Brasil Brasil (2007) - full transcript
Brazil's national identity
is intertwined
with its musical culture.
In the '30s, samba was used
by politicians to foster unity
in this vast multiracial country.
Though after a military coup
in 1964, musicians were censored
or jailed.
Since the '80s, democratic Brazil
has faced new challenges
with the gulf between rich and poor
and black and white reflected
in the very different styles that
developed in four cities that came
to dominate Brazilian music.
The new Brazil was launched
with a massive rock show.
# Bem que eu me lembro,
a gente sentado ali... #
In 1985, the year that Brazil
eventually made the transition
from military regime
back to democracy,
an audience of nearly 1.5 million
people attended a ten-day festival.
Rock In Rio featured veterans like
Gilberto Gil, now in the vanguard
of the new Brazilian reggae scene,
and international stars like Queen.
# We are the champions... #
The festival established Brazil on
the international rock circuit, but
reflected divisions in the country.
Brazil prides itself
on being a multiracial society,
but the gap between rich and poor
had widened in the military era
and the richest tended to be the
more white, the poorest more black.
Rock attracted predominantly white
and middle-class audiences.
It is a middle-class music, yes,
because the poor people, I think,
is more in the forro
and the "axe" music
and is not rock, I think.
I think it is middle-class.
Axe and forro are styles from
northern Brazil where the fashion
for western rock was also seen
as music for a particular class
and race.
# I am the one, orgasmatron
# The outstretched grasping hand
# My image is of agony
# My servants rape the land... #
Brazil developed its own rock scene
with the heavy metal band Sepultura
becoming the country's
biggest international success
since Sergio Mendes in the '60s,
but many complained that Brazilian
music was swamped by foreign styles.
Very few bands from the '80s
in Brazil
did something different from bands
in the UK or the US,
using Brazilian rhythms.
The ones who used Brazilian rhythms
in the '80s were not as successful
as the ones
who were basically copying.
# ..a thousand years,
an army for the fight... #
But Brazilian music
was about to be transformed
from an unexpected source.
In the early '90s,
the northern port of Recife
was named by
a Washington research institute
as the fourth worst city
in the world to live in.
But it was in Recife,
the capital of Pernambuco state,
that a new, distinctively
Brazilian style emerged,
created by local musicians,
determined to change a city
known for its swamplands,
unemployment, crime and poverty.
The new style, "Mangue Bit", took
its name from the mangrove swamps
and the new digital world.
Mangue Bit changed the whole thing
in Recife, and after that in
Pernambuco, and after, in Brazil,
because we came from the '80s
when you only could hear rock'n'roll
from the southeast
or a few commercial rhythms
on the radio and everywhere,
and we begin to talk about diversity
and playing different music
and mixing different music,
and talking about looking with
respect to the traditional music
from the northeast.
Fred Zero Quatro was part
of that group and became the leader
of the band, Mundo Livre.
They started in the mid-'80s,
influenced by British punk bands
like The Clash and Brazilian samba.
He plays a samba instrument,
the cavaquinho.
# Free world, that's a free world
# I said that a free world,
that's a free world
# I said that a free world,
that's a free world
# That's a free world... #
In 1992, Fred Zero Quatro co-wrote
the Mangue Bit Manifesto
that was to shake up Recife.
It was called Crabs With Brains,
inspired by crabs that flourish
in the Recife swamps.
RHYTHMIC DRUMBEAT
The Mangue Bit movement
took its inspiration
not just from rock and hip-hop,
but from the traditional music
of Pernambuco state,
especially maracatu,
a secular, ceremonial
percussive style with its roots
in African slave culture.
RHYTHMIC DRUMS AND PERCUSSION
The key figure in the Mangue Bit
movement was Chico Science.
Along with his band, Nacao Zumbi,
he transformed maracatu,
reworking a rhythm
from the slavery days for the '90s.
Chico Science was born
Francisco de Assis Franca in 1966.
He'd started out
as a fan of hip-hop and rock,
then began to broaden his style.
One of the characteristics of
mangue bit is that every artist had
a different style.
Mangue bit transformed Recife's
view of itself and of the culture
of the surrounding region.
The Zona da Mata,
the sugar-growing area,
is where maracatu has its roots,
where maracatu ceremonies and
contests started and still take
place, above all at carnival time.
Along with Chico Science
and Fred Zero Quatro,
the third key figure in the Mangue
Bit movement was Siba, leader
of the band, Mestre Ambrosio.
Siba became a specialist in the
maracatu contests where different
groups used improvised poetry
to discuss current affairs,
challenge their rivals' skills
and brag about their own prowess,
much as in hip-hop.
FAST, RHYTHMIC DRUMBEAT
Maracatu, it was not as popular
as now.
In the beginning,
it was from the rural places.
Nobody wanted to know about it. Only
the people of this region liked it.
Even here,
only the poor people wanted it.
And after the beginning of the '90s,
it began to be seen
as something valuable.
# Cruzeiro
# Cruzeiro da bringa
# No batente da capela
# Eu acendi uma vela
# Pelo que aconteceu
# Voa a cigarra
Quando lembra da batalha
# Como se rasga a mortalha
Com quem brigando morreu... #
With Mestre Ambrosio
and his later band, Fuloresta,
Siba took traditional rhythms
like maracatu or the coastal
circle dance, ciranda,
and made them the basis
of a new Brazilian music.
RHYTHMIC DRUMS AND TRUMPET MUSIC
We were moved more
to make something happen in Recife
and also to make more
to our own culture
and our own music,
not as a "folklorico" thing,
but using that original music
with the influence of pop, rock and
hip-hop to create something new.
But on February the 2nd, 1997,
Mangue Bit, or Mangue Beat
as it was now becoming known,
suffered its greatest setback
and tragedy.
Chico Science was killed in a car
crash just outside Recife during
Carnival. He was just 30 years old.
There are still memorials
and reminders of his work
across the city.
Recife's annual carnival
is regarded by some Brazilians
as the finest in the country,
simply because it's a free event
and has not been commercialised.
The processions provide a reminder
that maracatu is now
a popular style in the city
and a concert by Chico Science's
former band, Nacao Zumbi, is
preceded by chants of "Chico, Chico"
from the massive crowd.
CHANTING:
Chico! Chico! Chico!
They changed Recife,
they changed Pernambuco
and they also changed Brazil.
Chico Science and Nacao Zumbi
opened up doors
for a new generation
of Brazilian bands
who are not samba or bossa nova.
And I think names like Seu Jorge
or CSS - Cansei de Ser Sexy...
You know, really opened up doors
for them.
Chico Science and Nacao Zumbi
was a great influence to all of us
because they are the greatest
and strongest things
that we have in the '90s in Brazil.
I think Chico is
the most important guy
in music in the last ten years.
For my generation, he's the leader.
For me, he's a big leader.
We have another one called
Mano Brown. He's from hip-hop.
While Chico Science and Mangue Beat
shook up Recife,
Manu Brown, the leader
of Brazil's most militant
hip-hop band, Racionais MCs,
had the same effect in the
predominantly black shanty towns
around Sao Paulo to the south.
Once again, Brazilian music
was defined and split by the issues
of wealth and race.
Racionais MCs started in 1988
when three-quarters of
Brazil's population of 146 million
was crammed into urban areas
with nearly a third living
below the poverty line.
By the early '90s, they were the
voice of the poor Sao Paulo suburbs
and attracted audiences
of up to 10,000 people
at their shows.
Beyond the favelas
in Sao Paulo itself, a new and
very different music was evolving
that reflected life
in a cosmopolitan business centre,
that was now the fourth
largest city in the world,
described by the producer Suba as
"Blade Runner In The Tropics".
Suba had moved to Brazil
from Serbia
to become the most experimental
and influential record producer
of the '90s,
mixing electronica
with Brazilian styles.
Sao Paulo Confessions,
his best known work,
involved contributions
from the singer, Cibelle.
I still think some of those tracks
are very, very fresh.
Because, exactly,
he just did whatever he felt,
so it was very unique
because it was him.
Suba... Well, Sao Paulo Confessions
is definitely one
of the best albums in the world
and, you know, that's what it is.
There was bossa beats to it
and there was electronic sounding
instruments to do those beats.
And this is more or less, I think,
how he would see it.
It's not, "Oh, I'm crossing this
with that." It's, "Oh, nice beat,
I'll use that."
Sao Paulo Confessions
was released in 1999
by which time Suba had started work
on what would prove to be his most
successful commercial production,
an album by Bebel Gilberto.
The daughter of Joao Gilberto,
the hero of the bossa movement,
she was born in New York
and had spent much of her life
in America and Mexico.
Suba set out to transform
her bossa nova influenced style
with contemporary production work,
but in November 1999, Suba
was killed in a fire in his studio.
He had been trying to rescue
some of Bebel's recordings.
# Someone to cling to me
Stay with me right or wrong
# Someone to sing to me
Some little samba song
# Someone to take my heart
and give his heart to me
# Someone who's ready
to give love a start with me... #
I learnt a lot from him
and I lost all my prejudice
with electronics, samples,
sounds, transferring,
doing effects on my voice,
chopping up, killing,
Frankenstein-style!
And um...
I just really, really miss him,
but he did amazing work.
Bebel completed the album herself.
Tanto Tempo was released
the following year and became
a massive international success.
I would describe Tanto Tempo
as an album
that definitely came
in a good time. I was lucky.
I'm not being humble,
but it's true. It was a good time.
Brazil was in a good moment.
It was right after Buena Vista
Social Club kind of movement.
# E tenho muito sono de manha... #
Tanto Tempo was nominated
for a Grammy
and established Bebel Gilberto
as the most successful
new Brazilian international artist
of this century,
but within Brazil,
the reaction was far more muted.
I think the main difference
between, for example, a young artist
like Chico Science
and a young artist like Bebel
Gilberto is that Chico's music was
much more revolutionary.
I think Bebel did basically
what her father had done before,
maybe in a modern way,
using electronic elements.
There is a different market
for Brazilian music inside
and outside Brazil, definitely.
I wouldn't have got to the point
of what I did with Tanto Tempo
and I'm still doing for these
long seven years if I was living
in Brazil. That's for sure.
In Rio de Janeiro,
the city once glamorised by Bebel's
father and the bossa nova movement,
the new music also reflected
the divisions in wealth and race.
Here, as in Sao Paulo, new black
styles offered an alternative
to white rock or electronica.
But in Rio,
funk was the dominant style.
American funk stars
like James Brown had become popular
in the city in the '70s
during the military era, but
in the late '80s and early '90s,
a new, distinctively
Brazilian style emerged.
Funk parties or "baile funk" became
a regular and at times violent
feature of Rio's social life,
particularly out
in the northern suburbs.
It was like millions of people
dancing to funk, hip-hop,
Miami bass.
Every weekend.
And it was like nobody in the media
listened to it.
So it was like a secret
or like non-existent.
When the media discovered funk,
it was because of a problem here
at Arpoador Beach.
In 1992, there was a riot
on Rio's Arpoador Beach.
Gangs of youths from the favelas
swept down from the hills
to fight each other
and funk fans were blamed.
So the government closed
all the most popular clubs
where the funk parties happened.
And so funk had to go more and more
inside the favelas
because it was the only place where
the police could not stop the party
and so I think the government of Rio
gave the most popular,
most interesting music,
the most powerful music
that the culture of Rio created...
..to the drug dealers.
By the '90s, Rio had become
a divided city.
Along the sea front of Copacabana
and Ipanema,
the grand beaches and the glamorous
women who had inspired
the bossa nova movement remained.
But in the surrounding hills,
the favelas were now run
by heavily armed drug gangs
who gradually ousted control
from the police since the ending
of the military era.
It was here, away from the
authorities, that funk developed,
now one of three distinctive
favela styles.
A third of Rio's population,
now estimated at 12 million,
lives in the favelas,
in neighbourhoods like
Cidade de Deus, City of God,
which gave its name to the film
about the violent side of Rio life.
The film was no exaggeration.
The favelas are often battlegrounds
between police and drug gangs
or between rival gangs themselves.
The gangs employ youths, some just
children, as their armed soldiers.
4,000 of those aged under 18 have
been shot over the past 14 years.
Brazil has the second highest
gun death rate in the world.
All this inevitably was reflected
in the music.
Funk balls became the venue
for organised fights in which rival
gangs lined up against each other.
Ironically,
it was the drug gang leaders
who stopped fighting at funk balls
as funk became an increasingly
important part of favela life.
Funk balls became regular
free parties, many organised
by the drug gangs themselves,
attracting crowds of up to a million
every weekend across the favelas.
The music is loud and raw
and the lyrics often controversial
with so-called "funk proibido"
praising the gang bosses
or describing the shootings.
MC Playboy says this is not
his style, but he understands it.
Funk, to me,
is a future folk.
It's our future folk, the first
digital music to come from the roots.
Because they used to copy
that, uh...
this Miami bass style.
But now it's completely different.
It's like punk rock in the beginning
in London. It shocked people.
But some performers,
like MC Playboy, are critical
of the way that funk has developed.
He became an established figure
on the baile funk circuit and lives
in the Complexo do Alemao favela,
one of the areas controlled
by drug gangs.
MC Playboy is one
of the favela artists who argue
that some funk lyrics are now
too shocking, too obscene
and need to change.
Funk was both praised as the new
folk and condemned for its lyrics,
as was hip-hop, the second
popular style in the favelas.
# Minha condicao e sinistra
nao posso dar role
# Nao posso ficar
de bobeira na pista... #
MV Bill became the celebrity of
carioca hip-hop - hip-hop from Rio.
Like the Racionais MCs
in Sao Paulo, he was known
for his controversial songs.
The video for Soldado Do Morro
was banned,
though he insisted he was not
glorifying the gangster lifestyle,
but showing "the hidden reality
in our daily life".
Despite the controversy,
MV Bill has won awards
from the United Nations.
He still lives in that now
notorious favela, City of God.
One of the most successful
and idealistic bands of the favelas
was formed as the direct result
of one of Rio's
most notorious massacres.
On August the 29th, 1993,
plain-clothes military police drove
into the Vigario Geral favela,
looking to avenge the deaths of
four police shot by drug dealers,
allegedly after demanding bribes.
Shooting indiscriminately,
the police killed 21 people
from children to the elderly.
AfroReggae started as a fightback
by the community.
First, the AfroReggae Newsletter
dealt with black music and politics,
then a band promoting an alternative
lifestyle to the drug gangs.
# Quero liberdade
# Nao quero caridade
Que o vento nos carregue
# Pra paz do nosso reggae... #
AfroReggae evolved
into a social movement,
starting a variety of different
musical projects across the favelas
from dance groups...
FAST RHYTHMIC DRUMBEAT
..to Bloco Afro percussion groups
that take part in the Rio Carnival.
The band now runs 50 separate
projects and five cultural centres,
all based in favelas
where the drug gangs operate.
The aim is still to get young
recruits away from the gangs and to
offer mediation if there's trouble.
Alongside their work in the favelas,
AfroReggae developed
their musical career.
They tour regularly on
the international circuit and have
opened for The Rolling Stones.
SINGING IN RAPID HIP-HOP STYLE
They play a fusion
of Brazilian styles, influenced
by hip-hop, funk, reggae
and the most distinctive Rio style
of all - samba, which has survived
all the new musical competition.
SAMBA MUSIC
It was in the Rio favelas
that modern-day samba first emerged
at the start of the last century.
Samba then evolved
into a whole variety of styles,
including the realistic "samba
do morro" that described the tough
reality of favela life in the '60s.
Bezerra da Silva, who died in 2005,
performed new sambas
about those forced to live
in the Rio shanties.
Samba, it's argued,
is similar to hip-hop and funk
because they have the same roots.
They all started out
as favela music unpopular with the
authorities because of their lyrics.
# A favela e...
# Um problema social
# A favela e...
# Um problema social... #
Seu Jorge brought
Bezerra da Silva's message
to the international market.
A singer-songwriter who mixes samba
with western pop, he developed his
style after meeting Chico Science.
Chico's music was based
on going back to the roots,
reviving maracatu
from his local region, Pernambuco.
He advised Seu Jorge
to go back to the roots of Rio's
longest established style - samba.
Chico Science say, "Make samba music
from your region. You're from Rio.
"What do you hear?" he ask me.
"What do you hear all your life,
from like children?"
"Bezerra da Silva, Martinho da Vila,
something like that."
"OK, you still hear this,
you will find your song."
# O Carolina, o Carolina
# O Carolina bela
# O Carolina, o Carolina... #
Like many brought up
in the favelas,
Seu Jorge had a tough early life.
He became a musician after
leaving home and sleeping rough,
following the death of his brother
in a gangland shooting.
I lost my home. I had to start
my career with the music because...
I don't want to be one...
social problem.
# O Carolina, o Carolina
# O Carolina, Carolina bela... #
Seu Jorge became
an international celebrity
for his music and as a film star
after his appearance
as Knockout Ned in City Of God.
CONTINUES SHOOTING
Seu Jorge is very different
to Brazil's earlier
international samba celebrities
who presented an exotic,
glamorous image of Rio life.
He lectures audiences about
the realities of the favelas.
I'm from Rio de Janeiro.
Now the situation...
..is still the same situation.
Bad...for poor people.
Back in the '30,
samba from the poor areas of Rio
had influenced
the more mainstream samba styles.
Now a new samba fusion has emerged
away from the favelas.
Marcelo D2 started out
writing songs about police violence
with the band Planet Hemp,
then changed direction in 2003 with
A Procura Da Batida Perfeita -
Looking For The Perfect Beat.
The title had been borrowed
from Afrika Bambaataa,
but it was original for the way in
which it mixed hip-hop with samba.
# Por isso que eu lhe difo
A saudade e muito ma... #
# Saudade!
# Saudade!
# Hoje eu posso dizer
o que e dor de verdade... #
Marcelo D2's songs and videos
made use of classic samba artists
from Zeca Pagodinho
to Wilson das Neves.
It was a reflection of the way
that samba has become fashionable
with yet another generation.
Even with the young audiences,
he packed the music venues
in Rio's Bohemian quarter, Lapa.
Here, Wilson das Neves plays with a
new samba band, Orquestra Imperial,
a role that he's taken over
from Seu Jorge.
# O samba e meu dom... #
Orquestra Imperial were started
by three friends,
Alexandre Kassin, Moreno Veloso,
son of Tropicalia hero
Caetano Veloso,
and the drummer,
Domenico Lancellotti.
It began as a novelty. They were
only going to play four shows,
but developed into a reflection
of the new fashion for samba.
The young people
are very much enjoying samba.
It is different from the time
where we are like... We are 31, 32.
When we were 18, like...
it was not normal to like samba,
but I think now
like most of the young people I see,
like 18, 19, 20 years old,
they go to watch samba like every
night. It is becoming really trendy.
I think that there is
many, many beautiful compositions
and beautiful rhythms
and beautiful dancing around samba,
so when you have
those beautiful things together,
even if it's...even if it's
many, many years not listened to,
it's still beautiful.
Kassin, Moreno and Domenico
also run a very different band.
Its records appear
under different titles, depending
on who is playing the lead role.
The music is a mixture of
indie rock, electronica and samba.
It's a new pop fusion that they say
sums up contemporary Brazil.
RHYTHMIC DRUMBEAT
Brazilian music is indeed mixed up
and there are now competing styles
in every major region and city.
So, if the music of Sao Paulo
and Rio reflected the social and
economic divisions in each area,
this was equally true in Salvador,
the capital of the predominantly
black state of Bahia.
In the '70s and '80s,
a new style, samba reggae, became
the dominant music of Salvador,
linked to
the Bloco Afro percussion groups
that took part in carnival parades.
# And in remembering a road sign
# I'm remembering a girl
when I was young
# And we said these songs are true,
these days are ours,
these tears are free... #
Olodum, Salvador's best known samba
reggae bloco, provided backing
for Paul Simon's album,
Rhythm Of The Saints, in 1990.
# Had a lot of fun,
had a lot of money... #
It didn't have the impact of his
earlier album, Graceland, recorded
with South African musicians,
but brought Olodum a new audience.
Paul Simon heard about Olodum
and he came to Bahia
to play one track of his album,
Obvious Child.
After this, he got Olodum
to Central Park in New York
to open his concert.
Then Olodum started
their international career, yeah?
And it became one
of the most important
and most famous Afro Bahia groups
in the US and in Europe.
Salvador's Bloco Afro groups
like Olodum had first emerged
in the '70s
with help from the city's
best known black singer and
reggae enthusiast, Gilberto Gil,
the one-time hero of the Tropicalia
movement who had been jailed and
exiled by the military government.
In 2002, 30 years after returning
from exile, Gilberto Gil
was made Minister of Culture.
He joined the government
of the new president, Luiz Inacio
Lula da Silva, known as Lula,
and became Brazil's
first black minister.
Being black had a lot to do with
the impulse for me to accept it.
I think that being an artist
and being popular
and being able to sing
and being able to perform
and being able to bring
the poetic element into life,
into people's lives and everything,
that...that helps being a minister.
Being a minister didn't stop
Gilberto Gil performing.
The next year, he made a raunchy
appearance with Ivete Sangalo,
also from Salvador,
the new queen of Brazilian pop.
Amazing! The Minister,
Gilberto Gil, singing with me,
a crazy woman...
# What's up? Suck it all... #
In Brazil, it means a lot of things.
Ivete Sangalo started out playing
with Banda Eva who sold four and
a half million albums in the '90s
and went on to become one of the
most successful solo pop musicians
in Brazilian history.
She's the most expensive act
in the Brazilian
entertainment world.
She is... She's able to...
to gather enormous crowds
and she dominates Bahia Carnival.
Ivete has become
Salvador's Carnival Queen, famous
for her marathon performances
as she's driven through the city
on a trio electrico,
a giant float with a stage on top.
She sings "axe", the new commercial
carnival music of Salvador,
a mixture of samba reggae and other
styles that developed in the '90s.
Axe is a mix, you know.
Samba, a little reggae,
a little frevo from Pernambuco.
We can do anything.
It always will be axe music.
Axe is about style, using elements
from Bahia Afro Brazilian tradition,
plus Caribbean tradition
and northeastern music tradition.
Those three elements together
give the voice for axe.
Gilberto Gil,
the Minister of Culture,
also performs from a trio electrico
during the Salvador Carnival,
playing a four or five-hour set in
front of the crowds of two million
who pack the streets.
It's a vast public party, but the
Afro Blocos like Olodum, who parade
through a different circuit,
complain that Salvador's best
black music has been taken over.
I say the rhythm is
"brass band samba reggae"
and the rhythm is very poor, yeah?
I think it is like
a marketing strategy.
They got the idea from
the samba reggae rhythm, you know,
and now I think it's
a more commercial kind of music.
And in a city and state
that's predominantly black,
there are complaints that Carnival
itself is no longer a black event,
because most locals can't afford
to get into the smart parties
overlooking the Carnival route
or pay to follow their favourite
artists in the roped-off enclosures
behind each trio electrico.
The Minister disagrees.
The whole of the population,
the different social layers,
they all contribute and participate,
you know.
And the government
are also involved.
The private sector, through
the enterprises, are all involved.
It's very pop
and contemporary, you know.
# Moro... #
# Tenho uma nega chamada Tereza
# Que beleza... #
It's fitting that controversy
should mix with fun
at Salvador Carnival,
for that has been the story
of Brazilian music.
400 years ago, that story started
with the arrival of African slaves
along this same stretch of coast.
African rhythms mixed with European
music to create contemporary samba
and the extraordinary variety
of styles that exist
across Brazil today.
Brazilians adore music and music
has expressed the country's history,
its problems and its triumphs.
And in the process, Brazil
has produced some of the greatest
and most varied popular music
in the world.
# Tenho uma nega chamada Tereza
# Que beleza, que beleza
# Eu tenho um fusca e um violao
# Sou flamengo e tenho uma nega
chamada Tereza
# Sambaby, Sambaby
# Eu posso nao ser um band leader
# Mas assim mesmo, la em casa todos
meus amigos, meus camaradinhas,
me respeitam
# Esse e a razao da simpatia,
do poder do algo mais a de alegria
# Moro
# Num pais tropical... #
is intertwined
with its musical culture.
In the '30s, samba was used
by politicians to foster unity
in this vast multiracial country.
Though after a military coup
in 1964, musicians were censored
or jailed.
Since the '80s, democratic Brazil
has faced new challenges
with the gulf between rich and poor
and black and white reflected
in the very different styles that
developed in four cities that came
to dominate Brazilian music.
The new Brazil was launched
with a massive rock show.
# Bem que eu me lembro,
a gente sentado ali... #
In 1985, the year that Brazil
eventually made the transition
from military regime
back to democracy,
an audience of nearly 1.5 million
people attended a ten-day festival.
Rock In Rio featured veterans like
Gilberto Gil, now in the vanguard
of the new Brazilian reggae scene,
and international stars like Queen.
# We are the champions... #
The festival established Brazil on
the international rock circuit, but
reflected divisions in the country.
Brazil prides itself
on being a multiracial society,
but the gap between rich and poor
had widened in the military era
and the richest tended to be the
more white, the poorest more black.
Rock attracted predominantly white
and middle-class audiences.
It is a middle-class music, yes,
because the poor people, I think,
is more in the forro
and the "axe" music
and is not rock, I think.
I think it is middle-class.
Axe and forro are styles from
northern Brazil where the fashion
for western rock was also seen
as music for a particular class
and race.
# I am the one, orgasmatron
# The outstretched grasping hand
# My image is of agony
# My servants rape the land... #
Brazil developed its own rock scene
with the heavy metal band Sepultura
becoming the country's
biggest international success
since Sergio Mendes in the '60s,
but many complained that Brazilian
music was swamped by foreign styles.
Very few bands from the '80s
in Brazil
did something different from bands
in the UK or the US,
using Brazilian rhythms.
The ones who used Brazilian rhythms
in the '80s were not as successful
as the ones
who were basically copying.
# ..a thousand years,
an army for the fight... #
But Brazilian music
was about to be transformed
from an unexpected source.
In the early '90s,
the northern port of Recife
was named by
a Washington research institute
as the fourth worst city
in the world to live in.
But it was in Recife,
the capital of Pernambuco state,
that a new, distinctively
Brazilian style emerged,
created by local musicians,
determined to change a city
known for its swamplands,
unemployment, crime and poverty.
The new style, "Mangue Bit", took
its name from the mangrove swamps
and the new digital world.
Mangue Bit changed the whole thing
in Recife, and after that in
Pernambuco, and after, in Brazil,
because we came from the '80s
when you only could hear rock'n'roll
from the southeast
or a few commercial rhythms
on the radio and everywhere,
and we begin to talk about diversity
and playing different music
and mixing different music,
and talking about looking with
respect to the traditional music
from the northeast.
Fred Zero Quatro was part
of that group and became the leader
of the band, Mundo Livre.
They started in the mid-'80s,
influenced by British punk bands
like The Clash and Brazilian samba.
He plays a samba instrument,
the cavaquinho.
# Free world, that's a free world
# I said that a free world,
that's a free world
# I said that a free world,
that's a free world
# That's a free world... #
In 1992, Fred Zero Quatro co-wrote
the Mangue Bit Manifesto
that was to shake up Recife.
It was called Crabs With Brains,
inspired by crabs that flourish
in the Recife swamps.
RHYTHMIC DRUMBEAT
The Mangue Bit movement
took its inspiration
not just from rock and hip-hop,
but from the traditional music
of Pernambuco state,
especially maracatu,
a secular, ceremonial
percussive style with its roots
in African slave culture.
RHYTHMIC DRUMS AND PERCUSSION
The key figure in the Mangue Bit
movement was Chico Science.
Along with his band, Nacao Zumbi,
he transformed maracatu,
reworking a rhythm
from the slavery days for the '90s.
Chico Science was born
Francisco de Assis Franca in 1966.
He'd started out
as a fan of hip-hop and rock,
then began to broaden his style.
One of the characteristics of
mangue bit is that every artist had
a different style.
Mangue bit transformed Recife's
view of itself and of the culture
of the surrounding region.
The Zona da Mata,
the sugar-growing area,
is where maracatu has its roots,
where maracatu ceremonies and
contests started and still take
place, above all at carnival time.
Along with Chico Science
and Fred Zero Quatro,
the third key figure in the Mangue
Bit movement was Siba, leader
of the band, Mestre Ambrosio.
Siba became a specialist in the
maracatu contests where different
groups used improvised poetry
to discuss current affairs,
challenge their rivals' skills
and brag about their own prowess,
much as in hip-hop.
FAST, RHYTHMIC DRUMBEAT
Maracatu, it was not as popular
as now.
In the beginning,
it was from the rural places.
Nobody wanted to know about it. Only
the people of this region liked it.
Even here,
only the poor people wanted it.
And after the beginning of the '90s,
it began to be seen
as something valuable.
# Cruzeiro
# Cruzeiro da bringa
# No batente da capela
# Eu acendi uma vela
# Pelo que aconteceu
# Voa a cigarra
Quando lembra da batalha
# Como se rasga a mortalha
Com quem brigando morreu... #
With Mestre Ambrosio
and his later band, Fuloresta,
Siba took traditional rhythms
like maracatu or the coastal
circle dance, ciranda,
and made them the basis
of a new Brazilian music.
RHYTHMIC DRUMS AND TRUMPET MUSIC
We were moved more
to make something happen in Recife
and also to make more
to our own culture
and our own music,
not as a "folklorico" thing,
but using that original music
with the influence of pop, rock and
hip-hop to create something new.
But on February the 2nd, 1997,
Mangue Bit, or Mangue Beat
as it was now becoming known,
suffered its greatest setback
and tragedy.
Chico Science was killed in a car
crash just outside Recife during
Carnival. He was just 30 years old.
There are still memorials
and reminders of his work
across the city.
Recife's annual carnival
is regarded by some Brazilians
as the finest in the country,
simply because it's a free event
and has not been commercialised.
The processions provide a reminder
that maracatu is now
a popular style in the city
and a concert by Chico Science's
former band, Nacao Zumbi, is
preceded by chants of "Chico, Chico"
from the massive crowd.
CHANTING:
Chico! Chico! Chico!
They changed Recife,
they changed Pernambuco
and they also changed Brazil.
Chico Science and Nacao Zumbi
opened up doors
for a new generation
of Brazilian bands
who are not samba or bossa nova.
And I think names like Seu Jorge
or CSS - Cansei de Ser Sexy...
You know, really opened up doors
for them.
Chico Science and Nacao Zumbi
was a great influence to all of us
because they are the greatest
and strongest things
that we have in the '90s in Brazil.
I think Chico is
the most important guy
in music in the last ten years.
For my generation, he's the leader.
For me, he's a big leader.
We have another one called
Mano Brown. He's from hip-hop.
While Chico Science and Mangue Beat
shook up Recife,
Manu Brown, the leader
of Brazil's most militant
hip-hop band, Racionais MCs,
had the same effect in the
predominantly black shanty towns
around Sao Paulo to the south.
Once again, Brazilian music
was defined and split by the issues
of wealth and race.
Racionais MCs started in 1988
when three-quarters of
Brazil's population of 146 million
was crammed into urban areas
with nearly a third living
below the poverty line.
By the early '90s, they were the
voice of the poor Sao Paulo suburbs
and attracted audiences
of up to 10,000 people
at their shows.
Beyond the favelas
in Sao Paulo itself, a new and
very different music was evolving
that reflected life
in a cosmopolitan business centre,
that was now the fourth
largest city in the world,
described by the producer Suba as
"Blade Runner In The Tropics".
Suba had moved to Brazil
from Serbia
to become the most experimental
and influential record producer
of the '90s,
mixing electronica
with Brazilian styles.
Sao Paulo Confessions,
his best known work,
involved contributions
from the singer, Cibelle.
I still think some of those tracks
are very, very fresh.
Because, exactly,
he just did whatever he felt,
so it was very unique
because it was him.
Suba... Well, Sao Paulo Confessions
is definitely one
of the best albums in the world
and, you know, that's what it is.
There was bossa beats to it
and there was electronic sounding
instruments to do those beats.
And this is more or less, I think,
how he would see it.
It's not, "Oh, I'm crossing this
with that." It's, "Oh, nice beat,
I'll use that."
Sao Paulo Confessions
was released in 1999
by which time Suba had started work
on what would prove to be his most
successful commercial production,
an album by Bebel Gilberto.
The daughter of Joao Gilberto,
the hero of the bossa movement,
she was born in New York
and had spent much of her life
in America and Mexico.
Suba set out to transform
her bossa nova influenced style
with contemporary production work,
but in November 1999, Suba
was killed in a fire in his studio.
He had been trying to rescue
some of Bebel's recordings.
# Someone to cling to me
Stay with me right or wrong
# Someone to sing to me
Some little samba song
# Someone to take my heart
and give his heart to me
# Someone who's ready
to give love a start with me... #
I learnt a lot from him
and I lost all my prejudice
with electronics, samples,
sounds, transferring,
doing effects on my voice,
chopping up, killing,
Frankenstein-style!
And um...
I just really, really miss him,
but he did amazing work.
Bebel completed the album herself.
Tanto Tempo was released
the following year and became
a massive international success.
I would describe Tanto Tempo
as an album
that definitely came
in a good time. I was lucky.
I'm not being humble,
but it's true. It was a good time.
Brazil was in a good moment.
It was right after Buena Vista
Social Club kind of movement.
# E tenho muito sono de manha... #
Tanto Tempo was nominated
for a Grammy
and established Bebel Gilberto
as the most successful
new Brazilian international artist
of this century,
but within Brazil,
the reaction was far more muted.
I think the main difference
between, for example, a young artist
like Chico Science
and a young artist like Bebel
Gilberto is that Chico's music was
much more revolutionary.
I think Bebel did basically
what her father had done before,
maybe in a modern way,
using electronic elements.
There is a different market
for Brazilian music inside
and outside Brazil, definitely.
I wouldn't have got to the point
of what I did with Tanto Tempo
and I'm still doing for these
long seven years if I was living
in Brazil. That's for sure.
In Rio de Janeiro,
the city once glamorised by Bebel's
father and the bossa nova movement,
the new music also reflected
the divisions in wealth and race.
Here, as in Sao Paulo, new black
styles offered an alternative
to white rock or electronica.
But in Rio,
funk was the dominant style.
American funk stars
like James Brown had become popular
in the city in the '70s
during the military era, but
in the late '80s and early '90s,
a new, distinctively
Brazilian style emerged.
Funk parties or "baile funk" became
a regular and at times violent
feature of Rio's social life,
particularly out
in the northern suburbs.
It was like millions of people
dancing to funk, hip-hop,
Miami bass.
Every weekend.
And it was like nobody in the media
listened to it.
So it was like a secret
or like non-existent.
When the media discovered funk,
it was because of a problem here
at Arpoador Beach.
In 1992, there was a riot
on Rio's Arpoador Beach.
Gangs of youths from the favelas
swept down from the hills
to fight each other
and funk fans were blamed.
So the government closed
all the most popular clubs
where the funk parties happened.
And so funk had to go more and more
inside the favelas
because it was the only place where
the police could not stop the party
and so I think the government of Rio
gave the most popular,
most interesting music,
the most powerful music
that the culture of Rio created...
..to the drug dealers.
By the '90s, Rio had become
a divided city.
Along the sea front of Copacabana
and Ipanema,
the grand beaches and the glamorous
women who had inspired
the bossa nova movement remained.
But in the surrounding hills,
the favelas were now run
by heavily armed drug gangs
who gradually ousted control
from the police since the ending
of the military era.
It was here, away from the
authorities, that funk developed,
now one of three distinctive
favela styles.
A third of Rio's population,
now estimated at 12 million,
lives in the favelas,
in neighbourhoods like
Cidade de Deus, City of God,
which gave its name to the film
about the violent side of Rio life.
The film was no exaggeration.
The favelas are often battlegrounds
between police and drug gangs
or between rival gangs themselves.
The gangs employ youths, some just
children, as their armed soldiers.
4,000 of those aged under 18 have
been shot over the past 14 years.
Brazil has the second highest
gun death rate in the world.
All this inevitably was reflected
in the music.
Funk balls became the venue
for organised fights in which rival
gangs lined up against each other.
Ironically,
it was the drug gang leaders
who stopped fighting at funk balls
as funk became an increasingly
important part of favela life.
Funk balls became regular
free parties, many organised
by the drug gangs themselves,
attracting crowds of up to a million
every weekend across the favelas.
The music is loud and raw
and the lyrics often controversial
with so-called "funk proibido"
praising the gang bosses
or describing the shootings.
MC Playboy says this is not
his style, but he understands it.
Funk, to me,
is a future folk.
It's our future folk, the first
digital music to come from the roots.
Because they used to copy
that, uh...
this Miami bass style.
But now it's completely different.
It's like punk rock in the beginning
in London. It shocked people.
But some performers,
like MC Playboy, are critical
of the way that funk has developed.
He became an established figure
on the baile funk circuit and lives
in the Complexo do Alemao favela,
one of the areas controlled
by drug gangs.
MC Playboy is one
of the favela artists who argue
that some funk lyrics are now
too shocking, too obscene
and need to change.
Funk was both praised as the new
folk and condemned for its lyrics,
as was hip-hop, the second
popular style in the favelas.
# Minha condicao e sinistra
nao posso dar role
# Nao posso ficar
de bobeira na pista... #
MV Bill became the celebrity of
carioca hip-hop - hip-hop from Rio.
Like the Racionais MCs
in Sao Paulo, he was known
for his controversial songs.
The video for Soldado Do Morro
was banned,
though he insisted he was not
glorifying the gangster lifestyle,
but showing "the hidden reality
in our daily life".
Despite the controversy,
MV Bill has won awards
from the United Nations.
He still lives in that now
notorious favela, City of God.
One of the most successful
and idealistic bands of the favelas
was formed as the direct result
of one of Rio's
most notorious massacres.
On August the 29th, 1993,
plain-clothes military police drove
into the Vigario Geral favela,
looking to avenge the deaths of
four police shot by drug dealers,
allegedly after demanding bribes.
Shooting indiscriminately,
the police killed 21 people
from children to the elderly.
AfroReggae started as a fightback
by the community.
First, the AfroReggae Newsletter
dealt with black music and politics,
then a band promoting an alternative
lifestyle to the drug gangs.
# Quero liberdade
# Nao quero caridade
Que o vento nos carregue
# Pra paz do nosso reggae... #
AfroReggae evolved
into a social movement,
starting a variety of different
musical projects across the favelas
from dance groups...
FAST RHYTHMIC DRUMBEAT
..to Bloco Afro percussion groups
that take part in the Rio Carnival.
The band now runs 50 separate
projects and five cultural centres,
all based in favelas
where the drug gangs operate.
The aim is still to get young
recruits away from the gangs and to
offer mediation if there's trouble.
Alongside their work in the favelas,
AfroReggae developed
their musical career.
They tour regularly on
the international circuit and have
opened for The Rolling Stones.
SINGING IN RAPID HIP-HOP STYLE
They play a fusion
of Brazilian styles, influenced
by hip-hop, funk, reggae
and the most distinctive Rio style
of all - samba, which has survived
all the new musical competition.
SAMBA MUSIC
It was in the Rio favelas
that modern-day samba first emerged
at the start of the last century.
Samba then evolved
into a whole variety of styles,
including the realistic "samba
do morro" that described the tough
reality of favela life in the '60s.
Bezerra da Silva, who died in 2005,
performed new sambas
about those forced to live
in the Rio shanties.
Samba, it's argued,
is similar to hip-hop and funk
because they have the same roots.
They all started out
as favela music unpopular with the
authorities because of their lyrics.
# A favela e...
# Um problema social
# A favela e...
# Um problema social... #
Seu Jorge brought
Bezerra da Silva's message
to the international market.
A singer-songwriter who mixes samba
with western pop, he developed his
style after meeting Chico Science.
Chico's music was based
on going back to the roots,
reviving maracatu
from his local region, Pernambuco.
He advised Seu Jorge
to go back to the roots of Rio's
longest established style - samba.
Chico Science say, "Make samba music
from your region. You're from Rio.
"What do you hear?" he ask me.
"What do you hear all your life,
from like children?"
"Bezerra da Silva, Martinho da Vila,
something like that."
"OK, you still hear this,
you will find your song."
# O Carolina, o Carolina
# O Carolina bela
# O Carolina, o Carolina... #
Like many brought up
in the favelas,
Seu Jorge had a tough early life.
He became a musician after
leaving home and sleeping rough,
following the death of his brother
in a gangland shooting.
I lost my home. I had to start
my career with the music because...
I don't want to be one...
social problem.
# O Carolina, o Carolina
# O Carolina, Carolina bela... #
Seu Jorge became
an international celebrity
for his music and as a film star
after his appearance
as Knockout Ned in City Of God.
CONTINUES SHOOTING
Seu Jorge is very different
to Brazil's earlier
international samba celebrities
who presented an exotic,
glamorous image of Rio life.
He lectures audiences about
the realities of the favelas.
I'm from Rio de Janeiro.
Now the situation...
..is still the same situation.
Bad...for poor people.
Back in the '30,
samba from the poor areas of Rio
had influenced
the more mainstream samba styles.
Now a new samba fusion has emerged
away from the favelas.
Marcelo D2 started out
writing songs about police violence
with the band Planet Hemp,
then changed direction in 2003 with
A Procura Da Batida Perfeita -
Looking For The Perfect Beat.
The title had been borrowed
from Afrika Bambaataa,
but it was original for the way in
which it mixed hip-hop with samba.
# Por isso que eu lhe difo
A saudade e muito ma... #
# Saudade!
# Saudade!
# Hoje eu posso dizer
o que e dor de verdade... #
Marcelo D2's songs and videos
made use of classic samba artists
from Zeca Pagodinho
to Wilson das Neves.
It was a reflection of the way
that samba has become fashionable
with yet another generation.
Even with the young audiences,
he packed the music venues
in Rio's Bohemian quarter, Lapa.
Here, Wilson das Neves plays with a
new samba band, Orquestra Imperial,
a role that he's taken over
from Seu Jorge.
# O samba e meu dom... #
Orquestra Imperial were started
by three friends,
Alexandre Kassin, Moreno Veloso,
son of Tropicalia hero
Caetano Veloso,
and the drummer,
Domenico Lancellotti.
It began as a novelty. They were
only going to play four shows,
but developed into a reflection
of the new fashion for samba.
The young people
are very much enjoying samba.
It is different from the time
where we are like... We are 31, 32.
When we were 18, like...
it was not normal to like samba,
but I think now
like most of the young people I see,
like 18, 19, 20 years old,
they go to watch samba like every
night. It is becoming really trendy.
I think that there is
many, many beautiful compositions
and beautiful rhythms
and beautiful dancing around samba,
so when you have
those beautiful things together,
even if it's...even if it's
many, many years not listened to,
it's still beautiful.
Kassin, Moreno and Domenico
also run a very different band.
Its records appear
under different titles, depending
on who is playing the lead role.
The music is a mixture of
indie rock, electronica and samba.
It's a new pop fusion that they say
sums up contemporary Brazil.
RHYTHMIC DRUMBEAT
Brazilian music is indeed mixed up
and there are now competing styles
in every major region and city.
So, if the music of Sao Paulo
and Rio reflected the social and
economic divisions in each area,
this was equally true in Salvador,
the capital of the predominantly
black state of Bahia.
In the '70s and '80s,
a new style, samba reggae, became
the dominant music of Salvador,
linked to
the Bloco Afro percussion groups
that took part in carnival parades.
# And in remembering a road sign
# I'm remembering a girl
when I was young
# And we said these songs are true,
these days are ours,
these tears are free... #
Olodum, Salvador's best known samba
reggae bloco, provided backing
for Paul Simon's album,
Rhythm Of The Saints, in 1990.
# Had a lot of fun,
had a lot of money... #
It didn't have the impact of his
earlier album, Graceland, recorded
with South African musicians,
but brought Olodum a new audience.
Paul Simon heard about Olodum
and he came to Bahia
to play one track of his album,
Obvious Child.
After this, he got Olodum
to Central Park in New York
to open his concert.
Then Olodum started
their international career, yeah?
And it became one
of the most important
and most famous Afro Bahia groups
in the US and in Europe.
Salvador's Bloco Afro groups
like Olodum had first emerged
in the '70s
with help from the city's
best known black singer and
reggae enthusiast, Gilberto Gil,
the one-time hero of the Tropicalia
movement who had been jailed and
exiled by the military government.
In 2002, 30 years after returning
from exile, Gilberto Gil
was made Minister of Culture.
He joined the government
of the new president, Luiz Inacio
Lula da Silva, known as Lula,
and became Brazil's
first black minister.
Being black had a lot to do with
the impulse for me to accept it.
I think that being an artist
and being popular
and being able to sing
and being able to perform
and being able to bring
the poetic element into life,
into people's lives and everything,
that...that helps being a minister.
Being a minister didn't stop
Gilberto Gil performing.
The next year, he made a raunchy
appearance with Ivete Sangalo,
also from Salvador,
the new queen of Brazilian pop.
Amazing! The Minister,
Gilberto Gil, singing with me,
a crazy woman...
# What's up? Suck it all... #
In Brazil, it means a lot of things.
Ivete Sangalo started out playing
with Banda Eva who sold four and
a half million albums in the '90s
and went on to become one of the
most successful solo pop musicians
in Brazilian history.
She's the most expensive act
in the Brazilian
entertainment world.
She is... She's able to...
to gather enormous crowds
and she dominates Bahia Carnival.
Ivete has become
Salvador's Carnival Queen, famous
for her marathon performances
as she's driven through the city
on a trio electrico,
a giant float with a stage on top.
She sings "axe", the new commercial
carnival music of Salvador,
a mixture of samba reggae and other
styles that developed in the '90s.
Axe is a mix, you know.
Samba, a little reggae,
a little frevo from Pernambuco.
We can do anything.
It always will be axe music.
Axe is about style, using elements
from Bahia Afro Brazilian tradition,
plus Caribbean tradition
and northeastern music tradition.
Those three elements together
give the voice for axe.
Gilberto Gil,
the Minister of Culture,
also performs from a trio electrico
during the Salvador Carnival,
playing a four or five-hour set in
front of the crowds of two million
who pack the streets.
It's a vast public party, but the
Afro Blocos like Olodum, who parade
through a different circuit,
complain that Salvador's best
black music has been taken over.
I say the rhythm is
"brass band samba reggae"
and the rhythm is very poor, yeah?
I think it is like
a marketing strategy.
They got the idea from
the samba reggae rhythm, you know,
and now I think it's
a more commercial kind of music.
And in a city and state
that's predominantly black,
there are complaints that Carnival
itself is no longer a black event,
because most locals can't afford
to get into the smart parties
overlooking the Carnival route
or pay to follow their favourite
artists in the roped-off enclosures
behind each trio electrico.
The Minister disagrees.
The whole of the population,
the different social layers,
they all contribute and participate,
you know.
And the government
are also involved.
The private sector, through
the enterprises, are all involved.
It's very pop
and contemporary, you know.
# Moro... #
# Tenho uma nega chamada Tereza
# Que beleza... #
It's fitting that controversy
should mix with fun
at Salvador Carnival,
for that has been the story
of Brazilian music.
400 years ago, that story started
with the arrival of African slaves
along this same stretch of coast.
African rhythms mixed with European
music to create contemporary samba
and the extraordinary variety
of styles that exist
across Brazil today.
Brazilians adore music and music
has expressed the country's history,
its problems and its triumphs.
And in the process, Brazil
has produced some of the greatest
and most varied popular music
in the world.
# Tenho uma nega chamada Tereza
# Que beleza, que beleza
# Eu tenho um fusca e um violao
# Sou flamengo e tenho uma nega
chamada Tereza
# Sambaby, Sambaby
# Eu posso nao ser um band leader
# Mas assim mesmo, la em casa todos
meus amigos, meus camaradinhas,
me respeitam
# Esse e a razao da simpatia,
do poder do algo mais a de alegria
# Moro
# Num pais tropical... #