Cico & Mama Afrika at Tapadum: Songs of Freedom from Three Continents
On 26 March 2022, internationally touring singer-songwriter Cico brought his Mama Afrika project — multilingual anthems to freedom — to Tapadum's home concert in Faenza.
March 26 brought a different energy to Tapadum — bigger stage presence, wider reach, a musician whose CV reads like a map of the global independent music scene. Twelve people came. Twenty-seven more had been thinking about it.
Cico filled the room the moment he walked in.
Cico: An International Artist
Cico is a multilingual, internationally active singer-songwriter known above all for his live and studio collaborations with some of the most significant names in world music and alternative rock: Manu Chao, Roy Paci & Aretuska, Negrita, 99 Posse, Africa Unite, Che Sudaka, and Asian Dub Foundation, among many others.
He has performed across three continents, reaching every kind of audience through a combination of charisma, experience, and a genuinely distinctive vocal approach — multiple timbres, evocative melodies, stylish rhythmic phrasing across several languages, and a delivery that carries real passion without tipping into performance.
His stage presence is powerful in the specific way that comes from years of serious live work. It is not constructed. It is the result of having stood in front of audiences in clubs and festivals across Europe and learned, performance by performance, how to hold a room.
Mama Afrika: Songs as Anthems
Mama Afrika is Cico’s main project — a body of songs he describes as anthems to freedom. The material carries the political and social commitment that runs through all of his work: music as a form of engagement, not just entertainment.
The project has taken him to some of Europe’s most respected independent venues and festivals: Boomtown and Hootananny in England, Fusion in Germany, Operaen Christiania in Denmark, Antitapas in Belgium, Le Bal Ital in France, Bababoom in Italy, and further dates in Spain, Switzerland, and Austria.
That circuit — underground, international, politically conscious, sonically diverse — is where Mama Afrika belongs. It is music made for people who take both sound and meaning seriously.
Hear the Music
A live recording that gives a sense of Cico’s sound:
An Evening at Tapadum
At Tapadum, Cico performed in the home concert format that had become our standard: intimate, reservations-based, no separation between artist and audience. The scale is different from a festival stage or a London club, but the music adapts. If anything, the proximity makes the vocal work more immediate — the timbral shifts, the language changes, the rhythmic intelligence in the phrasing all land closer.
The social commitment in Cico’s music resonated in the room. The songs are about freedom, movement, and the right to cross borders — themes that are not abstract in a space run by a Turkish luthier in central Italy, hosting musicians from across the Mediterranean, the Balkans, and beyond.
Tapadum hosts concerts from across the world. Explore our handcrafted instrument collection or follow our upcoming events.
Özgür Yalçın is the founder of Tapadum and the founding member of Karagüneş. He has performed ethnic and world music across Europe for over twenty-five years and builds custom instruments from Tapadum’s workshop in Brisighella, Italy.