Djavan reunites his family in “Iluminado”

Djavan reunites, for the first time, his children and grandchildren to record as a family on his song “Iluminado”. The music video is the third visual from his most recent album, “D,” which is already available on all digital platforms.

Check out journalist´s Hugo Sukman’s review of the song:

Your verses, so potent in their simplicity and crystalline as if they are being illuminated by the sun, say everything that needs to be said, telling the same story as the song:

“Tudo é possível
Como um dia de sol
É jogar o anzol
Esperar
Pra ver o que vem”

The music video for “Iluminado” – the third visual from “D,” Djavan’s 25th studio album, was born precisely as described in the lyrics: on a sunny day, facing the ocean, the hooks unpretentiously thrown in the shape of musical instruments in the hands of the father and his daughter, Sofia. And what came from her hands was an irresistible wave of ukelele that, aligned with the sunny, beachy, family atmosphere, was the song’s starting point.

In January of this year, in the peak of the blue northeastern summer, Djavan reunited with some of his children to celebrate the new year at the family’s beach house in your hometown of Alagoas. The other eleven songs in “D” – available since August 11 on streaming platforms – were already finished, and he was enjoying the peaceful days in Alagoas to write lyrics. When the family reunites, where they are all connected to music, they start jamming. When, like the ocean breeze, from the ukelele beat came the idea of the melody and the lyrics. From that, Djavan wrote “Iluminado”.

The new song, done between the family and following the folk beat suggested by his daughter, inspired Djavan to write lyrics about hope, doing good, wanting to sing, and the spirit of having his children and grandchildren around him, illuminating life through music. Djavan thinks this is the most pop song from “D” – an album which can be considered pop; it reminded me of the first single, “Num Mundo de Paz .”It allowed an old dream to come true (Which was a dream of the whole family): record with his children and grandchildren. From the oldest and professional musicians Flavia Virginia, Max and João Viana to the youngest Sofia and Inácio (“he plays the guitar just like me,” surprisingly says the father) and the grandchildren Thomas Boljover and Lui Viana.

The recording starts with Flavia’s voice, the oldest daughter who is a singer and songwriter, who recorded for the first time with her dad in “Curumim” from the album “Djavan” (1989). There is the ukelele from Sofia Viana, which originated everything, and the percussion of João (the drummer) and Max’s guitar chords (who also participated next to his dad on the album “Novena” in 1994) and Inacio, sewing chords with Djavan. All eight family members sing on the record, including the complex drawings of vocal arrangements created by Djavan. It is as if, in the self-explanatory verses of the song, the composer and his family, gave while singing the receipt to how everything can be illuminated just like the sunny day that inspired the song:

“Vem cantar
Pra tudo aqui ficar
Iluminado”

Directed by Giovanni Bianco, who is also the art director for the album “D,” the music video (which can be watched on Djavan’s youtube page) brings the singer, his children and grandchildren on the stage of a theatre. In this case, the beautiful theatre at Copacabana Palace recently remodelled and re-inaugurated. With your voices and instruments, now on the illuminated stage, the Viana family insists on the verses of the song with its message, that the stage and the music can make anything possible “Como um dia de sol”:

“Canta aí
Para tudo aqui seguir
Iluminado”.

Hugo Sukman