"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... #"