums in a 40-year career. Bonga's life is inextricably linked to Angola's struggle for freedom from colonial domination and the continuing struggle for a stable, comfortable, post-colonial existence.

Bonga was born Barceló de Carvalho in Dandé, Angola, in 1942. He first came to prominence as an athlete, initially as a world-class 400 meter champion who set a record he held for ten years, and later as a star in the great Benfica (Lisbon) soccer team of the 1960s.
Portugal was then ruled by the repressive right-wing Salazar government. Angolans were restricted in every manner possible, including travel. They were also generally denied Portuguese citizenship. Bonga's status as a star athlete allowed him freedom of movement, which he used to carry messages between exiled freedom fighters and compatriots still in Angola. As the movement for independence heated up, Bonga was forced into exile himself, first in Rotterdam, then in Paris. It was in Rotterdam in 1972 that he recorded his first record, "Angola 72", and adopted the name Bonga.
After independence Bonga established a residence in Lisbon while retaining residence in Angola. As post-colonial life in Angola disintegrated into corruption, squalor, brutality, and a interminable and bloody civil war, Bonga has remained critical of the political leaders on all sides.
Bonga's voice of conscience continues to make him a hero to the people of Angola.
Bonga was in Hertme in 2001 and in 2007. He has the honour to be the only artist in 25 year Afrikafestival Hertme to appear three times.

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