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Brazilian singer–songwriter Itamar Assumpção (São Paulo, 1949–2003) is best Brazilian music
remembered for his complex composition style and theatrical live performances. popular music
In the early 1980s, he started working with elements of what would later become voice
his trademark songwriting style: role playing, irreverence, acid social criticism singing
and the overlapping of different rhythmic patterns. On Assumpção’s first album, Itamar Assumpção
the independent release Beleléu leléu eu (1981), the songs form a narrative body Beleléu leléu eu
portraying the life of Beleléu, a dangerous criminal (created and performed by
Assumpção himself), and his gang (also his band) called Isca de Polícia (police bait).
The songs are based on an ambiguous play between biography and fiction: a complex
identity (de/re)construction in which Assumpção was able to transport the possibilities
of stage performance into the album, revealing to the listener his various personas
through various uses of his own voice. The songs combine the lyrics, rhythm, guitar/
bass lines, the use of spoken word and backing vocal interventions to create a highly
innovative songwriting style. The analysis of this album was complemented by a
1983 videotaped concert with a similar repertoire.

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;gfjY\g>YdZg

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YdZme\]lYadkYnYadYZd]
Yl`llh2''\ak[gk\gZjYkad& Beleléu leléu eu (1981)1, the first album by Brazilian singer–songwriter Itamar
[ge&Zj'\ak[gk\gZjYkad'
[gfkmdlY'\]lYd`]&
Assumpção (1949–2003), was released by Lira Paulistana, a small independent
h`h7A\W<ak[g5<A()*,0 label from São Paulo. Highly unconventional by the popular music standards
  9m\agkYehd]k of the time, the album was entirely conceived around the semi-fictional char-
YnYadYZd]Yl`llh2''
[daim]emka[&mgd& acters of Beleléu, a dangerous criminal, and his gang (also his band) called Isca
[ge&Zj'\ak[gk'n]j' de Polícia (police bait). Benedito João dos Santos Silva Beleléu aka Nego Dito
alYeYj%Ykkmeh[Yg' was created and performed by Assumpção himself in an ambiguous play on
Z]d]d]m%%d]d]m%%]m%%
alYeYj%Ykkmeh[Yg%]% autobiographical and fictional elements. The album’s songs form a narrative
ZYf\Y%ak[Y%\]%hgda[aY& body through which the listener is introduced to Beleléu, his violent suburban
 *& EYfql]klaegfa]kZq background and some of his adventures.
^]ddgoemka[aYfkYf\ According to the Houaiss Dictionary of Portuguese (2007), the word
^ja]f\k[YfZ]^gmf\af
;`Y_YkYf\LYjYflafg
beleléu is an informal Brazilian regionalism used in expressions such as ‘to
*((.!& go to beleléu’ (meaning reducing oneself to nothing, disappearing, dying)
and the related form ‘to send someone or something to beleléu’ (meaning to
kill someone, to make someone or something disappear). The name chosen
by Assumpção for his character clearly reflects an environment dominated
by poverty, violence and social exclusion, also revealing the deep irony and
witty criticism that were remarkable features of the author/artist’s songwriting
style throughout his 22-year-long musical career.
The album anticipates the theatrical quality of Assumpção’s live concerts,
which represented a highly innovative approach to performance in the 1980s
Brazilian popular music scene and was an important part of the artist’s strat-
egy of deliberately provoking strife between himself and his artistic alter ego.
Role-playing, overlapping vocals, dialogues and other elements that would
later be developed into a stage style easily recognizable by Assumpção’s fans
were already audible on these first recordings. In this article I argue that the
different uses of voice heard on the album played a decisive role in setting the
basis for the theatrical stage performances that came to be known as one of
Assumpção’s foremost trademarks. In order to support this argument, I have
conducted a comparative analysis using examples from both the album and a
videotaped concert with a similar repertoire (Assumpção 1983).
Assumpção was famously stubborn and perfectionist to a degree that
both amazed and annoyed the musicians with whom he worked.2 His stub-
bornness was also reflected in his categorical and lifelong refusal to give in
to the artistic and commercial standards of the popular music industry. One
direct result of this attitude is the fact that Assumpção’s work was appreci-
ated by a very restricted audience up until recently, when many of his songs
have been recorded by well-known commercially successful Brazilian singers
such as the late Cássia Eller, Chico César, Ney Matogrosso and Zélia Duncan.
Another result of Assumpção’s strictly independent career is the scarce
amount of video footage from his stage performances: very few television
appearances and almost no record of live concerts. The video I have used for
providing the examples discussed in this article is one of the rare samples of
Assumpção’s early performances and possibly his only complete live concert
ever recorded.

N9F?M9J<9H9MDAKL99F<AF<=H=F<=FLHJG<M;LAGF
When Assumpção began his musical career in the early 1980s, he was imme-
diately associated with a group of emerging artists in the São Paulo independ-
ent music scene. This group came to be known as the Vanguarda Paulista

)).
 L`]eYfqnga[]kg^AlYeYj9kkmeh„‚g

(the avant-garde from São Paulo) or Lira Paulistana (the São Paulo Lyre),  +& 9ddljYfkdYlagfk^jge
gl`]jdYf_mY_]k
in a direct reference to the name of a small basement theatre where most aflg=f_dak`Yj]eq
of these artists performed. Historian José Adriano Fenerick writes about the j]khgfkaZadalqYf\o]j]
Vanguarda Paulista group: eY\]]p[dmkan]dqoal`
l`]hmjhgk]g^[alYlagf
afl`akYjla[d]&
The expression Vanguarda Paulista was created by the São Paulo
local press at the beginning of the 1980s, probably influenced by the
avant-garde spirit which was associated with the city for decades. This
label included musicians with diverse artistic projects such as: Arrigo
Barnabé and Sabor de Veneno Band; Itamar Assumpção and Isca de
Polícia Band; the groups Rumo, Premeditando o Breque (Premê) and
Língua de Trapo, as well as other related singers such as Ná Ozzetti,
Suzana Salles, Eliete Negreiros, Vânia Bastos, Tetê Espíndola […]
This generation of songwriters and performers, roughly speaking,
emerged in 1979 when the Lira Paulistana Theatre opened and started
functioning as a catalyst for the underground and student cultures of
that time, creating a space for many new musicians who had been
‘militating’ in the city for some time, as is the case of the majority of
this post-Tropicalia generation. In this sense, the idea of innovation
and the avant-garde nature of these artists’ output were connected to
counterculture.
(2007: 17)3

The reference to Tropicalia can be misleading since the idea of an artistic

movement, in the sense of a collective and organized project, never existed
within the group. Nevertheless, the affinities among the artists were consider-
able: in addition to the common preoccupation with artistic innovation, the
group also shared similar ideas concerning their relationship with the record-
ing industry and their attitudes towards the production and distribution of
their music.
According to historian Laerte Fernandes de Oliveira, the term ‘independent’
is constantly applied to the Vanguarda Paulista artists not only as a way of
making reference to an aesthetic stance that refused to follow the standards
imposed by the popular music industry, but also to an active attitude of taking
into their own hands the production, distribution and marketing of their
albums, procedures that were traditionally controlled by the record compa-
nies (2002: 61). This so-called ‘independent production’ was regarded by the
artists as a way of ensuring their creative freedom and was often the only way
of ensuring that their work reached the public. Sean Stroud thus refers to the
rise of the independent record as the artists’ response to the music industry
during the mid-1970s:

Yet at a time when the search for new talent was considered to be
vital for record companies, the Brazilian music industry was enter-
ing one of its periodic downturns and financial belt-tightening meant
that there was suddenly precious little money available to invest in
the risky business of supporting unknown performers. Because they
either considered that there was no alternative, or in some cases for
ideological reasons, many artists, including Itamar Assumpção, now
turned to independent record companies in order to bring their music
to an audience, however small.
(2010: 90)

))/
;gfjY\g>YdZg

Music researcher Gil Nuno Vaz stresses the ambiguity of the ‘independent’
stance pursued by the artists through independent record production within
the context of the Brazilian music industry of the time:

the artist who intends to break through the blocking of record produc-
tion and distribution represented by the phonographic industry and
decides to do so through what has been conventionally called independ-
ent production, ends up facing not really an independent production
scheme but several levels of dependency.
(1988: 14, original emphasis)

Keith Negus (1996) has argued that the relationship between majors and inde-
pendent record companies tends to be seen according to a broader dichotomy,
namely the one that opposes commerce and creativity. Negus points out that
‘from the knowing perspective of academic theory, commerce versus creativ-
ity may be a clichéd argument, but from the perspective of the participants
of music scenes these ideas are part of the way in which they make sense of
what is happening to them’ (1996: 48). Indeed the claim for creative freedom
related to artistic innovation seems to be the main reason why the Vanguarda
Paulista artists have directed their efforts towards the independent produc-
tion, distribution and marketing of their music, however naïve this attitude
may have proven to be in terms of achieving their goals, namely making their
works reach the popular music audiences.
The Lira Paulistana label was created by music producer Wilson Souto Jr,
also founder of the Lira Paulistana Theatre. According to historian Marcia
Tosta Dias, ‘the activities of the Lira Paulistana Theatre made possible the
functioning of the Lira Paulistana Record Company and Publishing House,
responsible for a record label and a newspaper under the same name (“weekly
tabloid of event guides and services”)’ (2008: 142). By the time the record
label was created, the theatre had attracted a loyal audience: the small base-
ment was often crowded with mostly young students who identified with the
underground and avant-garde spirit of the emerging artists who performed
there. This relative success made Wilson Souto Jr and his associates realize
there was a potential niche market that had been completely ignored by the
major record companies and that could be explored commercially. They set
out to create the label and Assumpção was the very first artist to sign up with
them. It was during a local music festival in 1980 that Wilson Souto first met
Assumpção, as historian Daniela Ribas Ghezzi explains.

Arrigo Barnabé (who was by then a bit too famous to take part as a contest-
ant) was one of the festival’s judges along with Wilson Souto […] In addi-
tion to the opportunity of making live recordings of the winning songs,
part of the prize included a week of performances at the Lira Paulistana
Theatre […] Itamar won third prize with his song ‘Nego Dito’ and recorded
and performed the song at the Theatre with the other winners. The quality
of Itamar’s work as well as the public’s response to the same made Wilson
invite him to perform in the Theatre’s prime time slot for a week.
(2003: 140)

Assumpção’s music has had an impact on Wilson Souto and his associates
who immediately started to prepare for producing what would soon become
Beleléu leléu eu, Assumpção’s first album. This was also the beginning of the

))0
 L`]eYfqnga[]kg^AlYeYj9kkmeh„‚g

Figure 1: Itamar Assumpção and the Isca de Polícia Band at the Lira Paulistana
Theatre in a concert for the release of Beleléu leléu eu in 1981 (photo by
Nícia Guerriero).

Lira Paulistana record label that lasted for six years and released seventeen
records, including the second album by Assumpção and his band.

H=J;MKKAN=:9KK$J@QL@EA;NGA;=K
‘Complex’ and ‘difficult’ are adjectives often used by music writers to refer to
Assumpção’s work. The first issue to be considered here is the mix of reggae,
rock and funk that was the base for most of Assumpção’s early work and made
it impossible for the press to categorize his music according to the standards
of the time. The second issue seems to be related to Assumpção’s songwriting
style, which consisted mainly of overlapping rhythmic patterns, vocals, lyrics,
dialogues and bass lines. Finally, there were his highly unconventional live
performances, which emphasized the theatricality of his music and blurred
the lines between the fictional and autobiographical elements he used as raw
material for his writing. With regard to the ‘difficult’ nature of Assumpção’s
music, Sean Stroud writes.

Assumpção’s music often raises the expectations of the listener by

establishing a familiar harmonic or melodic base and then swiftly
confounds them by veering off in unexpected directions, thereby creat-
ing a persistent undercurrent of tension. Even in his most accessible
recording – his first LP – traditionally constructed rock/pop songs
are deconstructed or ‘undermined’ by a reggae bass line or an ironic
female doo-wop chorus or the overlapping multiple vocals that provide
an insistent counterpoint to the traditional role of the lead singer. This
use of multiple vocals was one of Assumpção’s trademarks, female
singers often providing an insistent commentary and dialogue with his
vocals (as in Nego Dito his most well-known composition), so much so

))1
;gfjY\g>YdZg

that the role of the backing singer (a traditionally female role in popu-
lar music) is usurped in favour of a far more democratic arrangement.
(2010: 94)

The conceptual complexity in defining song within the framework of popular

music is evidenced in the work of an artist such as Assumpção for the interac-
tion between lyrics and melody is insufficient even to make a proper transcrip-
tion of his music. Musician Clara Bastos, who played bass in Assumpção’s band
for many years and was responsible for the transcription and organization of
his work into a songbook, comments on some of the difficulties that had to be
faced during the course of registering Assumpção’s work in written form.

Listening to the first albums we notice that the songs’ arrangements are
decisive enough to be confused with the composition itself. A kind of
sound created to cause an impact, to make visible the songwriter, singer
and instrumentalist […] For the transcriptions and for the presentation
of the scores several criteria were established. It is a kind of music in
which it is not possible to standardize the notation. Each song presented
us with a new question to be dealt with for the transcription. There is not
always linearity in the information as opposed to most songs in Brazilian
popular music. There are many interventions, spoken word, rap, asym-
metric meter, instrumental conventions, silence, dynamics. The integral
arrangements are not included in the scores but only parts of them, as
they were considered useful for the comprehension of the songs. We
tried to portray the songs so that they were not bonded to the way they
were executed [on the recordings]. This was done in order to allow their
use to be free, according to a suggestion by Itamar himself.
(2006: 79, 83)

One of the main features of Assumpção’s work is his emphasis on rhythm.

The deliberate search for a percussive quality of musical phrases and words
has always guided his songwriting and arrangement. The bass and the groove
represented the core of Assumpção’s music as the artist himself once stated
when interviewed about his creative process:

The bass is the most percussive string instrument. It is a percussion instru-

ment capable of producing melody and what appeals to me is the possi-
bility of rhythm because rhythm is my business. The bass gave me a wider
range of phrases. Sometimes I don’t even compose with the guitar.
(Palumbo 2002: 34)

The centrality of the bass lines alone represented an important innovation

in the Brazilian popular music environment, mostly dominated by styles tradi-
tionally associated with the acoustic nylon-stringed guitar e.g. Samba-Canção,
Bossa Nova, and most of the Tropicalia scene. Assumpção played the guitar
very well but in his early work the bass and the drums are driving features of
the songs; even when the guitar was used, the focus was on rhythm rather
than harmony. Gil Nuno Vaz also writes about the central role of rhythm in
Assumpção’s songwriting style.

Itamar’s music developed into a crossing of various musical and theatri-

cal elements, with the dominance of rhythm, or rather, the overlaying

)*(
 L`]eYfqnga[]kg^AlYeYj9kkmeh„‚g

of rhythms over the basic pulse of the instruments, with slightly chang-
ing choruses and the voice play always attached to the rhythm, perhaps
through retardations, repetitions and spaces, or exploring the words
phonetically, but always creating surprise elements, introducing unex-
pected moments in the course of the songs.
(1988: 37–38)

One good example of Assumpção’s early songwriting style can be found in the
song ‘Embalos’ (1981). The excerpt of Clara Bastos’ transcription reproduced
here includes the lead vocal, the backing vocals and the bass line. This reggae-
style song is a typical example of Assumpção’s way of overlaying melodic lines
in order to emphasize the rhythmic aspect of the singing voice. In this excerpt,
we also notice his syncopated divisions of melodic phrases and the use of
staccato ‘ahs’ in order to accentuate the rhythm. The overlapping rhythmic
patterns are in fact a way of stressing and complementing the meaning of the
lyrics that vaguely describe the adventures of a ‘spinning’ Saturday night in
the city of São Paulo, with plenty of entertainment options but characterized
by noise, hassle and ‘endless queues’ (Assumpção 1981). The lyrics also make
an ironic reference to ‘embalos de sábado à noite’, the Portuguese title of the
film Saturday Night Fever.

Figure 2: ‘Embalos’ by Itamar Assumpção (excerpt) transcribed by Clara Bastos

(in Chagas and Tarantino 2006: 120).

)*)
;gfjY\g>YdZg

MF>GD<AF?NGA;=K
The album Beleléu leléu eu was conceived as a play between Itamar Assumpção
and the character Beleléu, his alter ego. This ambiguity can be observed in
every aspect of the album, from the sleeve art to the songs and their live
performances (I will return to this point later). The different uses of voice are
extremely important within the artist’s strategy to confuse the listener regard-
ing the play on identity. Throughout the album Assumpção uses his voice in
basically two ways: in most of the songs, he literally gives voice to the semi-
fictional character, performing his feelings as an actor would do in the context
of a theatrical play, but there are a few moments when Assumpção speaks
and sings for himself, that is, assuming a distanced position towards Beleléu
and the songs as his fictional creations.
Beleléu presents himself through a series of vignettes that consist of the
character’s complete name and alias sung to the beat of an acoustic guitar:
‘my name is Benedito João dos Santos Silva Beleléu aka Nego Dito, Nego Dito
Cascavé’ (Assumpção 1981). The vignettes, repeated throughout the album,
gradually evolve to a reggae beat and are later revealed as the chorus repeated
in the song ‘Nego Dito’, which closes the album with Beleléu telling his own
story, including his violent and criminal behaviour as well as his fights with the
police: ‘If you call the police, I’ll cut your face with a razor’ (Assumpção 1981).
The play on identity is extended to the band in the ‘Radiophonic vignette’,
in which Assumpção’s electronically distorted voice interrupts the chorus
to announce the capture of Beleléu and his gang in the manner of a police
news broadcast: ‘Finally Beleléu and his gang have decided to surrender
after a long period of resistance. Here at first hand are the true identities of
his highly dangerous gang’ (Assumpção 1981). The vignette continues with
Assumpção’s (not Beleléu’s) voice presenting the musicians who played on
each track of the album.
Assumpção and his character share some personal details such as birthplace
(the city of Tietê, in the State of São Paulo), blackness and marginality –
social/imposed for the character and artistic/deliberate for the songwriter.
Assumpção’s experience with the police occurred in the early 1970s as a direct
result of racism: he had borrowed a tape recorder from his friend Domingos
Pellegrini (now a well-known writer) and was arrested because a policeman
thought the recorder was stolen. According to Pellegrini, he had to go to the
police station in order to explain the situation and wrote a document stating
he was the owner of the recorder and had lent it to his friend: ‘I asked Itamar
to keep the document just in case … And, blinking those big eyes, he replied:
“I need to, this recorder is police bait”’ (2006: 19). In many senses, Beleléu is
a caricature of Assumpção’s own self-imposed marginality within the popular
music industry. Researcher and musician Luiz Tatit is well aware of this when
he discusses the ambiguous relationship between Assumpção and Beleléu and
its connection with the style of Assumpção’s writing and performance.

The blackness, the musical marginality, the madness described in many

of the [album’s] lyrics, all these elements evoked the thin and enig-
matic figure of the author who did nothing to dissociate the character
from the flesh and bone being. The musical complexity of the arrange-
ments revealed the African origins; the singularity of the musical solu-
tions, though easily recognised by the faithful public, represented an
additional obstacle for his acceptance by the mainstream of mass

)**
 L`]eYfqnga[]kg^AlYeYj9kkmeh„‚g

production; finally, the explicit madness of Beleléu was mixed with the
idiosyncrasies of the songwriter, not really willing to make concessions.
But, as strange as it may seem, there was also a distance between Itamar
and his character, emphasized by the vocal caricatures, by the humor-
ous witticisms and by the irony towards his own condition of excluded
artist. The radiophonic broadcasts […] the vignettes and, above all, the
[backing] vocal interventions which jumped to the fore, were always
malicious, undoing the immediate link between the interpreter and
his content. Beleléu was turned into a comic book anti-hero, with atti-
tudes that were laughable and caricatured but not entirely impossible.
Although in this case a certain satirical distance prevailed, the creator
was never too distant from its creation.
(2007: 214–15)

Focusing on the vocal aspect of Assumpção’s complex creature–creator rela-

tionship, researcher and singer Regina Machado (2007) analysed the uses
of voice in his early work. She proposes two greater categories of voice use
based on the singer’s (she uses the term ‘enunciator’) positioning within the
discourse: the first category ‘denotes impartiality, some distance between
enunciator and discourse, a third-person narrative’ (Machado 2007: 65),
whereas in the second category ‘the narrator’s participation may inspire
confidence, intimacy, proximity’ (Machado 2007: 64). These categories shift
a great deal in Assumpção’s songs, reflecting the play on the approximation
and distance between himself and the character. Machado also defines one of
Assumpção’s typical voice emissions as ‘tense-strangulated’, that is, ‘resulting
from the laryngeal force and stiffening of the vocal fold’ (2007: 59). She focuses
her comments on the song ‘Nego Dito’.

Although the lyrics are sung most of the time, the voices which inter-
fere [the backing vocals] make use of diverse emission patterns. In addi-
tion to the tense-strangulated emission, there are aired, modulated and
onomatopoeic emissions. Even though the interference of the voices
breaks the regularity of the harmonic base and melodic line, the use
of these vocal patterns corroborates the isotopies of violence and fear
present in the discursive level, transporting this signification to the
listener.
(Machado 2007: 82)

Machado’s observations can be applied to most of Assumpção’s early work,

especially the songs on the album Beleléu leléu eu. The song ‘Luzia’ empha-
sizes another element of Assumpção’s songwriting style: the intervention of
the backing vocals. In the song’s introduction we hear a monologue spoken
by the character Luzia, one of Beleléu’s lovers, angrily complaining about
his carelessness towards her and accusing him of ‘having lost his malice’
(Assumpção 1981). On the recording, the monologue is recited by vocal-
ist Eliana Inácio: her voice is multiplied through overdubbing and the many
resulting voices are heard slightly out of sync, creating a sense of confusion
for the listener, emphasizing Luzia’s anger and reproducing the irritation
probably felt by Beleléu on hearing it. The song itself consists of Beleléu’s
violent response to Luzia’s accusations, including him threatening to beat
her up (Assumpção 1981). Throughout the song, Beleléu’s singing is punctu-
ated by the vocalists’ interference replying ‘Bla bla bla’ and stressing some of

)*+
;gfjY\g>YdZg

the words he sings (Assumpção 1981). In the live concert (Assumpção 1983)
Luzia is performed by vocalists Suzana Salles and Virgínia Rosa recreating the
voice-overdubbing by overlaying their own out-of-sync live voices. Curiously,
although we can clearly see both vocalists performing on the video, we can
only hear one of them on the audio track. The recording was made for a tele-
vision broadcast (Assumpção talks directly to the camera in many occasions,
addressing ‘the viewers at home’) and despite the fact that we have found no
record of such, it is likely that one of the vocalist’s microphones was shut off
by a sound technician who probably thought the din caused by the out-of-sync
voices in Luzia’s opening monologue was a fault in need of correction.

NGA;=9F<A<=FLALQ <='J=!;GFKLJM;LAGF
The idea of voice as an unmistakable sign of individual identity seems to have
very deep roots in our cultural universe. We believe it is possible to identify
someone only by hearing her/his voice and this belief guides many relevant
aspects of our thinking and social interaction. Freya Jarman-Ivens discusses
these cultural ideas and some of their implications.

the act of speech is understood to reveal something of the speaker;

speech is considered to be very much of the person speaking. We can,
for instance, recognise individuals by their voices alone. Indeed, it is
perhaps rather important to us that this is true, there being a mild sense
of discomfort when the words ‘It’s me’ on the end of a phone line do
not lead the listener to instant recognition of the speaker.
(2009: 48, original emphasis)

Indeed, as an acoustic phenomenon directly related to the morphology of the

vocal tract and the body in general, the voice is capable of revealing many
physical qualities of the individual who produced it. Murray Schafer uses the
expression ‘voiceprint’ as a way of stressing the unique quality of each human
voice (1986: 127) but his indirect reference to the fingerprint, another power-
ful cultural symbol associated with individuality, can be misleading. The rela-
tionship between voice and identity seems to be much more complex than
it would appear: voices can be highly deceptive. According to Simon Frith,
the voice ‘may or may not be the key to someone’s identity, but it is certainly
a key to the ways in which we change identities, pretend to be something
we’re not, deceive people, lie’ (1996: 197). Even unintentionally, factors such
as emotional state and ambient noise can dramatically affect voice produc-
tion, rendering the task of voice recognition far more difficult. In addition to
this idiosyncratic quality, Patrick Berthier points out that our voices are the
result of a ‘psycho-historical construction’ (1998: 61) in constant development
rather than a simple genetic inheritance. He also comments on the techno-
logical findings related to the acoustic-phonetic decoding (which aims to
translate spoken language directly into written form) and speaker recogni-
tion systems always stressing the many limitations of these kinds of acoustic
analysis.

There is another thing in the voice, once the phonological and idio-
syncratic dimensions of speech have been dealt with. The mark of the
individual placed side by side with the mark of significance does not
constitute the whole voice. It is this remainder which is neither speech,

)*,
 L`]eYfqnga[]kg^AlYeYj9kkmeh„‚g

nor speaker, nor language, nor individual, which makes the ‘Man’ and
renders the instance of the voice problematic. The instance of the voice
in speech, understood in the same sense Lacan talks about the instance
of the letter in the unconscious […] It is this infra-linguistic and supra-
individual dimension which needs to be studied in order to reveal what
is at stake in voice.
(1998: 61)

In the same line of thought, the idea of the voice as a mediatory agent – between
the body (organic) and language (organization) as well as between the indi-
vidual (intrasubjective) and the social (intersubjective) – would be central to
a psychoanalytical approach to vocal expression, according to psychoanalyst
and singer Marie-France Castarède (2004: 131–40). It is precisely the many
levels of social mediation that render the issues involving voice and identity
within the context of popular music and the entertainment market in general
even more complex.
Edward Cone (1974) has discussed the many voices we hear within the
context of an operatic performance, namely the voices of the composer, the
character and the singer involved. Cone separates the vocal persona (identi-
fied with the character played by the singer) from the musical persona (the
composer implicit in the music): when playing a character, the singer is in
constant tension between her/his own desire of expressive freedom and the
restrictions of the character imposed by the composer (1974: 61–62). Cone’s
model can be a useful starting point to theorize the identity issues related
to the voice in music but the composer/character/performer distinction is
usually blurred when it comes to popular music, as singer–songwriters act
both as composers and performers. Furthermore, the public image of a pop
artist is generally constructed in a way that approximates the fictional and the
biographical, making it impossible to distinguish one from the other. Simon
Frith has discussed the role of voice in the construction of the pop artist’s
public persona.

The up-front star system means that pop fans are well aware of the
ways in which pop performers are inventions (and the pop biographer’s
task is usually therefore to expose the ‘real’ Bob Dylan or Madonna
who isn’t in their music). And in pop, biography is used less to explain
composition (the writing of the song) than expression (its performance):
it is in real, material, singing voices that the ‘real’ person is to be heard,
not in scored stylistic or formulaic devices. The pop musician as inter-
preter (Billie Holiday, say) is therefore more likely to be understood in
biographical terms than the pop musician as composer (Mark Knopfler,
say), and when musicians are both, it’s the performing rather than the
composing voice that is taken to be the key to character.
(1996: 185, original emphasis)

In Assumpção’s case this argument seems particularly relevant, as his

performances were a central part of his work and reflected his controlling atti-
tude concerning the presentation of his work in a live concert, including the
choice of musicians, detailed planning of arrangements, theatrical elements
to be used and exhaustive rehearsing. Discussing popular music concerts,
music researcher Christian Marcadet distinguishes ‘performance’ from ‘inter-
pretation’, the former encompassing the wider (historical, sociological and

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technical) context and the latter referring to the specific and immediate condi-
tions of stage presentation.

The interpretation of songs is by essence the centre of what is funda-

mental in performance […] The performance induces a relationship
between artist and audience which must be analyzed and the concept
that allows this analysis is that of the stage/audience or interpreter/
public communication which marks the nature and intensity of the rela-
tionship established between the different agents of performance […]
The interpretation is fundamentally an art of synthesis which combines
enacting, enunciation, personality, myth, audiences’ drives and context.
The artist must think his performances globally, serving his repertoire,
his personality, the characters he plays, the artistic media he uses, as
well as the audiences at which his spectacles are directed.
(2008: 13)

Assumpção’s work adds yet another element to the relationship between artist
and audience: the explicit play on biographical and fictional elements with
the character Beleléu. Both listeners to the album and the live audience were
presented with a double persona: the artist Itamar Assumpção was deliber-
ately confused with the fictional character he created for himself. Paul Zumthor
(1983) also considers the performer’s relationship with the audience in theat-
rical terms. He writes about the interaction of interpreter, text and audience,
three elements he considers essential within the dynamics of oral poetry, a
broad category in which the modern notion of popular music is included.
Zumthor is also aware of the identity issues involved in performance, especially
in the relationship established between performer (executer) and audience.

Whatever he says, the executer, may he be the author of the text or

not, does not talk about himself. The use of the ‘I’ is of little impor-
tance: the spectacular function of performance renders the pronoun
ambiguous enough for the dilution of its referential value in the audi-
ence’s conscience […] for the audience, the voice of this character who
addresses them does not belong to the mouth from which it comes: it is
originated somewhere else.
(1983: 231, original emphasis)

Assumpção is constantly remembered for his visceral live performances

as Beleléu. Singer Suzana Salles, vocalist in Assumpção’s band at the time,
remembers a night when

Paulo Barnabé [friend of Assumpção’s and former member of his band]

was in the audience and became frightened when Nego Dito threatened
him by putting his hand up to his face, as he liked to do when he came
down off the stage to sing directly to the audience: ‘I’ll cut your face
with a razor …’. Itamar himself told me this story later, very impressed
by the fact that Paulinho ‘who is my friend and knows me very well!’
was so scared by Itamar’s look and gestures. It was Nego Dito.
(in Chagas and Tarantino 2006: 136)

According to Laerte Fernandes de Oliveira, the musicians in the band

also played an important role in this play on identity: ‘the musicians in his

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[Assumpção’s] band performed dressed as prison inmates and the stage was
surrounded by ropes hanging down from the theatre’s ceiling in an imita-
tion of a jail cell’ (2002: 74). According to Luiz Tatit, Assumpção’s early work
‘signalled the presence of his deep voice and even his slim body as indis-
pensable conditions for a deep comprehension of what was being presented.
Little by little the powerful extra-musical personality turned into traces of
style within the compositions’ (2007: 212). Assumpção’s interpreters seem to
confirm Tatit’s argument, as most of the songs recorded by other artists are
taken from his later work.
The changes observed in Assumpção’s later work are numerous: the elab-
orate live performances gave way to more conventional shows, the complex
rhythmic patterns were replaced by melodies and chords that could easily be
reproduced even by amateur singers and guitar players, and his voice became
less aggressive. Samba and other Brazilian popular music styles were often
used instead of the reggae/rock/funk mix that characterized his first album.
The band was also reduced to a minimum: Assumpção himself playing the
acoustic guitar and singing, an electric guitar and a bass. Musician Clara
Bastos writes that

from 2000 on […] there were no more rehearsals. It was just playing
with complete trust that the musical language was assimilated by the
musicians. There was space left for surprise, like in jazz, only in this
case we improvised with the song’s dynamics, with the audience’s reac-
tions, with the musical intentions, with the kind of accompaniment,
with silence.
(2006: 81)

Assumpção’s last character was named Pretobrás (black Brasil is a possible

translation) in an ironic play on the name of the Brazilian state oil company:
Petrobrás (which stands for Brazilian Petroleum). This character was the
protagonist of a trilogy completed only after Assumpção’s death and was in
many senses a development of Beleléu/Nego Dito. Nevertheless, Pretobrás
was not performed onstage like Assumpção’s first creation: he existed only in
the songs and was heard only through the voice of his creator.

:=QGF<L@=9M<A:D=
One of the main features of the album is its conceptual unity. Not only the
songs, but the graphic elements (cover, back cover and inner sleeve) and the
title are decisive for the listener to fully comprehend the stories of Beleléu
and the complex relationship established between the character and his crea-
tor. Itamar Assumpção is not mentioned on the album’s cover, which reads
‘Beleléu leléu eu’ above the name ‘Isca de Polícia’ with a close-up photo of
Assumpção in the background (Figure 5). These elements are displayed in
a way that would certainly confuse anyone who had not known the artist
before – and this would mean almost every potential buyer picking up the
album in a store (considering it was Assumpção’s debut). Even the album’s
title is not clear as there is no reference to ‘Isca de Polícia’ as a band. The
album’s back cover (Figure 4) is a mosaic of photos of the musicians, producer
Wilson Souto Jr and the ID card of sound technician Helder Marques. In the
central square, there is a 3×4cm picture of Assumpção wearing a suit (the
stamp indicates it was probably taken for an official document) and the words

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;gfjY\g>YdZg

‘Beleléu e Banda Isca de Polícia’. A small photo of a razor engraved with the
name ‘Itamar Assumpção’ is the only reference to the artist’s name in addition
to the credits on the inner sleeve.
The play on identity between Assumpção and Beleléu is subtly emphasized
by certain elements that clearly indicate the artist’s intention of confusing the
listener or at least catching his/her attention. The word ‘eu’ (‘I’ in Portuguese)
contained in Beleléu’s name is stressed by the phonetic play ‘Beleléu leléu
eu’, going from the alias to the first person of the discourse but not revealing
which one is speaking. On the inner sleeve there is a photograph showing the
(real) voter’s registration card of Francisco José Itamar de Assumpção and a
razor (Figure 3). Both elements can be considered identity documents within
different contexts: one for the official formalities of life and the other for the
violent universe of the streets.
In addition to the album’s conceptual unity beyond the musical and narra-
tive aspect of the songs, Assumpção was and still is celebrated because of his live
performances. Although scarcely documented, his performances are mentioned in
all relevant studies focusing on the Vanguarda Paulista scene (see Fenerick 2007;
Oliveira 2002; Ghezzi 2003; Vaz 1988). Assumpção’s experience with student
theatre groups during the time he lived in Paraná was a decisive influence on his
music. One of his first appearances as a musician in a student festival resulted in
a special prize for ‘total performance’ (see Giorgio 2005).
Recorded at Sala Funarte in São Paulo, the concert Itamar Assumpção e Banda
Isca de Polícia (1983) is one of the rare live videos of Assumpção’s performances
and probably the only record of a complete concert. The musicians who played
in the concert are not entirely the same band heard on the album. Vocalist
Virgínia Rosa remembers being invited to join the band for the live shows by
her former guitar teacher Rondó: ‘My teacher Rondó had just finished recording
the album Beleléu. But the band mentioned on the album’s cover didn’t really

Figure 3: Photo on the inner sleeve (Razor and Assumpção’s Voter Registration) by
A. C. Tonelli.

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 L`]eYfqnga[]kg^AlYeYj9kkmeh„‚g

Figure 4: Album’s back cover by A. C. Tonelli.

Figure 5: Album’s front cover by A. C. Tonelli.

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;gfjY\g>YdZg

exist and needed to be put together for the album release show’ (in Chagas and
Tarantino 2006: 36). The musicians who played at the first live performances
were: Vânia Bastos, Virgínia Rosa, Suzana Salles and Jorge Matheus (vocalists);
Gigante Brazyl and Cezinha (percussion); Paulo Barnabé (drums); Luiz Lopes
(keyboards); Sérgio Pamps (bass); Luiz Chagas and Rondó (electric guitars).
After some changes, the band was finally formed in 1983 and started playing
the repertoire of the first album along with new songs that would later become
Assumpção’s second album, recorded live later that same year.
In contrast with the album recordings, the live performance is comple-
mented by the vocalists’ dancing, costumes, theatrical gesture, role playing
and intonation as well as some improvised lines relating to the lyrical content.
Two examples are worth mentioning in order to illustrate some of the strate-
gies used by the performers to emphasize the concert’s theatricality.
The live version of the song ‘Luzia’ is performed by Assumpção and
vocalists Suzana Salles and Virgínia Rosa: both vocalists play the character
Luzia angrily addressing Assumpção as Beleléu. The vocalists’ gestures and
intonation emphasize Luzia’s anger towards Beleléu. The lyrics ‘I know your
mother used to say “he’s another scoundrel, maybe a thief”. As if the mother-
in-law wasn’t enough, now it’s the daughter … What a disappointment’,
sung by Assumpção on the album, are taken over by vocalist Suzana Salles
who plays Luzia’s mother imitating the voice of an angry old lady. During
the whole performance, the vocalists keep interacting with Assumpção as
Luzia would behave with Beleléu: they shout at him and respond to his
words with disdain.
The song ‘Nega Música’ that compares the power of seduction of black
music to that of a woman’s is a canon sung (in the album) by Assumpção
and vocalist Maria Alice Souto: their voices are multiplied by overdubbing
and the simple melodic line is progressively made more complex. At the
live concert, the song is performed solo by vocalist Virgínia Rosa, singing
directly to Assumpção, who remains onstage, silently bewitched by Rosa’s
singing and provocative gestures. The song’s formal structure heard on the
album gives way to an emphasis on the interpretation of lyrics observed at
the live performance: Virgínia Rosa literally acts the song, playing the part
of Nega Música.

;GF;DMKAGF
Asumpção’s work reflects his personal project of a radical new approach to
songwriting in contrast to the mainstream popular music scene of the 1980s
but deeply rooted in the Brazilian tradition of urban popular music, namely
samba, in its combinations with reggae, rock‘n’roll and funk. His music can
be regarded as the result of a unique vision of the theatrical possibilities of
popular music performance combined with a powerful and irreverent critique
of the popular music industry.
The label of ‘marginal artist’ is frequently applied to Assumpção by the
Brazilian media. However, any marginal condition with which Assumpção
could be associated would obviously transcend any strict definition of the term.
In his musical work we can observe the marginality not only in the theme
of the songs (often related to a suburban environment of poverty, violence
and exclusion) but especially in the artist’s categorical and lifelong refusal
to conform to the standards imposed by the music industry. This conviction
led him to produce and distribute his work through alternative channels as

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opposed to the massive circuit of the entertainment market. Assumpção’s

confident artistic choices and the controlling and uncompromising ways with
which he has conducted his career seem to challenge the idea of marginal-
ity as an imposed condition related to involuntary exclusion and stigma. Far
from meaning artistic isolation, these choices have created the conditions
Assumpção always seemed to believe necessary for the development of his
work. If his attitude had its setbacks (such as a precarious distribution system
and the consequent limited public visibility) they were consciously accepted
by the artist in the name of his artistic project. He recorded nine albums in
his lifetime, eight of which were independent releases. He often claimed that
refusing financially profitable contracts with major record companies was diffi-
cult but did not compare to giving up his creative plans in order to conform
to the vogue of commercial popular music standards (see Palumbo 2002: 34).
Assumpção’s songs have been increasingly recorded by many Brazilian main-
stream artists, a fact that only confirms the subversion of the marginal label
the artist achieved with his work.
Performance was a central element in Assumpção’s work and his uses of
voice on record in many ways anticipate the theatrical style of his live perform-
ances later developed to the point of becoming a trademark easily recogniz-
able by fans and critics. Assumpção’s approach to performance and his use of
rhythmic combinations are deeply connected since the theatrical gesture that
was a central part of his early work is indissociable from the beat and the
movement it inspires.
The uses of voice heard in Assumpção’s albums reflect both the theatrical
and rhythmic aspects of his work: the ‘doo-woop’ vocals, the backing vocal
interventions, the role playing and the sound effects (overdubbing, distortion
etc.) were used in order to emphasize these qualities.
In addition to the audible qualities of Assumpção’s voices, the instances
they represent are extremely relevant for the listener to fully comprehend his
work: the voices of the songwriter, the performer and the character are one
and the same for they come from a single person but also reveal a complex and
playful artistic personality that was always capable of subverting all attempts
at categorization.

9;CFGOD=<?=E=FL
I am grateful to Clara Bastos, Elizena Brigo de Assumpção, Nícia Guerriero,
Antonio Carlos Tonelli and Paulo Priolli for helping me provide the images for
this article, and Sean Stroud for sending me his article on Itamar Assumpção
and the Vanguarda Paulista. I am also grateful to Millie Taylor, Dominic
Symonds and two anonymous peer reviewers for their comments on previous
drafts of this article.

J=>=J=F;=K
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KM??=KL=<;AL9LAGF
Falbo, C. (2012), ‘The many voices of Itamar Assumpção: Deconstructing
identities and subverting marginality in Brazilian popular music’, Studies in
Musical Theatre 6: 1, pp. 115–133, doi: 10.1386/smt.6.1.115_1

;GFLJA:MLGJ<=L9ADK
Conrado Falbo is a Ph.D. student in Literary Theory at Universidade Federal de
Pernambuco (UFPE), Brazil. His work as a researcher, musician and performer
explores the multiple expressive possibilities of the voice and the body.

Conrado Falbo has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that
was submitted to Intellect Ltd.

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