Photoshoot for the CD booklet Okan Awa (Our Heart)

Images from the photoshoot by photographer Arlete Soares for the CD booklet Okan Awa (Our Heart), by singer Inaicyra Falcão, released during the concert “Ancestral Mothers.”

In the concert Ancestral Mothers, dramatic soprano Inaicyra Falcão presented to the public a selection of compositions from her album Okan Awa (Our Heart)—a work that marked her emergence on the national music scene through the interpretation of traditional Yoruba chants reimagined within the classical lyrical universe.

Okan Awa was released on March 31, 2000, in tribute to the centenary of the birth of Inaicyra’s grandmother, Maria Bibiana do Espírito Santo—known as Mãe Senhora, Iyalorixá Oxum Muiwá, Iya Nassô. Inaicyra is a descendant of the traditional Asipa family, one of the founding lineages of the African kingdom of Ketu.

The chants on the album feature lyrics in both Portuguese and Yoruba—the sacred language of Afro-Brazilian religious tradition, preserved as a cultural legacy of the Nagô people. The musical adaptations were created by Inaicyra Falcão, Beto Pelegrino, and Paulo Adache, based on Yoruba poems known as orikis.