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 Since the second half of the 20th century, global or 'World' music has become steadily more fashionable in the West. Various factors have allowed this to occur, not least the incredible advancements in communication technology. From early radio broadcasts of the 1920s to modern commodities like Apple's iPod, musical audiences have had access to increasingly more varieties of music.
In modern Britain, it is not uncommon to hear foreign music on specialist evening shows on national radio stations; the pioneering Radio One DJ Gilles Peterson has been playing music from South America, Africa, and Asia for over ten years. Most high street music retailers will have some kind of foreign language section, and large Internet stores often have entire back catalogues of many international artists. The success of many genres has been 'triggered' by the popularity of certain artists or records. Bob Marley is the internationally recognised symbol of Jamaican Reggae; the Sugarhill Gang launched the New York Rap scene in 1979 with the record ' Rapper's Delight'; The Prodigy brought British dance music to the mainstream in the early 1990s; and in 1963, 'The Girl from Ipanema' made history by placing higher in the pop charts than any foreign language record had previously done so, the effect of which will be discussed later in this essay. This is not to say that there was no Reggae music before Bob Marley, no Rap before the Sugarhill Gang, or no Brazilian music before 'The Girl from Ipanema', but rather that the success of these icons provided a platform for other contemporary artists to leap from, in order to achieve international recognition. An artist like Bob Marley came to represent not just his musical genre, but also his country. It is not uncommon to see a Jamaican flag with Marley's image printed on it, especially posthumously. His work catalysed Brazilian samba-reggae and his death in 1981 overshadowed the anniversary of abolition in Brazil, becoming "the month of tributes to Bob Marley." British band Oasis, representatives of 'Britpop', would often play a Union Jack guitar at the height of their international popularity. In the minds of many foreigners, 'The Girl from Ipanema', with its smooth melodies and agreeable rhythm, has come to culturally represent the Brazilian nation. This leads us to question how the Brazilian national identity has been constructed, and to gauge its validity. Various elements can be identified in order to explore Brazil's musical identity, the first of which must be the nation's racial and cultural mixture. The process began the moment Cabral set foot in the country and when the Portuguese came into contact with the native Indian population. The Atlantic Slave Trade brought Africans to the nation, adding another ingredient to the Brazilian racial recipe. It would seem that this mixture and miscegenation is what defines Brazilian national identity, but critics' opinions differ greatly on the subject of the racial balance, ranging from the utopian - "Brazil has been a real melting pot for centuries, not a mixed salad like in the United States" to the more realistic - "Brazil's knotty racial and ethnic contradictions" or "Brazil, unlike other multiracial polities (...) was not a land of equal opportunities." Caetano Veloso, perhaps the most important and influential name in Brazilian musical history, offers his interpretation of Brazilian identity in the autobiographical 'Tropical Truth': "Brazil is America's other giant, the other melting pot of races and cultures, the other promised land to European and Asian immigrants, the Other." An explanation for such vast variance in opinion between various critics and writers is that national identities are constructed, by the individual nation and by others. No matter how extensively they are studied, defined and redefined by scholars, critics, politicians and citizens, national identity will always be subject to debate. For example, a radical attempt at redefinition of Brazilian identity came in the form of the late 1970s Tropicália movement, the impact of which will be explored later in this essay. Jeffrey Lesser, an expert in Latin American immigration, counters the idea of national identity as a malleable construct, instead suggesting that Brazil's racial demographic prohibits any imagined national identity: "What does it mean to be a public "Brazilian," and how is "Brazilianness" contested? From the mid-nineteenth century on, both terms, and the notions behind them, were increasingly arbitrary, creating the space needed by newcomers to insert themselves into, or to change, paradigms about national identity. A single or static national identity never existed: the very fluidity of the concept made it open to pushes and pulls from below and above." Colour and Race Lesser questions how a nation with such racial miscegenation can have one national identity and that if there was such a single identity, it would have to be constantly transforming to accommodate the Brazilian demographic. The concept of Brazilian race itself has been compared to 'shifting sand', the idea that the spectrum of colour in Brazilian society is so broad that individuals may change identities, depending on their situation. Anthropologist Livio Sansone noted in 1992: "A man could be a 'worker' in the factory, 'preto' on his birth certificate, 'moreno' or 'escuro' [dark] with friends on the street and 'negro' during Carnaval or in the bloco afro." Reichmann suggests that the idea of a 'shifting colour line' helps to explain racial politics in Brazil, by suggesting that colour, as opposed to race, is the dominant category: "The colour line is perhaps the zone of greatest contention dividing those who believe that Brazil is a racial democracy from those who perceive discrimination based on colour." Lesser explores the link between identity and ethnicity, Reichmann this ethnicity, and Dunn argues that 'mestiçagem', the emergence of a new Brazilian race through the process of miscegenation and the joining of distinct identities, provides the nearest to a fair definition of Brazilian national identity. Celebrated sociologist Gilberto Freyre was one to support this theory, as Perrone and Dunn note: "For nationalist thinkers, Samba represented well Brazil's mestiço culture (unlike other Latin American mestizo identities that foregrounded the indigenous element). Freyre, for example, fancied samba as an uncontaminated expression of the "real Brazil" that had been obscured by Eurocentric elites." Whilst Freyre considered just samba as a metaphor for the Brazilian people, McGowan and Pessanha suggest that all Brazilian music represents the population - "In its sounds and lyrics, it reflects the Brazilian people - their uninhibited joy or despair, their remarkable capacity to celebrate, and the all-important concept of saudade." McCann suggests that Brazilian national identity is the collection of qualities that distinguish the Brazilian population from citizens of Argentina, Portugal and the United States, "three populations whom Brazilians felt that it was important to define themselves against" . In the same chapter of 'Hello, Hello Brazil', the author references Alencar's 1857 nationalist novel 'O Guarani'. The book is an allegorical version of Brazil's birth, detailing the marriage of a Portuguese maiden and a native Guarani chief. No reference to any African influence is made in the novel, which was "Brazil's most influential nineteenth-century nationalist work." A government survey in 1999 revealed that 42.6 percent of the Brazilian population consider themselves to be 'pardos', roughly translated as 'dark'. The ignorance of an Afro-Brazilian presence in Alencar's allegory demonstrates what McCann describes as the nation's continued 'covert racism', perhaps the largest difficulty encountered when studying Brazilian national identity. This racism was not limited to the cultural realm, or just to Brazil; speaking on Afro-Latin American politics, Fontaine noted in 1980: "Standard texts on economics, politics, political economy, or even sometimes sociology tend to ignore the African presence and its implications, in spite of millions of blacks, 'morenos' (browns), mulattoes and 'zambos' (mixtures of blacks and Indians) in Latin America." However, 'História do Brasil', a Carnaval 'marcha' composed by celebrated Brazilian musician Lamartine Babo in 1933, challenges the 'O Guarani' allegory, by adding a more realistic image. By using Afro-Brazilian names and language to carry on the allegorical story, Babo acknowledges the role of Africans in the nation's history and development. McCann notes that this marginalisation perspective had, by the 1930s, become antiquated, noting the significance of such a change of thinking - "Reconsideration of the importance of African cultural influence was the single most important element in Brazil's collective inquiry into national character. Nowhere was that influence more apparent than in popular music." Samba, Bossa Nova & MPB If we are to take McCann's advice and consider Brazilian national identity through musical identity, then it is necessary to consider the spectrum of change and 'musical diplomacy' that Brazilian popular music has undertaken over the past 150 years. The effect on class, race, national and international relations achieved by Brazilian music is a fundamental factor in the question of national musical identity. As far back as the 1870s, Brazilian music and dance was being influenced by European trends, followed by the emergence of the modern samba in 1910, which became a symbol of unity between the North-East region of Bahia and Central-East region of Rio de Janeiro. Throughout the 1920s, Brazilian musicians began to tour European capitals, play in foreign orchestras and receive international attention (partly due to the use of radio transmission) as Brazilian musical genres began to emerge. This broadcast of Brazilian Popular Music was a key stage for the country's musical identity. There were of course many Brazilian musicians over the next three decades (Noel Rosa, Os Oito Batutas, Jackson do Pandeiro etc.), but on an international scale, two iconic representatives stand out as those waving the 'Auriverde' flag higher than the rest - Carmen Miranda and the musicians of the Bossa Nova movement. Those who wave their flag highest are the most open to scrutiny, and the respect of the nation and generation inevitably rests on their shoulders. Caetano Veloso considers the icon's position in the essay 'Carmen Mirandada'. Although essentially a critic of Miranda's stereotypically 'South American' style, noting that she was "the opposite of our craving for good taste and national identity" , Veloso questions 1950s Brazilian identity, and remarks that "She was the only representative of South America who was universally readable, and it is exactly because of this quality that self parody became her inescapable prison." Her cultural validity has been extensively debated - Miranda herself released a song called 'Disseram Que Eu Voltei Americanizada' (They Said I Came Back Americanized) in 1940. Nevertheless, she paved the way for future Brazilian artists and, in Veloso's words, "she represented less the adulteration alleged by her critics than a pioneering role in history that is still unfolding and that today seems more fascinating than ever: the history of the relationship between the very rich music of a very poor country and musicians and audiences from the rest of the world."
The Vargas dictatorship (1930-45 and 1951-54) attempted to capture 'Brasilidade' (Brazilian-ness) by promoting elements of 'national culture' in order to cement government support. Dunn notes: "The free verse poetry, experimental prose, and provocative manifestos of the 1920s gave way to realist novels and social histories oriented towards the 'discovery' and documentation of Brazilian culture. Of particular salience was the articulation of a mestiço paradigm, which extolled cultural and racial hybridity as the foundation for a unified national identity. As elsewhere in the Americas, popular music would play a central role in the 'invention', dissemination, and international projection of national culture." Vargas wished to project a unified image of his country to the rest of the world, preferably through his newly erected super radio-transmission tower, one of the five largest in the world at the time. The president sought "cohesion through popular culture" and to promote "dissemination of determined images of the country at home and abroad" , for his European and North American counterparts. Along with the post-war Good Neighbour Policy, his tactics worked well, and Brazilian Popular Music enjoyed a degree of international success abroad, in a time when the genre of 'World Music' simply did not exist as it does today. North American popular culture was already present in Brazil in the 1930s, mostly through advertising and the film industry, and the Good Neighbour Policy is often credited with bringing Brazilian musicians and US producers together, the best example of which is the career of Carmen Miranda in the United States. The 1930s was a period of modernisation for Brazil, including invaluable advances in the broadcast industry. The introduction and development of radio in Brazil is of high significance as it provided a link between the metropolis and the hinterland, and it was through radio that many Brazilians made their first contact with new artists and styles. McCann notes "radio stations, above all, proved to be crucial laboratories for popular cultural formation." Through the medium of radio, the 27 Brazilian states were given the option to become a unified nation. But exactly what image were the president and these radio broadcasts promoting abroad and at home, and how could it possibly have been accurate? Vargas took aspects of Brazilian popular culture, and poured government funds into their development. The sport of football, predominantly a white upper-class sport in pre-1920s Brazil, was the first to receive attention from the government; Brazil has since become the only country to have qualified for every World Cup between 1930 and 1998. Government support was also given to Samba, traditionally the music of the favela-dwelling Carioca Afro-Brazilians, resulting in the creation of Samba schools and the famous Rio Carnaval. Perrone & Dunn note: "Since this period, Samba has been intrinsically linked with Brasilidade" Vargas' death in 1954 symbolised "the end of a period of political, economic, and cultural construction and consolidation." The period had catalysed the emergence of a new popular culture in Brazil, where the popular had become more linked to the political, at least in the musical arena. Afro-Brazilians began to achieve a popular voice, in a time when they had no hope of achieving a political voice, or even basic civil rights, such as the right to vote or to free speech. The period also encouraged Brazilians to look at themselves and engage in national debates, aided by the critical consumption of popular music. McCann notes that the contrasting voices and opinions of the public led to "a swelling chorus of musical invention". Another key issue that was revealed during the Vargas period and in the following years was the Brazilian nation's inherent racism, of which Alencar's O Guarani allegory was an earlier warning. The 1954 Brazilian popular music arena demonstrated that the music produced at the time was created collectively, and that characters from every economic level had participated. It is debatable whether Afro-Brazilians have since managed to achieve a voice outside of the cultural arena. In October 2002, Gilberto Gil, perhaps the most famous living Afro-Brazilian, was appointed Culture Minister of Brazil by President Lula. The symbolic gesture has not changed the fact that Black and mixed-race Brazilians comprise 64 percent of the poor, the average salary for black Brazilians is less than half that of whites, while the illiteracy rate is twice as high, and that in 2002, Afro-Brazilians held just 14 of the 584 Congress seats.
In 1956, a new president, Juscelino Kubitschek, came to power, promising "fifty years of development in five". Planning was started for the new federal capital of Brasília, the Brazilian football team won the World Cup for the first time in 1958, the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer was developing his most celebrated works and Cinema Novo, the country's progressive film industry, was blossoming. McGowan and Pessanha note: "In all the arts, it was a time of effervescence." Along with Samba, Football and Carnaval, Bossa Nova is often next in the list of Brazilian stereotypes. Bossa Nova was essentially an extension of samba, kick-started by João Gilberto's 1959 album 'Chega de Saudade' and the soundtrack to the landmark Brazilian film 'Orfeu Negro', which featured songs by Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes. The movement was one of the most internationally successful Brazilian musical styles, and as a consequence became one of the most internationalised. Two classic examples of this internationalisation are the 'Jazz Samba' (1962) crossover album by Brazilian Stan Getz and American Charlie Byrd and 'The Girl from Ipanema' (1963) record by Stan Getz and João Gilberto. The latter made history for foreign music by placing higher in the pop charts than other foreign record previously had. More than 25 million copies of various versions of the composition have been sold to date. The song was translated by Norman Gimbel and released by Frank Sinatra in 1962. The English version of the song was extremely popular, and many of the lyrics had been changed dramatically. John Fitzpatrick, writer for Brazzil Magazine (amongst other publications) notes that lyrics such as "When she walks, she's like a samba/That swings so cool and sways so gentle/That when she passes, each one she passes goes - ooh" simply do not exist in the original Portuguese version. While the success of 'The Girl from Ipanema' can be seen as positive, in that it gave Brazilian music international exposure, the addition of these rather banal lyrics demonstrate a unfortunate stereotype of the nation. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the most famous Brazilian song of all time includes references that most animalistic of international stereotypes - the beauty of the Brazilian women. Jobim's original composition details a "Moça do corpo dourado" (Girl with a golden body) strolling around the Ipanema beach, glancing at men. The lyrics and gentle Bossa Nova guitar rhythm aim to transport the listener to Jobim's position, admiring beautiful women and writing lyrics on a napkin in a warm, relaxing climate. Over the years, the idealised, agreeable beach image has led many foreigners to believe that it defines Brazil, ignoring the vast racial inequality, corrupt politics and economic instability that have marred Brazilian and other Latin American societies for centuries. Nevertheless, as well as gaining immense international attention, Bossa Nova gave Brazilian musicians a reason to be proud of their country and identity. Caetano Veloso suggests that the national and international success of Bossa Nova allowed musicians to diversify to a wide range of national musical styles - "without the self-assurance that bossa nova infused in us, making us feel capable of creating things wholly our own, we would still when working in studios be leaving out the supremely inventive elements of Brazilian traditions". Tropicália - Cannibalism, Censorship & Outrage Politics has proven to play an integral role in the formation of a national Brazilian music. This role can be seen as positive - President Vargas promoted Samba and Afro-Brazilian music in general in post-war Brazil, helping Samba become the 'national music' and Afro-Brazilians to gain a cultural voice. But as we shall see, some periods of politics have also had an extremely detrimental effect on Brazilian musicians, and on the country as a whole. MPB, an acronym for Música Popular Brasileira, was a catch-all term, as the name suggests, for Brazilian Popular Music. But the name of MPB also came to represent a certain generation of Brazilian musicians and songwriters performing in the late 1960s and early 1970s, such as Elis Regina, Chico Buarque, Edu Lobo, Milton Nascimento and Ivan Lins. Michael Anthony Lahue notes that the term had been used as early as 1960, in the liner notes of the LP Bossa Nova, by Carlos Lira. McGowan and Pessanha note some qualities of the generation's music - "An especially important characteristic of MPB songwriters is their keen ability to combine compelling melodies, rich harmonies, varied rhythms and poetic lyrics." McGowan & Pessanha also note that the MPB generation was "intensely eclectic" . When comparing the turbulent career of Chico Buarque, the Tropicália movement, or the complex compositions of Dori Caymmi, one can see how this statement is valid. Many of the MPB generation took part in the televised music festivals of the period. Pessanha notes that these were "a forum for political dissent". In March 1964, the military took over the Brazilian government, promising to return power to the people through elections a year after. But Brazilian Congress would not be allowed to elect a civilian president until 1985, over two decades later. The military initially attempted to legitimise their illegal seizure of power, forming alliances with the anti-populist party UDN. But after two failed gubernatorial elections, the military gave up on legitimate public support, introducing Institutional Act No.5 in 1968. Thomas E. Skidmore considers the impact of the act: "Brazil was now a genuine dictatorship. Congress was closed (although not abolished) and all crimes against 'national security' were now subjected to military justice. Censorship was introduced, aimed especially at television and radio. [...] Wire tapping, mail opening and denunciations by informers became commonplace. University lectures were monitored and a wave of purges hit the leading faculties, especially in São Paulo. [...] Numerous other faculties were hit, losing their political rights for ten years. Security forces zeroed in especially on opposition clergy and students, among whom doctrines of liberation theology were still influential." Such military oppression was not uncommon in 20th Century Latin American politics, similar circumstances arising during 'El Gran Reorganización' in Argentina in the late 1970s and in Spain under the Franco dictatorship. Many of the rights had been taken from Union leaders and politicians, making students, artists and journalists the only real opposition to the government. The press and the universities were watched closely, and one of the many student protests in Rio resulted in at least one death. The Act No.5 effectively suffocated any expression of national identity contrary to the government image. The act began to affect the televised music festivals, MPB musicians' main platform for exposure. For instance, Geraldo Vandré received second place at Rio's FIC festival in 1968 for his contribution 'Caminhando'. Due to the composition's rather obvious references to the dictatorship - "There are armed soldiers, they may be loved or not/ Almost all of them lost, with guns in their hands.", the song was banned by the government for ten years. Nevertheless, the song became a slogan for student protests and Vandré went into exile. A similar set of circumstances occurred at the first performance of 'Cálice' by Chico Buarque and Gilberto Gil. McGowan & Pessanha note: "Using powerful Catholic imagery, the song is a metaphorical comment on the repressive times and the silencing of an entire nation [...] The song's title carries two meanings: 'Cálice' translates as 'chalice' yet is also a homophone of the phrase 'cale-se' which means 'shut up'. And that is exactly what the authorities did to Buarque and Gil when they first attempted to perform 'Cálice' in public. The police came on stage and turned off the microphones as they were singing. The song was banned, but it became yet another anthem against the dictatorship."
The dictatorship and Act No.5 won the battle against MPB and the festivals. Many musicians left the country and the festivals began to decline. At the 1970 FIC festival, 25 of the 36 finalists were prohibited from performing by government censors. When top musicians such as Tom Jobim and Chico Buarque resisted, by signing a petition against the censorship, they were promptly arrested. It is often the case that when a product is banned or censored, the reverse of the effect desired by the censor occurs, and the product achieves a degree of infamy. The 1979 Italian horror film 'Cannibal Holocaust' was banned in 12 countries after its release. The ban and subsequent piracy made the film one of the most notorious horror films of all time and when the film was re-released in 2005, it became the fastest-selling limited edition release in DVD history. The censorship of Chico Buarque had a similar effect, and he became a people's representative of cultural resistance, even though almost all of his material was banned by the government in the following years. The most important cultural movement provoked by the military regime was Tropicália, a counter-cultural movement manifested in music, theatre, arts and poetry. The movement allowed Brazilian artists a carte blanche to express themselves in whatever way they saw fit, unrestricted by the constraints of the traditional Brazilian art forms. Tropicália musicians experimented with rhythms, lyrics, influences, and outfits, many of which were influenced by North American or European contemporary styles. John J. Harvey explains the radical experimentation in his essay 'Cannibals, Mutant, Hipsters - The Tropicalist Revival'. "The adoption of technology was key to the Tropicalist movement, helping to destabilise facile alignments of 'authentic' or 'indigenous' with a notion of an endemic premodernity." The movement was closely linked to Oswald de Andrade's 1928 'Manifesto antropófago'. Harvey notes: "Oswald urged artists to essay all themes and to incorporate an international repertoire of styles, assimilating them in the local vernacular in a practice of cultural development." The 'cannibalistic' mentality of Tropicália deeply angered many fans of MPB. It may seem rather ironic that some audiences of the Tropicália period were outraged by the music and the concept of incorporating foreign styles; the Brazilian nation is itself a historic mixture of races and cultures. Furthermore, the berimbau, pandeiro, agogô, atabaque and various other Brazilian percussion instruments have African roots, but had been played alongside traditional Brazilian musical instruments for hundreds of years; Bossa Nova was essentially a bastardised, 'desafinado' version of North American West Coast cool jazz mixed with traditional samba. Yet when Caetano Veloso played 'Alegria, Alegria' at the 1967 TV Record festival, he was loudly booed. This was repeated a year later, in São Paulo, when Veloso, backed by Os Mutantes, couldn't even finish his new song 'É Proibido Proibir'. Harvey claims that the audience even began to throw fruit at the performers. Why was the audience so against the distorted electric guitar at the festival, but had accepted the berimbau for years? Critics McGowan and Pessanha report that it was because rock and roll represented American colonialism. Perhaps the reasons were more profound, and the outrage was because the Brazilian musical audiences had seen traditional national genres like Samba and Bossa Nova exported and watered down to fit international tastes, symbolically 'stolen' and betrayed by icons like Carmen Miranda and Frank Sinatra. The animosity of Veloso's São Paulo audience brings to mind Bob Dylan's appearance at the Newport Folk Festival, just two years before. Dylan's use of electric guitar was booed and heckled by his traditional folk crowd, forcing him and his band off the stage. 52 years before in Paris, the audience had such a bad reaction to Stravinsky's modern pioneering score and Nijinsky's choreography in 'The Rite of Spring' that the orchestra played unheard. Like Dylan and Stravinsky, the Tropicália musicians were later hailed as geniuses, and have attracted attention from a variety of modern sources, from Nirvana, to Beck, to the Beastie Boys. As well as blending musical genres and styles, the Tropicalistas often used intelligent imagery and surrealism in their lyrics, often manipulating the Portuguese language into sounds or noises representing an entirely different idea. Soul Jazz Record's 2006 release, 'Tropicália: a Brazilian Revolution in Sound' opens with Gilberto Gil's suitably offbeat composition 'Bat Macumba', the sole lyrics being "Bat Macumba iê iê, Bat Macumba iê ô". McGowan and Pessanha reference another Gil Tropicalista contribution, "Geléia Geral", the lyrics of which juxtapose a Maranhão folkloric style, 'bumba-meu-boi', and 1960s rock and roll, or 'iê iê iê', as it was called by Brazilian critics: "In the general jelly/ That Jornal do Brasil announces/ It's bumba-iê-iê-boi/ Next year, last month/It's bumba-iê-iê-iê/ It's the same dance, meu-boi" Home vs. Away In many ways, Tropicália was a far cry from the Bossa Nova movement, though it is doubtful that the former could have existed without the latter. Bossa Nova presented a proud yet romanticised Brazil; Tropicália answered with the voices of a modern, rebellious youth. The leading Tropicalistas, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, were forced into exile in England . Censorship ensured that voices contrary to government could not be heard, and Brasilidade was to be dictated by the military. We must therefore question all imposed identities, so easily manipulated by governments and other leading institutions. Perhaps the solution is to consider a nation's artistic history of music, film, theatre, aesthetic art and architecture as the raw broadcast of a national identity. Artistic work often reflects the creator's influence, attitude, background and cultural heritage. The work of Pedro Almodóvar, Spain's most celebrated director, emphasized tolerance and acceptance of individuality over the division and repression inherent in a totalitarian state. Andy Warhol's famous Campbell's Soup cans pastiched commercial industries and advertisement , whilst other works commented on democracy, radicalism and optimistic materialism in American society. Gaudí, amongst others, promoted the Catalan nationalist movement by incorporating elements of the region's culture and diverse art techniques into his architecture. In Brazil, other artistic movements such as Cinema Novo and Concrete Poetry represented well a section of Brazilian national sentiment. But Popular Music has surely provided the most useful insight into 'Brasilidade', emphasised by the broad range of themes explored. Identity, sentiment and mentality have been reflected not just in the music itself, but also in what the music has come to represent. Samba marked the beginning of accepted Afro-Brazilian expression; Bossa Nova presented an idealised Brazilian image, countered by Tropicália's cannibalistic attitude revealing an international Brazil with a hunger to be connected to the rest of the modern world. Contemporary hit parades/charts in Brazil are a reasonably balanced mix of national artists and the usual international bestsellers, a representation of Brazil's battle between globalisation and national pride. We must question identities imposed onto Brazil by other nations, and the validity of foreign interpretations of Brazilian popular music. Elvis Presley recorded the rock and roll fusion composition 'Bossa Nova, Baby' on the 1963 album 'Fun in Acapulco'. In fact, the song has little to do with the real Bossa Nova movement, instead opting for a stereotype of Latin American rhythm and imagery. Presley's offering is actually far more reminiscent of the Mexican 'Tex-Mex' genre than Brazilian Bossa Nova. Of course, the misrepresentation did not prevent Presley from becoming the biggest selling solo artist in American history. A more modern misrepresentation of Brazilian culture can be seen in the work of Los Angeles Hip Hop act 'Ugly Duckling'. The Brazilian lifestyle is a major theme for the rap group, especially in songs such as 'A Little Samba', 'Another Samba' and 'Rio de Janeiro'. Unfortunately, like Sinatra, they present a cliched version of the nation as a tropical paradise, free from the stress of First World cosmopolitan life: "Watch the palm trees sway in the breeze/ Beautiful girls talking to me in Portuguese/ I do 'mas que nada' which means the minimum/ Sipping Brazilian coffee with a bit of cinnamon/ Do you find the daily grind is inescapable? /Have a rest from the stress." Contrastingly, eclectic American artist Beck provides a far more suitable tribute to Brazilian popular music in the composition 'Tropicália' from the 1998 album 'Mutations' . The imagery, attitude and rhythm are loyal to the movement of the title, as demonstrated in the first verse: "When they dance in a reptile blaze/ You wear a mask, an equatorial haze/ Into the past, a colonial maze/ When there's no more confetti to throw." The song draws to a close in true Tropicalista fashion, reminiscent of the psychedelic, cacophonic conclusion of 'Ando Meio Desligado' by Os Mutantes. The incongruous level of quality of foreign interpretations of Brazil and Brazilian music prevent the critical, investigative mind from trusting it as a reference for national identity. As accurate as the song may be, Beck's offering will only ever be a tribute to a past Brazilian cultural movement. However, as initiators and key players in a cultural movement such as Tropicália, Os Mutantes, Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso have come to personify Brazilian Popular Music, and by extension, Brazilian culture. Gil and Veloso are still active cultural icons in Brazil, both having released albums of original material in the last two years. It can be said that the culture of a nation represents the identity of its population. But there will inevitably be Brazilians who feel they are not accurately culturally represented by national arts, the country's racial mixture, or any of the attempts to define national identity in this essay. We must therefore conclude that Brazil's extensive musical history and level of miscegenation are but two particularly loud voices in the proverbial chorus of national opinion, that Brasilidade can only be defined by every expression, thought and action of every Brazilian since 1500. This article's original title was: "Is Brazilian Popular Music a projection of the nation's identity?" Bibliography * Brazilian Popular Music & Globalization. Edited by Charles A. Perrone & Christopher Dunn. Routledge, 2002. * The Brazilian Sound, Samba, Bossa Nova and the Popular Music of Brazil. Chris McGowan & Ricardo Pessanha, Temple University Press, 1998. * Hello, Hello Brazil - Popular Music in the Making of Modern Brazil. Bryan McCann. Duke University Press, 2004. * Race in Contemporary Brazil: From Indifference to Inequality. Edited by Rebecca Reichmann. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999. * Tropical Truth. Caetano Veloso, Bloomsbury, 2002. * Negotiating National Identity, Immigrants, Minorities, and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil. Jeffrey Lesser, Duke University Press, 1999. * Cinema Novo X 5: Masters of Contemporary Brazilian Film'. Randall Johnson. University of Texas Press, 1984. * Haroldo De Campos: A Dialogue with the Brazilian Concrete Poet'. Edited by K.David Jackson. Centre for Brazilian Studies, 2005. * Todo Dj Já Sambou. A história do disc-jóquei no Brasil. Claudia Assef. Conrad Editora do Brasil, 2003. * Website : http://www.tau.ac.il/eial/X_2/chormaio.html * Website : http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/brazil/black-brazilians.htm * Website : http://www.brazzil.com/content/view/8873/78/ * Website : http://www.brazzil.com/content/view/9539/78/ * Website : http://www.staticmultimedia.cjb.net * Website : http://www.allmusic.com Many thanks to Professor Bernard J McGuirk and Dr Mark Sabine at University of Nottingham for their help and guidance with this essay.
Austen Cruickshank (UK) is a musician, writer and World Music DJ. Cruickshank was captivated by foreign music from an early age, having lived in France, Spain and Brazil during his youth. A particular appreciation for Brazilian music and culture was formed during his months studying Portuguese in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, last year. Perturbed by the lack of exposure and understanding of foreign culture in his native England, Cruickshank attempts to set things straight through his music writing and DJ sets (Ginglik, London and Moog, Nottingham). Contact:
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