When she was a young child and taking too long to get ready for school, family get-togethers or to sing in the church choir, Cape Verdean musician Carmen Souza was often told to “ariope”.
What she did not realise until years later was that the Creole word came directly from the English word “hurry up”.
“We have so many words that derive from the British English,” Souza, a jazz singer-songwriter and instrumentalist, tells the BBC.
“‘Salong’ is ‘so long’, ‘fulespide’ is ‘full speed’, ‘streioei’ is ‘straightaway’, ‘bot’ is ‘boat’, and ‘ariope’ – which I always remember my father saying to me when he wanted me to pick up my pace.”
Ariope is now one of eight songs that Souza has composed for the album Port’Inglês – meaning English port – to explore the little-known history of the 120-year-old British presence in Cape Verde. It started off as research for her master’s degree.
“Cape Verdeans are very connected to music – in fact, we always say that music is our biggest export – and so I wondered whether there was also a musical impact,” she says.
There are very few recordings of compositions of the time – Souza did discover that an American ethnomusicologist, Helen Heffron Roberts, recorded some in the 1930s but they are on very fragile wax cylinders and can only be listened to in person at Yale University in the US.
So rather than rearranging old recordings, Souza – and her musical partner Theo Pas’cal – created new music, inspired by stories she came across.
She has combined jazz and English sea shanties with Cape Verdean rhythms – including the funaná, played on an iron rod with a knife and the accordion, and the batuque, played by women and based on African drumming rhythms.

Some American holidays are intrinsically tied to certain traditions. Fourth of July and fireworks shows. Thanksgiving and Black Friday shopping. And then there’s Christmas and the movie theater.

Moviegoing may not be the first thing you think of when considering the Christmas season. There are the trees, sure, then the carols, even the cut-out cookies. But going to the movie theater either on Christmas, or in the days surrounding it, has become a cherished holiday tradition for many families.

“On that day, it’s like the movie theater becomes a midnight mass,” said Matthew Germenis, 33, who’s been going to the movies on Christmas since he was a teen. “It’s just something really, really special.”

Germenis isn’t alone. The holiday season has become a massive time for movie theaters and studios. In years past, film franchises like “Harry Potter” and “The Lord of the Rings” became holiday classics thanks purely to holiday release dates — in 2001, the first Harry Potter film, released just before Thanksgiving, topped the holiday season box office, while “The Fellowship of the Ring” came in at No. 3. The former went on to become the highest grossing movie of the entire year.

In other words: The holiday season, especially the week between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, pulls thousands of people to cinemas, many in the name of tradition. But exactly how the holiday and moviegoing became so intertwined is, well, a bit of a Christmas miracle.

Perched atop of a platform on the Eiffel Tower at the start of the Paris Olympics in July, Celine Dion, gone for years amid a bitter health battle, marked her return in grand fashion with a rendition of Edith Piaf classic “Hymne À L’Amour.” It was, you could say, her own hymne à la résilience.

Dion announced in 2022 that she had been diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome (SPS), a rare neurological disorder. At the time, she said the condition did not allow her “to sing the way I’m used to.”

When she took the Olympic stage, seemingly closer to the heavens than the ground, she hadn’t performed live since 2020.

Just one month prior, the world was invited into her battle like never before via “I Am: Celine Dion,” which offered an intimate look at Dion’s return to performing live amid her battle with the disease.

“I think the performance really gave her confidence and also just really allowed her to show how far she’s come this last year,” Irene Taylor, who directed the documentary, told CNN in a recent interview.

As one of the most revered vocal talents of our time, Dion’s voice has been used to amplify some of the greatest stories ever told both in song and on the big screen. This year, she told her own story as she reemerged into public view, finding and sharing the power of her voice like never before.