EARLY British imperialists like Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh kidded history by profiling themselves as “explorers.” Here’s a brilliant singer with her roots in Cape Verde, who, in her songs, often with an incisive wit and passion, explores their brutal pathfinding and exposes the origins of 400 years of colonial oppression.

Carmen Souza was born to Cape Verdean immigrant parents in Lisbon in 1981. Her father worked in shipping cargo, her mother was a housekeeper.