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Manu Chao has recently released Viva Tu, a music video that heralds his new album with Because Music, his first in 17 years. The album is expected this autumn and will be accompanied by a tour.
After selling millions of albums worldwide and with a career spanning over three decades, Franco-Spanish singer Manu Chao, the “desaparecido” (the disappeared) who continues to travel the roads as a troubadour, is releasing his new album. The elusive artist, who soothes the hearts of the loneliest, launches his next album with Viva Tu (Long Life to You), which garnered thousands of “likes” in less than 24 hours. In its rumba version, the parallel voices, choruses, embraces, reunions, friendship, unadorned love and music become one. He promises the same creativity imbued with enthusiasm and a carpe diem feel that brings tears to one’s eyes and a spark of hope and joy.
Star of the 80s and leader of the punk fusion band Mano Negra, which separated in the 90s, Manu Chao continued his solo journey. His album Clandestino, released in 1998, is still engraved in people’s minds. In 2020, during the Coronavirus pandemic, Manu Chao brought smiles to screens with his Coronarictus Smiley Killer Sessions for a virtual audience.
The Viva Tu video is a cheerful clip, a mix of animation and reality. To the singer’s tunes, despite the burdens of life, people keep on dancing. The nights become warm and cheerful again. With a smile at the corner of people’s lips, they play the song on repeat and can’t help but let the dark thoughts dance away, with guitars and stars in their eyes. The singer’s warm voice spreads joy to hearts and gives meaning to life.
Manu Chao is a singer, producer and talent scout. Yet, on the road, in the media world, he remains silent, a traveler, a nomad, a free being. Always absent, his music is omnipresent. He sings with the wind and imbues souls with freedom. Today, he returns, welcomed by both older generations and today’s youth, with a tribute to life and the joy of the moment. Speaking of his song, he stated that Viva Tu reflects above all the love for all his neighbors, a rumba he wrote for them and the women in other neighborhoods. “It’s about accepting yourself as you are because, once you accept who you are, Viva Tu!” he says. He joins Camus in his reflections, “To know oneself, one must accept oneself,” or Seneca, “A happy life is one that is in harmony with its own nature.” Yet Manu Chao is far from being pedantic or preachy. He is a philosopher in his own way, drawing his vision of the world from everyday simplicity. This might be the true key to happiness… Manu Chao often plays alone, with his guitar. This is also the case for this song, which he wrote during COVID times, in response to the world’s uncertainty, as a gratitude to life, to reunions and as a tribute to the women in his daily life: the baker, the metro ticket seller, the neighbor… an ode to humanity. Tireless Manu, eternal traveler and spreader of joy.
