Music
This is the story of how Africa and slavery have influenced Brazilian music
From samba to manguebeat, the rhythms and sounds brought to Brazil from Africa are still directly inspiring and influencing the music of contemporary Brazilian artists.
Brazil's musical landscape can't be understood without considering the massive cultural impact made by slaves brought to the Americas. Many of country's musical genres, like maracatu, baião, choro and samba, grew out of slavery and evolved over the following centuries.
These musical traditions provided the foundations for such all-conquering genres as bossa nova, tropicália, manguebeat and funk carioca, and the DNA of African music is still present in the music of many of Brazil’s leading contemporary artists, including Baiana System.
It all began with candomblé and capoeira. Candomblé was practised in Brazil's slave quarters and settlements inhabited by fugitive slaves ('quilombos'). Hailing from Africa, candomblé became a fully-fledged Brazilian religion, mixing traditions brought from Angola, Benin, Congo and Nigeria. Praising orisha spirits and dancing to the rhythm of African drums ('atabaques') are just two of the recognisable aspects of candomblé celebrations that can still be heard in Brazilian music today.
Capoeira, on the other hand, was a martial art directly associated with music, in which its fights or dances, inspired by those from parts of Africa, moved to the groove of the stringed berimbau instrument. Capoeira percussion brought from Africa, or adapted by slaves, was key to developing what would eventually become samba.
Capoeira evolved from Angolan ritual dances
© John Smisson
“I see the rise of candomblé, capoeira and samba as resistance, a place of reunion and restructuring of a culture,” notes Letieres Leite, from the award-winning group Orkestra Rumpilezz. “Africans reinvented themselves in an incredible and profound way; not only did they restructure their ancestrality, but they also influenced so many aspects of contemporary Western culture.”
Orkestra’s latest album, A Saga da Travessia ('The Crossing Saga') tells the story of the slave journey from Africa to Brazil. “From the very beginning of my work with Rumpilezz, I wanted to make music that would depict the forced departure from Africa, so the Americas could be built,” Leite explains. “A Saga da Travessia is a personal vision of this first moment of departure… I created an image of the enslaved men thinking, 'one of my descendants will be Pixinguinha'; someone else would say 'Milton Nascimento'. It was my attempt to translate into music the deep and cruel holocaust that was slavery.”
The evolution of samba during the 20th Century shares a deep connection with the foundations of candomblé, something easily identifiable in the works of some of samba’s most renowned artists, such as Dorival Caymmi, Clara Nunes, Clementina de Jesus and Martinho da Vila. Candomblé’s “worship sounds” can be heard in albums like Moacir Santos's 1965 release, Coisas. A masterpiece “that couldn't have been created by a musician without Brazilian DNA and who did not have such a keen perception of his blackness and the past of his people,” says Brazilian music journalist Marcelo Pinheiro.
In the late ’60s, Brazil's tropicália movement came up with a different approach to pop music, one that merged traditional elements of Afro-Brazilian music with rock ’n’ roll, kickstarting an intense period of creativity that stretched into the mid '70s, and which has provided endless inspiration in Brazilian popular music.
Between 1968 and 1975, there were landmark albums from artists including Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Tom Zé, Os Mutantes, Tim Maia, Clube da Esquina and many more.
Africa's musical roots have taken hold all over Brazil
© John Smisson
An important album from the period was Krishnanda, released in 1968 by percussionist Pedro Santos. Blending mystical elements with African rhythms and tropical ambience, the album was a commercial flop, but has since earned influential cult status, thanks to the likes of Madlib and Floating Points, and will be the subject of a special night at Red Bull Music Festival São Paulo 2018.
África Brasil (1976) by another tropicália star, Jorge Ben, broke with tradition by swapping acoustic guitars for electric ones. It signalled the creation of a new sound. “Due to the Brazilian polyrhythms, inherited from Africa, the funk reworked by Jorge was much closer to the Afro-funk hailing from countries such as Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Benin and Cameroon than the funk played in the USA in the 1970s,” says Pinheiro.
During the '90s, yet another sound with the imprint of Africa emerged: manguebeat. Hailing from Recife in the north-east, the sound updated tropicália’s primal urge with modern international influences (rock, rap, funk and reggae) and the traditional beats of Pernambuco. The sound was pioneered by the bands Chico Science and Nação Zumbi.
“We can identify many African influences on the band’s sound,” says journalist and TV presenter Lorena Calábria. "Although maracatu doesn't lay the foundation for all of Chico Science and Nação Zumbi's songs, the sound of the musical instruments evokes African musicality."
"There's a track on their album Da Lama ao Caos on which this influence is clear. Samba Makossa not only references the '70s hit Soul Makossa by Cameroonian artist Manu Dibango, but Lúcio Maia’s guitar sounds are also reminiscent of juju music."
Manguebeat comes from Recife, in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco
© John Smisson
This natural and intuitive reference to African music is also a characteristic shared by Rio's contemporary funk carioca scene. “If we were to draw a timeline, funk is this latest version of 'tradition translation’, which is when you take ancestral elements and make them into something new,” explains Heavy Dance promoter and label boss Ana Paula Paulino. “Macumba chants inspire DJs in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro to make funk songs that will have everyone dancing, including kids in wealthy neighbourhoods”.
Baiana System are one of contemporary pop’s most interesting groups. Their performances are cathartic, with a powerful blend of Afro-Brazilian elements from Bahia and Jamaican influences. Their next album, set for release in January 2019, takes a closer look at Africa and the impact of slavery on Bahia. It stems from a period of intense research on Itaparica Island, where candomblé rituals are an attempt at a spiritual connection with ancestors in order to tap into the collective experience.
Baiana System singer Russo Passapusso
© Felipe Gabriel / Red Bull Content Pool
“This spiritual experience enabled us to broaden our understanding of Africa and Africa as it is perceived in Brazil. How does it mix into our bloodstream, with our native peoples? How does that change our singing and our weeping? How is this symbiosis reflected on capoeira and samba?” explains the group's singer, Russo Passapusso.
The impact of Africa on the sound of Brazil is something that's still being explored and researched, but one thing is for sure: Brazilian music would be very different without its influence.
