David Zé

Biography

David Gabriel José Ferreira (23 August 1944 — 27 May 1977) was an Angolan musician, composer and activist. He began his singing career while Angola was still under the rule of the Portuguese Empire and his music often expressed left-wing and anti-colonialist sentiments. David Zé, along with Artur Nunes, Urbano de Castro and others, was a part of a group of musicians called the FAPLA-Povo Alliance who had the role to spread social and political awareness to Angolan citizens to start a laborist movement to reform Angola after its revolution. He was given the official position of Director of Music in the Culture Ministry in the incoming MPLA regime. His career only lasted for about a decade, but he managed to establish himself as one of the biggest names in the "Golden Age" of Angolan music, the early 1970s. He was kidnapped and later murdered by an unknown group of people who have been described as "fractionists" that dissolved from the MPLA during a failed attempt at a coup that took place in the 27th of May of 1977 and his music was banned from the radio for more than a decade.

Bio from Wikipedia