Comparisons serve only to evoke her singular stature; they don't prepare one for the experience of hearing a unique alto: smoother than Billie Holiday; mellower than Amalia Rodrigues; more mournful than Edith Piaf. As befits a legend, she has two monikers: “the barefoot diva” – appearing so on stage as an expression of solidarity with the poor and destitute of the world; and the “queen of the morna”: a soulful, ballad-like genre (descendant of the Portuguese fado) sung in Creole-Portuguese. Cesaria mixes sentimental folk tunes of longing and sadness with the acoustic sounds of guitar, cavaquinho, violin, accordion, and clarinet. Her blues often speak of Cape Verde’s bitter history of isolation and slave trade, emigration too - two-thirds of all Cape Verdeans live abroad.