António Vicente Lopes, better known as Antoninho Travadinha was one of the major autodidactic musicians of Cape Verde

Cape Verde

The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...

 originated from the island of Santo Antão.

He performed the popular dances when he was only nine years old, and made himself internationally famous when he became forty, by the time he undertook a tournée in Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

. One of his albums was recorded in Lisbon at the Hot Club (oldest Jazz Club in Portugal).

Other than the violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

, Travadinha played wonderfully well with the twelve string guitar

Twelve string guitar

The twelve-string guitar is an acoustic or electric guitar with 12 strings in 6 courses, which produces a richer, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar...

, the cavaquinho

Cavaquinho

The cavaquinho is a small string instrument of the European guitar family with four wire or gut strings. It is also called machimbo, machim, machete , manchete or marchete, braguinha or braguinho, or cavaco.The most common tuning is D-G-B-D ; other tunings include D-A-B-E...

 and the guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

. Travadinha interpreted traditional music styles of Cape Verde including the morna

Morna

The morna is a music and dance genre from Cape Verde.Lyrics are usually in Cape Verdean Creole, and instrumentation often includes cavaquinho, clarinet, accordion, violin, piano and guitar...

and coladera

Coladera

- As a music genre :As a music genre the coladeira is characterized by having a variable tempo, from allegro to andante, a 2-beat bar, and in its most traditional form by having an harmonic structure based in a cycle of fifths, while the lyrics structure is organized in strophes that alternate with...

.

He died in 1987 when he reached great popularity.