"This work is a spurt of impulse, intuitive, untie the deepest memories and desires about our people, our pain, our land and our world", described Paulo Flores, in declarations to Lusa agency.
The idea of recording together, shared Prodígio, arose "during the typical long conversations" they usually have.
"During this conversation 'Ti Paulito' mentioned that he didn't feel very well, and I felt such worry and affliction and said: 'We can't leave without having made an album together'. It came out so spontaneously that I said it and soon after I thought I should have said it differently. And, without letting me say anything else the 'Ti Paulito' said 'let's go, let's do it,'" the 'rapper' recalled, adding that after that day they let "the process be as natural as possible.
"The Blessing and the Curse," composed of eight themes, was recorded in only two sessions.
"During [the sessions], we smiled, shouted, cried, and above all felt very much everything we did. It was very special and, at the end of it all, we ended up assuming the errors of the 'demo'. We tried to record the final songs, but it didn't even come close to the feeling the demo carried. Although with many errors, the 'demo' had a lack of fulfillment with perfection and a very big tie [with] our imperfection and our truth," said Prodígio.
Paulo Flores says that sometimes they cried "even recording the songs". "We gave up the technically perfect to leave the raw records of the moments we sang them for the first time, with all the emotion of having to survive every word," he said.
Prodígio finished the recording of the album "with a feeling of transparency assumed towards the songs" and "with the certainty that this is not by far the last project" that he will do with Paulo Flores.
"It was one of the most spontaneous things I have ever done and it is not every day that a 'neighborhood kid' grows up to record an album with the hero of his childhood," he said.
That's what the 'rapper' says in the theme that opens "The Blessing and the Curse": "History".
"It's an honor and privilege to be in the studio with a hero from my childhood. Thanks my 'quota', I speak for myself and for mine that are yours", one hears in the theme where the 'rapper' also speaks in a "Angola without tricks, where everyone enjoys".
In "History", as in the theme "Esquebra", "é a violência" que "assola" os musicos. "But, we are also proud of the ancestry of being black and assume the whole history of pain and survival with hope and faith in the future," said Paulo Flores.
In songs like "Fome", "A vida é curta" and "Viola", both feel "revolt by the outrageous pain of misery and hunger.
The album ends with "Minga", "a love story". "The hope we have in ourselves and in others who are ours, a story of love for the places to people and the dreams we carry together, in a better world, where everyone feels an integral and important part in this construction of a new identity, of this new order, new life with values sustained in solidarity," explained Paulo Flores.
Paulo Flores' career began in 1988, when Osvaldo Moniz, now known as Prodígio, was born.
Paulo Flores already has more than 30 years of career and more than 15 albums recorded. Prodígio, who is part of the rap collective Força Suprema, began to rhyme at the age of 11.
The solo debut album, "Prodígios", was released in 2015. Before that he had recorded six 'mixtapes', which he made available in digital format.
