Voices of Samba: Music and the Brazilian Racial Imaginary, 1955-1988.

by

Stephen Anthony Bocskay

B.A., Cornell University, 1999

A.M., Cornell University, 2005

A.M., Brown University, 2009

Thesis

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of

Philosophy in the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University

May 2012
 Copyright

by

Stephen Anthony Bocskay

2012
 iii

This dissertation by Stephen Anthony Bocskay is accepted in its present form by the

Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies as satisfying the dissertation

requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Date . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................................

Dr. Nelson H. Vieira

Recommended to the Graduate School

Date . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................................

Dr. Luiz F. Valente

Date . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................................
Dr. Anani Dzidzienyo

Approved by the Graduate School

Date . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................................
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Vita

Stephen Bocskay was born on September 24, 1975 in Yonkers, New York. He

grew up in southern Westchester County, New York and received his secondary

education at Harrison High School. In 1995, he transferred as a President’s List nominee

from Westchester Community College to Cornell University, where he earned a B.A.

with distinction in Hispanic Studies in 1999. As an undergraduate student at Cornell,

Stephen won the J.G. White Scholarship competition for excellence in creative writing in

Spanish. Shortly afterwards, he returned to Cornell where he completed an A.M. in

Hispanic Studies in 2005, and achieved fluency in both Brazilian and Continental

Portuguese thanks to two FLAS awards with which he studied in Rio de Janeiro (2003)

and Lisbon (2004). Given his wide range of interests, Cornell granted Stephen the

opportunity to teach Spanish and Italian languages, United States literature, as well as

Brazilian and Hispanic American film and literature. After Cornell, Stephen became a

graduate student in Brown University’s Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies.

As a graduate student at Brown, Stephen performed archival and ethnographic research

on samba and black culture in Rio de Janeiro through the generosity of the Belda Fund

(2009), the Heimark Fund (2009), and was also the recipient of the Brazilian Studies

Association’s Jon M. Tolman Prize (2010) for academic excellence in the Brazilianist

field. In April 2012, Stephen successfully defended his dissertation, Voices of Samba:

Music and the Brazilian Racial Imaginary, 1955-1988, and intends to receive his Ph.D. in

Luso-Brazilian Studies in May 2012 from the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian

Studies at Brown University. While in Providence, Rhode Island, he taught courses in the
 v

Portuguese language as well as Brazilian literature, theatre and Cultural Studies at

Brown, and Brazilian literature at Rhode Island College. In September 2012, Stephen will

begin teaching Brazilian Cultural Studies in the Department of Romance Languages and

Literatures at Harvard University.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

After a pleasant dinner at professor Onésimo Almeida’s home, his son asked me,

“why did you decide to study Brazil?” As I thought of an answer, he interjected, “a

woman!” I smiled in (partial) agreement. In truth, my first real curiosity with Brazilian

culture began in 1997. Before falling asleep one night while living in Lima, Peru, I came

across a Brazilian soap opera. The sensuality of the language and the frivolous dialogues

sparked my interest. Since then, I had a feeling that Peru’s big neighbor, Brazil, would

become part of my future; yet, at the time, I had not imagined how or to what extent. In

academia, then Cornell University professor, José Maria Rodriguez Garcia, helped me lay

the foundations for my career as a Brazilianist. As a Galician scholar whose academic

interests involve the Americas and Europe, José Maria encouraged me to learn the

Portuguese language (both Brazilian and Continental, which I did), and to research the

literature of the Lusophone world. Thanks to his openness and support, I was able to

prepare an academic dossier that facilitated my entry into Brown’s Portuguese and

Brazilian Studies Ph.D. program. Before I travelled to Brazil for the first time in 2002, I

taught Spanish to a young boy in Harrison, New York. One day, as I mentioned to the

boy’s mother that I would travel to Brazil, she offered to put me in touch with a Brazilian

named Jack, who frequents her synagogue in Scarsdale, N.Y. Before moving to New

York, Jack was an acquaintance of the samba musician, Paulinho da Viola. When I

visited Jack, he grasped the phone and called Paulinho. I spoke with Paulinho’s daughter,

Cecília, who asked me to get in touch with her upon my arrival in Rio. A few weeks later,

with my feet on the ground in Rio, Cecília, João, and Beatriz picked me up in a humble
 vii

pousada in Catete, and took me to their house in the Barra da Tijuca. In their house, I

spent the afternoon with them and their father, Paulinho da Viola, sipping chacaça, and

conversing about life, music and art. Paulinho was genteel, so much so that he gave me a

ride in his pickup truck all the way from the Barra da Tijuca back to the Catete. As

Paulinho sings, “o samba me chama” [samba calls me]. Clearly, samba was calling me

too.

My first agradecimentos go out to the woman who brought me into this world,

Magdalene Bocskay. My mother, like Glauber Rocha’s mother, has made incredible

sacrifices to have me succeed. Dona Madá, a Franciscan catholic and woman of spirit, is

one of the most loving human beings I have ever met. Her easygoing nature and total

selflessness has left a lasting mark on me and on anyone who has crossed paths with her.

Likewise, my father, John Bocskay, has been, and is, a positive force in my life. I would

also like to send a big warm hug to my brothers, Dean and John. My father, who does not

have any brothers, once made a valid point: there is nobody closer to me than my

brothers.

As far as my research experiences are concerned, there are so many wonderful

people I would like to agradecer in Brazil. Throughout the years, The Instituto Cravo

Albin has been one of my consistent research sites for Brazilian Popular Music. Paula

Aranha, Linda, Alessandro, and Ricardo Cravo Albin were all so kind and helpful.

Celeste, Valeria and Elizete Higino of the Music Division of Rio de Janeiro’s Biblioteca

Nacional were also fundamental in the first stages of archival research, especially

regarding the chapter on Zé Keti. A special thanks goes out to Heloisa Buarque de

Hollanda for the invitation to participate in the PACC (Programa Avançado de Cultura
 viii

Contemporânea) at the UFRJ (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro) in 2009-2010.

Likewise, Cimara Chein of UniverCidade in Ipanema pointed me in the right direction on

several occasions concerning archival research in Rio de Janeiro. I would also like to

thank Cimara for delivering me to the Funarte, where I fell into the graces of Márcia

Claudia Figueireido. The Museu da Imagem e do Som, and to a lesser degree, Instituto

Moreira Salles, have also proven fruitful in the progress of this dissertation.

Beyond the archives, there are many other friends, artists, intellectuals, and samba

musicians who contributed to the field research component of this dissertation. Despite

several conversations on a lackluster phone connection, the journalist and writer, Simon

Khoury, has been a great help. Simon made me DVD copies of interviews that he

conducted in the 1970s with Zé Keti and other sambistas. Many thanks to one of the most

knowledgeable writers of samba, Marília T. Barboza da Silva, who invited me to her

house in Urca, where we had a most invigorating papo about samba and black culture.

My admiration goes to Marília for her humanity and thirst for knowledge. There were

moments in Brazil when the jeitinho brasileiro was not enough to meet interviewees. In

dire times like these, I resorted to what I call the jeitão novaiorquino-carioca. In Rio, I

was stumped and short on ideas to track down Sérgio Cabral, the historian, father of the

current governor of Rio. My neighbor, of all people, Aloysio Cassano, a retired career

man of the Brazilian military, asked Cabral for his e-mail address while exercising in one

of the many gyms in Rio’s Zona Sul. Aside from being vascaíno, the “true Carioca

team,” Sérgio Cabral is one of the very few people who are in tune with the nuances

surrounding racial questions in the history of samba lyrics. When I was scrambling to

locate the bossanovista Carlos Lyra, I began to ask people in the Ipanema Beach gym if
 ix

they knew any samba or MPB musicians. Lo and behold, Mary Berezin, a fellow member

of this gym, provided me with Lyra’s e-mail address. In fact, both Carlos Lyra and

Ferreira Gullar aided me in filling in some of the blanks regarding the Show Opinião.

Apparently, gyms—and as I later found out with Martinho da Vila—botequins, are sound

places to accomplish certain research goals. One day I bumped into Martinho da Vila in a

botequim near the Academia Brasileira de Letras, and jotted down his e-mail address.

Two days later I sent him an e-mail to which he never responded. Nevertheless, a couple

of days later, I attended Salgado Maranhão’s book launch for A Cor da Palavra, and

serendipitously found myself exchanging ideas with Martinho’s agent, Rejane Guerra.

Not only has Rejane become a friend, but has also been very supportive of my

dissertation project, publishing notes about my research in the Brazilian media. I would

like to thank Rejane for putting me in contact with Martinho da Vila and his nephew,

Fernando, who have been generous with their time and materials. Likewise, my deepest

respect and appreciation goes to Elton Medeiros, who is one of my most thought-

provoking interlocutors and cultural informants for his vast knowledge of samba and the

complex history of black culture in Brazil. Much gratitude and admiration goes to Nei

Lopes, who is, in my view, one of the most significant intellectuals in Brazil, and also a

top samba musician and composer. Many thanks to Nei and his son Nei T. Lopes, who

has also clarified several doubts that manifested about his father’s music. Fernando

Pamplona was instrumental in regard to the 1960s themes in Rio’s carnival. Muniz Sodré

has been resourceful on all fronts—being one of the most accesible and knowledgeable

scholars in the area of black culture in Brazil. Spending an afternoon with Dona Ivone

Lara in her house in Oswaldo Cruz was extraordinary because, aside from granting me an
 x

interview, we also played samba and sung together. That encounter would never have had

happened without Marília T. Barbosa and Bruno Castro, Dona Ivone’s cavaquinista.

Since I met Salgado Maranhão in Providence, Rhode Island in 2007, he has been

there for me in my worst and best moments while I lived in Brazil. Salgado is partially

responsible for the selection of the samba musicians who appear in this dissertation. Over

the past four years, we have spent a lot of time together, and he has seen this dissertation

grow from a seed to a palmeira. Rita Ippolito has also been a very special person in this

process. In Rio, Rita has become my adoptive Italian-Carioca family, a person with

whom I can have delicious Sicilian food on Sundays, and hold stimulating discussions on

just about any topic. Some of the other people who have helped me in some way, shape

or form are: Vivian Freire and Dario and Marion Campos of the Consulate General of

Brazil in New York, Luiz Zanin and Maria do Rosário Caetano of the newspaper O

Estado de São Paulo, João Rabello, Paulinho da Viola, Jack and Annette Silber, Claudia

Freitas, Bruno Bacellar, Marcia Da Matta Watzl, David Bailey, Hannah Sikorski, Pedro

Faissol, Jerry Dávila, Charles Perrone, Adalberto Paranhos, José Roberto Zan,

Christopher Dunn, Matt Gutmann, André Lara, Eliana Lara, Pedro Boca, Dona Maria do

Salgueiro, and Helena Castro and her mother Rosa, who gave me an excellent DVD on

samba de coco and two books on samba, one of which was Hermano Vianna’s O

Mistério do Samba.

Research is made possible by the generosity of others. Deep felt thanks to the

Brazilian Studies Association (BRASA), for awarding me with the Jon M. Tolman Prize

with which I presented the first chapter of my dissertation, on Zé Keti and racial

discourses from 1955-1964, to the Brazilianist community in Brasília in 2010. In

 xi

addition, I am especially grateful to Brown University, which provided me with financial

support throughout my six years as a graduate student in the form of fellowships and

awards—such as the Belda Fund (2009), the Heimark Fund (2009), and financial

resources to present the second chapter of my dissertation on Candeia at the UNIRIO in

Urca, Rio de Janeiro. Many thanks to professors Charles Feitosa and Jair Martins de

Miranda, the doctoral students of the graduate studies program in Philosophy, POP-LAB,

(Núcleo Transdisciplinar de Estudos em Filosofia e Cultura Pop), and to everybody else

who attended and partook in the debate at UNIRIO in July, 2011.

The creation, development, and completion of this dissertation would have been

unimaginable without the intellectual and moral support of my three dissertation

committee members at Brown University. Those people are, my advisor, Nelson Vieira,

and professors Luiz Valente and Anani Dzidzienyo. I cannot stress enough the role that

the diversity of the racial and national identities of my committee members has had in the

originality of this dissertation. My advisor, Nelson Vieira, is one of the most engaging

literature professors I have ever had. As a graduate student at Brown, Dr. Vieira was

always enthusiastic about my research projects; as a dissertation advisor, he has been an

excellent mentor. Dr. Vieira’s deep knowledge of and passion for Brazilian literature and

culture are admirable. Professor and native of Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, Dr. Valente’s

criticisms on my essays were never taken for granted, as he made it clear from my

beginnings as a graduate student at Brown that he expected only my best, and that I

would be thankful in hindsight. Dr. Valente’s seminars on Brazilian intellectual history

and Brazilian poetry were the highlights of my years as a graduate student at Brown. As a

leading specialist in race relations in Latin America for several years, Dr. Dzidzienyo has
 xii

been an essential component in my intellectual and spiritual development, and that of my

doctoral dissertation, which deals heavily with racial history and politics in Brazil and the

Americas in general. I have also learned a great deal about Portuguese literature and

history from Dr. Onésimo Almeida and Dra. Leonor Simas-Almeida. In addition, my

heartfelt gratitude goes to Dra. Patrícia Sobral, who is one of the most dynamic

professors I have encountered in my graduate studies. As the backbone of our

department, our secretaries, Candida Hutter and Armanda Silva, have been so gracious

over the years. There are no words to measure the depth of my gratitude to the two of

them. I owe a special thanks to the undergraduate and graduate students at Brown, and to

my friends Isadora and Keiser, Karina, Oscar, Elena, Mahir, Rafa, and Ezio for making

graduate life at Brown enjoyable. As you may already know, any great work is a

collaborative effort. Thanks to all who have been with me then and now. This means

especially you, Giulia Gam.

Stephen A. Bocskay
Providence, RI, April 2012
 xiii

Table of Contents

Introduction

Contributions to Brazilian Popular Music ……………………..……....………………....1

Why O Mistério do Samba? …………………………………………………………........3

CHAPTER 1: Racial Discourses around Samba, 1955-1970

Zé Keti’s “A Voz do Morro”: The ‘Appearance’ of Race in the Mid 1950s …………...33

Cinema Novo and the Afro-Sambista ...............................................................................45

The Show Opinião: “Engagé Politics” in 1964 ……...………………………………….49

Afro-Brazilian History in the Sambas-Enredo during the 1960s ……….……………….57

CHAPTER 2: Candeia, Quilombo and Black Soul 1970-1977

Black Consciousness in Samba Lyrics circa 1970 ……………………………………...65

Afro-Brazilian Literature in the Early 1970s ……………………………………………74

Understanding Quilombo: Brazilian Culture? …………………………………………..77

Nationalism and the Location of Black Soul in Candeia ………………………………..89

CHAPTER 3: Café without Leite: Samba and Racial History in Nei Lopes, 1978 -
1983

The “Other Voices” in Quilombo ………………….......................................................111

Afro-Brazilian Literature in the Late 1970s ………………………………..………….125

Negro Mesmo and Black Affirmation in the Early 1980s ………………………….….133

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CHAPTER 4: Africa/ Brazil: Martinho da Vila and Kizomba, 1974-1988

Martinho and Africa from 1974 to 1986 ………………………………………….........152

Kizomba, and the Centenary of the Abolition of Slavery, 1988 …..……………..…….164

Conclusion: Nationalizing a Blackness “Out of Focus”.................................................182

Appendix: Reflections on Fieldwork Methodologies……....……………………….....194

Bibliography ……………...…………….……………………….…………………….210
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Preface

Origin of Thesis

Arriving at samba and racial politics as a destination involves a journey that

began during my childhood. Music has always been key in my life: my maternal

grandfather, an Italian-American, plays the ukulele (an instrument similar to the

cavaquinho); my paternal grandfather, a Hungarian-American, was an accomplished

cellist; and my brother, John, and my uncle Bill, are both guitarists, who were always at

the forefront of experimental United States rock music in New York City. At the age of

ten, I decided to take on the trumpet in the Parsons Elementary School big band in

Harrison, New York. After a brief, yet very intense year or so playing the trumpet, I

devoted myself to the drums in high school, and djembe throughout college. My love for

offbeat, syncopated percussion found its home with samba and bossa nova in my mid-

twenties, modalities that I learned to sing and play by ear on several percussion and string

instruments.

As far as race and class relations are concerned, I cannot forget the days when I

worked as a caddy at several different Country Clubs in Westchester County, New York.

When I was about twenty years old, Lawrence Otis Graham, wrote the book, Member of

the Club: Reflections on Life in a Polarized World (1995), which depicts, among many

autobiographical accounts, his confrontations with racism as he went undercover,

working as a busy boy in a Connecticut Country Club. Nevertheless, as I continued my

undergraduate and graduate research in the United States, Spain, and Brazil, and travelled

throughout the United States, Europe, and Latin America, from the age of nineteen until
 xvi

the present, it became very clear to me that Otis Graham’s experiences with racism in the

United States reflect those of many other afrodescendants in the world. Brazil is certainly

no exception. Since my first trip to Brazil in 2002, I have witnessed countless incidents of

blatant racism on a daily basis. While living in Salvador, Bahia in 2002, my neighbor

refused to talk to me because one of my guests was brown skinned. This was an

occurrence witnessed by our fellow neighbor and friend of mine—who, coincidentally,

has since become a professor of Afro-Brazilian culture. Over the past decade, I have

experienced social interactions in Brazil that would be seemingly unthinkable in the

United States, moments that gave me the sensation of having been momentarily

transported to sixteenth century colonial Brazil, as when a young black Brazilian woman

pointed to my straight hair and stated, “você tem cabelo bom, e eu, cabelo ruim” [you

have nice hair, and I have bad hair].

Academically, Brown University’s Department of Portuguese and Brazilian

Studies has granted me the remarkable and unique opportunity to combine my interests in

music and racial studies. During my six years as a graduate student at Brown, I have

benefited from a most diverse doctoral committee in terms of nationality and race (an

uncommon happening in the Brazilian University system): a Ghanian, a Brazilian

(Carioca), and an American who are all well respected and established specialists in the

field of Brazilian cultural studies. I am certain that it is this diversity that has allowed me

to approach samba in a way that no other has done before. These three professors

encouraged me to go beyond the usual, and I did. Aside from reading about samba and

race relations in the Americas for years, I have been very fortunate to play music with

illustrious Brazilian musicians.

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The Musical and Racial Connection in the Americas

The African diaspora in the Americas has laid the foundations of and contributed

to the proliferation of musical genres and styles, such as: zouk in the Creole-speaking

Antilles of the Caribbean, cumbia in Colombia, samba in Brazil, bomba and plena in

Puerto Rico, merengue in the Dominican Republic, jazz in the United States, and son

montuno, guaguanco, and mambo in Cuba.1 Nevertheless, ones’ political orientation

regarding theories on racial mixing and nation building in the Americas raises questions

as to how and to what degree musical genres can be attributed to specific ethnic groups.

That is to say, what are the motives and/or benefits for people to refer to samba in terms

of national identity as a “Brazilian music” of all races and not as the patrimony of “Afro-

Brazilians?” The “black origins” and melting-pot models may be two sides of the same

coin (Hersch 2007), yet it is not primarily a question of the extent and desirability of

“melting.”2 As an area of research in which perspectives on the experiences of race

relations of Afro-Brazilians are either avoided or idealized as cordial and harmonious,

1
This is a select list of some of the African-based musical styles and genres in Latin America. In Brazil, for
example, there is also: afoxé, maculêlê, jongo, samba de roda, partido alto, samba-reggae, among others.
2
As an advocate for the melting-pot model, Hersch considers his approach to racial studies in the area of
jazz to be novel given that he, like other “recent” theorists, sees “white,” “black,” “Hispanic,” Asian and so
on as socially constructed rather than natural. In my view, perhaps a more reasonable position is
somewhere in between, for social constructions are based on physical and historical differences. For
example, Hersch states that a light-skinned African American may be “black” to white neighbors but “high
yellow” to other African Americans. In short, racial identity changes with one’s location. The Puerto Rican
born writer and author of the autobiographical novel Down These Mean Streets (1967), Piri Thomas, who
was of Indian, African, and European ancestry, “chose” black because of his dark skin complexion,
whereas his brother, lighter in skin tone, “became” white. Hersch argues further that, in the United States,
Thomas was Puerto Rican in New York, while on Long Island he was accused of passing for white, and
was black in the south. This is a clear example of someone who forces a theoretical preference to make an
argument. First, it is hard to believe that Thomas was not also considered black in Harlem. By the same
token, in the south, it makes little or no sense to think that his identity as a black Puerto Rican would not
become visible in conversation. Since there are more people of Puerto Rican heritage in New York City
than in Puerto Rico itself, and very few Puerto Ricans in the south, especially at the time, it makes some
sense that some people may have considered him “black” before Puerto Rican. Last, it is equally
implausible to imagine darker skinned blacks referring to Thomas as “high yellow” (9-10).
 xviii

Ana Maria Rodrigues (1984), Nei Lopes (1981), Candeia and Isnard Araújo (1978),

Muniz Sodré (1998), Alison Raphael (1980), and João Baptista Borges Pereira (1967) are

just some of the writers who have made sincere attempts to delineate the racial history of

samba through the disciplines of political science and sociology. There are also others

like Orestes Barbosa (1978), whose text reads like a creative fiction novel, or other highly

recommended texts (Vianna 95) that equate occasional musical interactions between a

handful of privileged whites and black musicians with a society devoid of racial strife and

balkanization.

For example, the humoristic publication of Pernambuco, Brazil, O Carapuceiro

(1832-1842) highlighted the cultural, musical, and racial divide between Brazilian blacks

and whites. José Ramos Tinhorão notes that blacks and their rhythms fled from the urban

center to the rural areas due to a cultural clash between the “gosto refinado das elites”

[the refined taste of the elites], for whom black rhythms were “a coisa do mato” [a thing

of the jungle], and the practices of the poor, who were heirs to the “inferior” culture of

blacks.3 As a marginalized people, Afro-Brazilians and their cultural manifestations such

as samba and capoeira, albeit popular worldwide, continue, even today, to be “non-

refined” for those Brazilians who may not want to be viewed, especially by foreigners, as

coming from a country with a substantial black population.

3
In the Brazilian context, Alison Raphael observes, “the racial aspect of the history of samba schools is too
blatant to be ignored” (5). In a similar vein, when detailing the racial history of zouk, Jocelyn Guilbault
underscores that the lives of blacks and dark coloreds in the Creole-speaking Antilles have improved
considerably since the colonial period with mobility in the civil service, the education system, and the
higher echelons of the police and army. However, Guilbault also clarifies that in the past colonial days,
only the poor “mixed” or “colored” received preferential treatment from the dominant whites whenever
there were intermediate jobs that no white could or would take (7). Likewise, while analyzing the musical
forms of the Afro-Caribbean, Vernon Boggs comments that “the Caribbean population was not only
racially and musically stratified at its foundation, but it was also stratified in terms of which group played
which instrument” (354). Nevertheless, Boggs makes the mistake of referring to the Brazilian singer,
Carmen Miranda, as a “well-known Hispanic musical performer” (355).
 xix

In agreement with Ana Maria Rodrigues, the racial category of moreno in Brazil

(and elsewhere in the world) is a mechanism, like many others, to keep the black

population from building a cohesive and conscious group that would demand political

vindication due to their systemic marginalization. Recognizing the inferior social and

economic position of afrodescendants in juxtaposition to European descendants is a

common historical denominator throughout the world. Nevertheless, the large number of

racial categories in Brazil (e.g. mulato, mulato claro, o mulato sarará, o moreno, o

moreninho, o mulato escuro, o roxinho, o marrom, o marronzinho, among others) mirrors

the desire of a light-skinned ruling class to distance itself as much as possible from the

category of black (Rodrigues 7,8).4 Instead of focusing only on the status quo vision of

Brazilian race relations through one political class, as found in Liv Sovik’s Aqui Ninguém

é Branco (2009),5 this dissertation examines the development of an Afro-Brazilian racial

consciousness in samba lyrics from 1955 to 1988, signaling that black ethnic discourses

do exist in Brazil—a reality that may encounter some resistance by some readers.

4
As Anthony T. Marx observes, “state policies [in Brazil] encouraged such fragmentation by constructing
diverse categories and using them in a manner that discouraged racial solidarity” (252). Brazil is not unique
in this regard. Peter Wade also notes that in Colombia oppositions in the racial and cultural order are often
blurred by a great range of mixed types (Blackness… 61). For many years, the United States census also
established a multiracial color line, to which Thomas Skidmore poses the question “why, for example, was
the mulatto category included in the United States census from 1850 until 1920 but later eliminated?” (O
Brasil Visto…191). Moreover, although there are economically poor white Brazilians throughout Brazil,
with a higher concentration in the southern states, one must recognize that the ruling Brazilian political and
economic class is light-skinned nationwide, that Afro-Brazilians abound at the bottom of the socio-
economic order in every Brazilian state where they are found, and that poor white Brazilians are generally
less stigmatized in society than their darker skinned co-nationals.
5
For greater details, consult my review of Sovik’s Aqui Ninguém é Branco in Brasil/Brazil 42 (2011). With
regard to Sovik’s thesis on the “invisibility of whites” in Brazil, Hermano Vianna observes that “[o escritor
norte-americano Michael Ventura] revela que o Brasil não é o único lugar do mundo onde se diz ‘aqui
ninguém é branco’; há um ditado sulista norte-americano que é até mais específico: ‘Não há brancos em
Nova Orleans’ [The American writer Michael Ventura reveals that Brazil is not the only place in the world
where one says “here nobody is white”; there is a saying in the south of the United States that is even more
specific: “There ain’t no white people in New Orleans”] (O Globo, 10/23/2011). It is worth pointing out
one of the most obvious contradictions, which is that Liv Sovik, the author of Aqui Ninguém é Branco
[Here No One Is White], was born in Genebra, Switzerland, is white, and lives in Brazil.
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Dissertation Outline

This dissertation is structured as follows: I begin with an introduction on the

problematic, discussing the lack of critical research in the area of samba and its

correlative perpetuation of the dominant theoretical modes and tropes in the critical

studies on samba—such as transculturación, luso-tropicalismo, Marxism, and the homem

cordial, which are largely responsible for the popularity, especially among Brazilians, of

Hermano Vianna’s O Mistério do Samba.

In the first chapter of my dissertation, I use Zé Keti’s samba-exaltação6 “A Voz

do Morro” [The Voice of the Morro] (1955) and Nelson Pereira dos Santos’ Rio, Zona

Norte (1957)—a film based on the life and work of Zé Keti— to argue that both works

critique the link between territory and socio-economic discrimination in Rio de Janeiro

without underscoring race relations.7 I highlight the presence of racial themes in the

1960s in the text of the Show Opinião (Show) (1964) and, at the same time, the
6
This is a grandiose style of samba, with patriotic lyrics and an elaborate orchestral arrangement
(Enciclopédia... 596).
7
Although I recognize the importance of the ethnomusicological structure of samba throughout its
evolution as a highly diversified musical and dance genre (Carneiro, 1961; de Andrade, 1965; Sandroni,
2001), I chose to examine the Afro-Brazilian political and historical aspects behind the music because they
are understudied. Likewise, since I do not focus on the poetic aspects of samba music, I refer to the voice in
each musical composition as the lyrical voice, and apply Jane Malinoff McDivitt’s observation regarding
Afro-Brazilian poets to samba lyrics. McDivitt stipulates that those writers who identify as black Brazilians
in their verse and to some extent in their lives are to be considered Afro-Brazilian poets. Those poets, who
in their individual lives and in their work show no such concern, are to be considered simply as Brazilian
poets whose verse should be studied within the broader context of Brazilian poetry. Moreover, the black
and mulatto descendants of enslaved Africans in Brazil have endured the economic, social, and political
changes that have gone into making the modern Brazilian nation. As such, they are not merely descendants
of Africans, but more specifically, mulatto and black Brazilians. Nevertheless, they have not had equal
participation alongside their white co-nationals. Like their counterparts throughout the Americas, most
black and mulatto Brazilians share a past slave history, and social and economic discrimination in the
present—a common heritage that can be termed the Afro-Brazilian experience (From Anguish… 13, 24).
One can say, then, that the Afro-Brazilian experience, which corresponds to the lives of phenotypically
darker skinned Brazilians, does not equate to Afro-Brazilian expression. With this in mind, given that the
term “Afro” connotes much more than racial appearance, I disagree with Elton Medeiros, who argues that
the use of the prefix “Afro” before the word sambista is “meio redundante” [somewhat redundant]
(Interview, 08/07/2009). In contrast to Antônio Candeia Filho, Nei Lopes, and Martinho da Vila, Zé Keti,
for example, merits the classification of “sambista” and not “Afro-sambista.”
 xxi

subestimation of those themes by dominant left-wing political currents and intellectuals.

Nevertheless, I also illustrate and question the political significance of the increase in the

number of Afro-Brazilian themes in Rio’s samba schools beginning in the early 1960s.

In the second chapter, I outline the transition from the “valorization” of blackness

in the sambas-enredo of Rio’s samba schools in the 1960s to the politicization of Afro-

Brazilians in the 1970s vis-à-vis Antônio Candeia Filho’s partido alto8 “Dia de Graça”

[Day of Grace] (1970) and in Afro-Brazilian literature, with Oswaldo de Camargo’s

“Negrícia” [Blackness] and “Esperando o Embaixador” [Waiting for the Ambassador]

(1972). I also underscore Candeia’s penchant for nationalist discourses as articulated in

the manifesto of the Grêmio Recreativo de Arte Negra Escola de Samba Quilombo

(Quilombo) (1975) and his paternalist stance regarding Brazil’s relationship to Africa, the

United States, and Cuba in his partido alto “Sou Mais o Samba” [I Prefer Samba] (1977).

Chapter 3 analyzes primarily Nei Lopes’ samba lyrics during the years 1978-

1983. Here, I illustrate, vis-à-vis the sambas-enredo9 “Ao Povo em Forma de Arte” [To

the People in the Form of Art] (1978) Wilson Moreira / Nei Lopes and “Noventa Anos de

Abolição” [Ninety Years of Abolition] (1979) Wilson Moreira / Nei lopes, the

prioritization of Afro-Brazilian socio-political issues in contemporary Brazilian society

and the existence of alternate voices within the Grêmio Recreativo de Arte Negra Escola

de Samba Quilombo that manifest a stronger commitment to black identity discourses

than Candeia. As an ideological complement to Nei Lopes’ activity in Quilombo, I

8
This is an old modality of instrumental samba or a type of samba sung defiantly by two or more soloists,
and that is composed of one chorus and parts with solos (Enciclopédia... 596).
9
This is a type of samba comprised of lyrics and melody that is created in accordance with the theme that
was chosen as a topic of a samba school (Enciclopédia... 597).
 xxii

underscore the intensification of Afro-Brazilian militancy and the growth of black

identity discourses in several cultural sectors in the late 1970s. In addition, I analyze the

samba-enredo “A Epopéia de Zumbi” [Epic Poem of Zumbi] and the jongo10 “Jongo do

Irmão Café” [Jongo of my Dark-Skinned Brother], from the record, Negro Mesmo [Truly

Black] (1983) to point out the reiteration and the perennial significance of self-

affirmations of racial identity as well as the emergence of transnational ethnohistorical

connections among afrodescendants.

The fourth and last chapter has a primary focus on Pan-Africanism in Martinho da

Vila’s political activism and samba lyrics from 1974 to 1988. In the first section of this

chapter, I examine the baiãos11 “Nego, Vem Cantar” [Brother, Come Sing] (1974) and

“Negros Odores” [Black Scents] (1983), as well as the samba “Ê! Mana” [Hey! Sister]

(1985), in which da Vila bridges African people and history and contemporary Brazilian

society. The second section of the chapter explores the significance of da Vila’s Kizomba

project in 1988—the centenary of the abolition of slavery in Brazil—whose mission was

to promote black art, culture and African artists in Brazil. Moreover, the section also

critiques three musical compositions from Martinho da Vila’s record Kizomba, Festa da

Raça [Kizomba, Feast of Race] (1988), which are the jongo “Axé pra Todo Mundo” [Axé

for All] (1988), the samba “Mistura da Raça” [Racial Mixture] (1988), and the samba-

enredo “Kizomba, Festa da Raça” [Kizomba, A Feast of Race] (1988), the last of which

10
This is an Afro-Brazilian dance of religious motivation and initiatic purposes in which a circle is formed
where either two couples or several men and women dance indistinctly to the sound of drums and
chocalhos (Enciclopédia... 365). The chocalho is a shaft on which there is a series of small bottle cap-like
cylinders of metal or other artistic materials that produce a rustling noise when shaken.
11
“Baião,” a type of samba, originated as a musical style and popular dance of the Brazilian northeast, and
derives itself from the words “baiano” or “chorado baiano,” which evolved from an older form of rural
lundu. The urban form of “Baião” spread throughout Brazil from 1950 on, most notably in the works of
composers such as Luiz Gonzaga and João do Vale (Enciclopédia... 91).
 xxiii

granted the Grêmio Recreativo Escola de Samba Unidos de Vila Isabel (Vila Isabel) their

first victory in Rio de Janeiro’s carnival. These three compositions are contrastive, for

they showcase Afro-Brazilian racial identity as both mixed and black. In this light, the

chapter ends with a brief exploration of the political role that the concepts of mestiçagem

[mixture] and black identity play within the history of samba schools and Rio’s carnival.

The conclusion revisits the main topics covered in each chapter of the

dissertation, and at the same time, underscores the role and impact that national identity

and theoretical modes and tropes such as transculturación, Marxism, luso-tropicalismo,

and the homem cordial, exert in the racial imaginary of both Brazilian samba musicians

and intellectuals. Although I illustrate the progression towards a more explicit Afro-

Brazilian racial consciousness in the lyrics of a handful of sambistas from the 1960s to

1988, I also reflect upon the real political import of each sambista and collaborator’s

position in terms of the advancement of Afro-Brazilians in Brazilian society. According

to my findings, I conclude that the nationalization of the mulato, and especially the

mestiço, are highly effective mechanisms to diffuse the empowerment of Afro-Brazilians,

for they buttress the fiction that all Brazilians are equal and unified, whether socially,

economically, racially, or otherwise.

In the appendix, I discuss my dissertation’s fieldwork component, which relegates

itself to the archival research that I carried out in Rio de Janeiro, and the interviews that I

conducted with the articulators of Brazilian popular culture, and especially sambistas,

who are the main actors of samba’s stage. Like any social history, biographical accounts

are constructed on the (un) reliable nature of memory, the partiality of the observer’s

interpretation of events, and the limitations of the human intellect. In addition, I also
 xxiv

provide a detailed analysis of the interviews that I conducted and the questions that I

posed while performing fieldwork in Rio de Janeiro in 2009-2012.

 1

Introduction

Contributions to Brazilian Popular Music

In an article entitled “Perspectivas Atuais na Pesquisa Atual e Estratégias

Analíticas da Música Popular Brasileira” [Current Perspectives in Current Research and

Analytical Strategies of Brazilian Popular Music] (2006), the late scholar of Brazilian

popular music, Gerard Béhague, offered a few keen and uncontested insights regarding

some disciplinary and methodological concerns in Brazilian popular music research:

Se escreve muito no Brasil sobre música popular mas pouco de verdadeira

novidade, e pouquíssimo que esclareça as relações do fazer música
popular com as correspondentes ideologias ou correntes sócio-políticas de
determinados grupos sociais. Os Jota Efegê, os Ary Vasconcellos, Sérgio
Cabral, Homem de Mello, Tárik de Souza, e tantos outros foram ou são
cronistas, da música popular e alguns deles bons cronistas, mas não
verdadeiros pesquisadores.

[Much is written on popular music but little of true novelty, and very little
that clarifies the relationship between making popular music and its
ideological correspondents or socio-political currents of certain social
groups. The Jota Efegês, the Ary Vasconcellos, Sérgio Cabral, Homem de
Mello, Tárik de Souza, and many others were or are chroniclers of popular
music and some of them good ones,
but none of whom are true researchers] (71-72).

Of the non-Brazilians who have written on Brazilian popular music—Gerard

Béhague (1971), Alison Raphael (1980), Charles Perrone (1988, 1989), David J. Hess

(1994), Barbara Browning (1995), Chris McGowan and Ricardo Pessanha (1998), Lisa

Shaw (1999), Christopher Dunn (2001), Bryan McCann (2004), and John Murphy

(2006)—Béhague is the only one who has made a critical assessment, albeit a very

limited one, of academic production in the field of Brazilian popular music. As Béhague
 2

correctly notes, there lacks both “true novelty” in the texts that are being produced and

awareness of the ideologies and socio-political currents of determined social groups.

Even more, there is yet to exist a critical account of the dominant theoretical preferences

deployed in texts on samba.

Among the Brazilian articulators on samba, one of the most prevalent categories

in studies of Brazilian popular music is the biography, in which I include narratives that

treat more than one samba musician or performer. Some of the researchers in this

category are: Almirante (Henrique Foréis Domingues) (1963), Hiram Araújo and Amaury

Jório (1975), Cláudia Neiva de Matos (1982), Alice Duarte Silva de Campos (1983),

Roberto Moura (1983, 1988), Bruno Ferreira Gomes (1985), Adriana Magalhães

Beviláqua (1988), Marília T. Barboza da Silva (1989), João Máximo and Carlos Didier

(1990), Nei Lopes (2000), João Máximo (2002), Eduardo Granja Coutinho (2002), João

Baptista M. Vargens (2008, 3rd edition), Mila Burns (2009), and Vargens and André

Conforte (2011). Another topic that is frequently addressed is the history of carnival and

samba schools. Some of the most known exponents in this area are: Jota Efegê (1965),

Edigar de Alencar (1965), Luis D. Gardel (1967), Sérgio Cabral (1976, 1996), José Sávio

Leopoldi (1978), Ari Araújo (1978), Marília T. Barboza da Silva (1980), Haroldo Costa

(1984), Roberto Moura (1986), Eneida Moraes (1987), Maria Isaura Pereira de Queiroz

(1992), N.L. Cavalcanti (1994), Hiram Araújo (2000), João Baptista M. Vargens and

Carlos Monte (2001), M.C.P. Cunha (2001), and Walnice Nogueira Galvão (2009).

Other, less numerous, texts include dictionaries and encyclopedias on Brazilian

popular music (Cravo Albin 2006; Lopes 2004), popular music in cinema and theatre

(Tinhorão 1972), musicological approaches on the structure of samba (Sandroni 2001),

 3

general histories of Brazilian popular music (Andrade 1965; Vasconcelos 1964), stylistic

variations within the genre of samba (Carneiro 1961; Lopes 1992), famous musical

landmarks or venues (Holanda 1969), debates around popular music (Tinhorão 2001,

1997) and black culture (Rodrigues 1984; Lopes 1981; Tinhorão 1988; Candeia & Isnard

Araújo 1978; Sodré 1998; and Baptista Borges Pereira 1967), among others. Amidst all

of these books, Hermano Vianna’s O Mistério do Samba has been most recommended by

Brazilian academics, which has led me to question its political significance. In the

following section, I therefore undertake the task of delineating and explaining some of

the dominant theoretical modes in Brazilian intellectual history and their relationships to

the popularity of Vianna’s O Mistério do Samba, which I view as a form of Brazilian

identity politics.

Why O Mistério do Samba?

In order to understand with clarity the role of national identity politics in the texts

written on samba, it is necessary to provide a historical background on the racial theories

and the prevailing and frequently reiterated ideas that constitute the Brazilian intellectual

tradition and the preferences that Brazilian scholars display for certain theoretical modes.

That is to say, how do Brazilians view themselves and how do they market their racial

history to themselves and to foreigners? Deeper insights regarding the popularity of

Hermano Vianna’s O Mistério do Samba [The Mystery of Samba] (1995) as well as more

recent texts like Liv Sovik’s Aqui Ninguém é Branco [Here No One is White] (2009) can

only be gained after contextualizing the theoretical currents of Brazilian identity politics.

Perhaps one of the most fascinating takes on the history of Brazilian race relations can be
 4

found in the writings of the Afro-Brazilian activist and intellectual Abdias do

Nascimento’s O Genocídio do Negro Brasileiro: Processo de um Racismo Mascarado

[Genocide of Afro-Brazilians: Process of a Camouflaged Racism] (1978). In the chapter

“Escravidão: O Mito do Senhor Benevolente” [Slavery: The Myth of the Benevolent

Slaver Owner], Nascimento methodically dispels some of the dominant rhetoric that has

shaped the Brazilian racial imaginary, and adds, with perspicacity, that the “force of

repetition [of such myths] have mutilated the capacity of perception and comprehension

of certain people” (50). The “force of repetition” has excavated a comfortable terrain in

which Brazilian scholars in the area of samba like Hermano Vianna and Roberto Moura,

and American scholars12 like John Charles Chasteen (who translated Vianna’s O Mistério

do Samba into English), continue to reiterate the same ideas instead of examining their

limitations and political consequences for Afro-Brazilians. Abdias do Nascimento

contends that the harsh system of slavery in Brazil enjoys the reputation, above all,

outside of Brazil, for being of benign and humane character.13 Despite the inexistence of

12
Since there exists no precise terminology for United States citizens and products, in this dissertation I
will occasionally employ the term American(s) as synonymous with United States.
13
On the contrary, although Roger Bastide’s essay was approved on a panel discussion concerning slavery
and abolitionism in São Paulo, his research was challenged by Sr. Joviano Severino de Mello, who argued:
“para que devemos recordar o tratamento dado aos escravos—êsse tratamento selvagem—que lhes deram
os civilizados? Não nos interessa: precisamos é esquecer êsse tratamento brutal, para não sentirmos ódio”
[why should we remember the treatment given to the slaves—that savage treatment—that the civilized gave
them? It does not interest us: what we need is to forget that brutal treatment so we do not feel hatred] (O
Negro Revoltado 201). In 2011, the four-part television series on the influence of African descent in the
Americas, entitled Black in Latin America, aired in the United States. In the third part of this series,
“Brazil: A Racial Paradise?,” the renowned Harvard scholar Henry Luis Gates Jr. interviews the Brazilian
historian João José Reis, who clarifies that, aside from having better living conditions, slaves in the United
States were more well fed and clothed than slaves in Brazil (Black…). Anthony T. Marx also explains that
“arguments for and against Brazil having had a humanitarian form of slavery are inconsequential in light of
the overriding fact that slavery in Brazil was astonishingly deadly. All told, Brazil imported ten times the
number of slaves brought to North America; a steady supply of new African slaves was needed to
compensate for high mortality rates. Brazil’s slave population lived under conditions that made
reproduction of their numbers impossible” (52).
 5

the US-black-white racial binary, it is hard to argue that there was some generalized

tolerance at the roots of Latin-American slavery (Wade, 1997: 51).

Portuguese colonialism, just like other forms of European colonialism, adopted

diverse manners in which it camouflaged the violence and cruelty of such a system. Two

of the main resources to achieve its objectives were through illusion and assimilation.

The designation “Províncias de Ultramar” [Provinces of Ultramar] for Angola,

Moçambique and Guiné-Bissau as well as the so-called laws of the indigenato, stipulated

the assimilation of the African populations into the culture and identity of the

Portuguese.14 This particular euphemistic discourse “had the objective of printing the

stamp of legality, benevolence and civilizing generosity to the Portuguese’s doings in

African territory” (O genocídio… 50). Likewise, the Catholic Church in both colonial

Spanish and Portuguese America propagated another argument to mitigate the guilty

conscience of the European colonizers and to minimize accusations against them. This

argument, which has followers even today, boasts that, in contrast to the English colonies

14
According to Jeanne Marie Penvenne, “although the status of assimilado was proffered as a confirmation
of the black middle class in Moçambique, the hollowness of the claim that such status conferred unfettered
citizenship on the black middle class was obvious from the outset. Portugal’s labor practice and law had
periodically been scrutinized in the international limelight by English-speaking ‘detractors’ (British Consul
Smith-Delacour and Marvin Harris), yet the public posture of the Portuguese was typically a flurry of
formal denials and rebuttals, followed by the publication of liberal labor legislation to emphasize the
benefits Portugal’s civilizing mission had brought to Africans through the discipline of paid, productive
labor” (65, 72). Likewise, Gerald J. Bender maintains, “Portuguese academics and politicians also did not
perceive or understand the full implications of Freyre’s works on their own racial theories. Instead, they
combined his concept of a harmonious and egalitarian multiracial society with their Social Darwinism and
produced a bastardized version of lusotropicalism. This theoretical cross-fertilization did not yield a new
hybrid society in Africa but a typical colonial society, characterized by the same omnipresent white
domination which had marked all other European colonization in Africa. In fact, Portuguese
lusotropicalism did not work in theory or practice. There can be no racial harmony in a multiracial society
where individuals of one race consider themselves superior, because they will inevitably try to dominate
those they view as inferior. This occurred in every Portuguese colony throughout the world. However,
Portuguese scholars and politicians rarely perceived the contradiction between white domination and racial
harmony” (207, 208).
 6

in the Americas, the Catholic Church in Latin America was kind and humane. It is this

line of thinking that may lead some to believe that there has never been racism in Brazil,

despite the country having the distinction of being the largest slave colony and the last

country to abolish slavery in the New World.

Before we take a closer look at some of the dominant theoretical modes that

sustain the ideas described above, it is crucial to reflect upon the following black

perspective regarding racial and national identity politics in Brazil:

[Pierre] Verger conclui ser o Brasil amálgama racial harmonioso no qual

não existe preconceito ou discriminação demonstrada por brancos contra
descendentes africanos: nem culturalmente, nem economicamente, nem
socialmente. Ele afirma: os brasileiros têm orgulho dos seus traços
nacionais, determinados pelo vigoroso cruzamento de sangue e o anti-
racismo. De qualquer maneira esta é a visão defendida intrepidamente
pelos representantes do governo em conferências internacionais.
Consequentemente os brasileiros se recusam aceitar a existência de
minorias culturais ou raciais em seu território nacional. Todo mundo é
brasileiro, qualquer que seja sua cor ou origem.

[Pierre Verger concludes that Brazil is a harmonious racial amalgam in

which there is no prejudice or discrimination demonstrated by whites
against afrodescendants: not culturally, nor economically, nor socially. He
affirms: Brazilians are proud of their national characteristics, determined
by the vigorous mixture of blood and anti-racism. In any event this is the
vision that is defended fearlessly by the governmental representatives in
international conferences. In consequence, Brazilians refuse to accept the
existence of cultural or racial minorities in their national territory.
Everyone is Brazilian, whatever their color or origin may be] (O
genocídio… qtd. in Nascimento 56).

Given the dominant belief that there is no racial discrimination and everyone in

Brazil is “vigorously racially mixed,” many Brazilians celebrate the “uniqueness” of their

racial order under the blanket concept of brasilidade [Brazilianess]. This tendency is not

in question, however. The majority that discards cultural or racial minorities in Brazil
 7

believes that immigrants in Brazil become “Brazilians,” unlike in the United States,

where they preserve their ethnic and linguistic heritage and identity, which can be seen in

enclaves throughout the many cities in the United States. Nevertheless, through their

songs, journalistic pieces, interviews and books, the Afro-Brazilian voices in this

dissertation make a distinct contribution to Brazilian identity politics. These voices point

to the existence of an organic Afro-Brazilian discourse, rather than one imposed by the

United States. Such a discourse is distinct from the racial imaginary of the political ruling

class in which everyone is “mixed”—black, indigenous and white. The implementation

of racial quotas in several Brazilian universities, although limited, is the institutional

validation of the existence of an imagined Afro-Brazilian community (Anderson 6). As

James Clifford puts it, “diaspora cultures are, to varying degrees, produced by regimes of

political domination and economic inequality. But these violent processes of

displacement do not strip people of their ability to sustain distinctive political

communities and cultures of resistance (Routes… 265).

Widely held as one of the most significant interpreters of Brazilian culture, and

quoted and referred to inexhaustibly inside and outside academia, the social theorist

Gilberto Freyre (1900-1987) has had a fundamental impact on the discussions of

Brazilian society and culture. Freyre is also responsible for the creation of one of the

most enduring cultural theories in the Lusophone world: lusotropicalism. In general, this

concept proposes that the Portuguese were much more humane, friendly, and adaptable

than other colonizers due to their warmer climate, proximity to Africa, and intermingling

with other Mediterranean populations. In Casa Grande & Senzala [The Masters and the
 8

Slaves] (1933), Freyre, like the saudosistas15 in Portugal such as Teixeira de Pascoaes

(1856-1925), conjectured that the Portuguese distinguish themselves ethnically from the

inhabitants of Africa and Europe. The ethnic uniqueness of the Portuguese is, according

to Freyre, due to their plasticidade social [social plasticity] and aclimatabilidade

[climatic adaptability], which is based on their social, economic, sexual, and cultural

intercourse with people throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia. The social plasticity in

Portugal and Brazil emphasized the criterion of “pureness of faith,” rendering impossible

any feeling or consciousness of racial superiority (Casa… 365).16 In O Luso e o Trópico

15
Saudosismo is another example not only of cultural exceptionalism or essentialism, but also of the
triumph of irrationality and aesthetics over reason (Sérgio 256). The Portuguese writer, Teixeira de
Pascoaes, theorized that the Portuguese were a new race distinct from all others. As such, the word saudade
[longing] would therefore be untranslatable for it describes an original sentiment only experienced by the
Portuguese. The idea that the Portuguese evolved from the “perfect synthesis” of Arians (Greeks Romans,
Celts, Gods, and Normans) and Semites (Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Jews, and Arabs) validates, not their
distance from those ethnicities, but rather their proximity. With regard to the word saudade, Onésimo
Almeida clarifies that “as palavras podem ser intraduzíveis porque a experiência associada a um termo não
é a mesma em diferentes culturas, para além de, entre outros factores, cada língua dividir e nomear a
realidade de maneiras diferentes. Em português fazemos, por exemplo, uma distinção entre maçã e pêro. Os
ingleses juntam os dois frutos sobre uma única palavra—apple” [words can be untranslatable because the
experience associated with a term is not the same in different cultures, beyond, among other factors, each
language divide and name reality in different ways. In Portuguese, we make a distinction, for example,
between maçã e pêro. The English put the two fruits together with the use one word—apple] (Língua e
Mundividência… 107). That is to say, terminological variations among languages do not imply that non-
Portuguese speakers do not feel “saudades” as expressed in their own tongues; by the same token, a parallel
reality of objects (maçãs e pêros) can have a distinct numerical and linguistic representation in another
culture (apple).
16
It cannot be overestimated just how widespread Freyre’s ideas on miscegenation are in the Lusophone
racial imaginary. In his classic work, Bandeirantes e Pioneiros: Paralelo entre Duas Culturas [Bandits and
Pioneers: Parallel between Two Cultures] (1954), the Brazilian essayist Clodomir Vianna Moog, among
many other Brazilian intellectuals, has also argued that there is no racial discrimination in Brazil (61).
Moog stipulates that Protestantism and Calvinism are linked to racism and that, doctrinarily speaking,
Catholicism is incomparable. Equally false is Moog’s assertion that there is an affinity between
Protestantism and Capitalism as well as between Protestantism and Nationalism. Although Capitalism grew
out of Protestant culture, Brazil as a “catholic” country, and even China, for that matter, are both very
nationalistic and capitalistic. Ultimately, Moog, like the Austrian-American Frank Tannenbaum in his book
Slave and Citizen (1946) postulated that, since the Portuguese had contact with blacks in Africa since the
seventh century, and the English only in the sixteenth, the Portuguese were more racially mixed and
welcoming of blacks (69). Nevertheless, as Florestan Fernandes points out, “esse conflito de natureza moral
não proporcionou ao escravo, de um modo geral, melhor condição nem um tratamento mais humano, como
acreditava Frank Tannenbaum. Provocou apenas uma tendência para disfarçar as coisas, separando o
permissível do real” [the conflict of moral nature generally did not give slaves better conditions nor more
humane treatment, as Frank Tannenbaum believed. It just provoked a tendency to camouflage things,
 9

[The Portuguese and the Tropics] (1961) Gilberto Freyre details the Portuguese and

Brazilian socio-cultural formation:

Numerosos portugueses, hoje integrados nos Trópicos vêm sendo,

continuam a ser, descendentes de mouros, judeus, indianos, ameríndios,
negros; e não apenas de celtas ou de nórdicos. Essa variedade de origens
étnicas e culturas—origens, na sua maioria, talvez remotamente
tropicais—dos colonizadores ou povoadores, caracteriza a formação sócio-
cultural do Brasil, do mesmo modo que caracteriza a formação de outros
grupos ou de outras sociedades de origem principalmente portuguesa ou
de cultura principalmente lusitana fixadas nos Trópicos.

[Numerous Portuguese, today integrated in the tropics come to be and

continue being, descendants of Moors, Jews, Indians, Native Americans,
blacks; not just Celtics or Nordics. That variety of ethnic and cultural
origins, in its majority, perhaps remotely tropical—of the colonizers or
settlers, characterizes the socio-cultural formation of Brazil, in the same
way that it characterizes the formation of other groups or of other societies
of Portuguese origin or of mainly Portuguese culture located in the
tropics] (45).

As seen above, Freyre describes the Portuguese as a people so racially mixed and

friendly that they were “integrated in the tropics” without a racial consciousness.

Lusotropicalism certainly shaped the consciousness not only of the Portuguese and

Brazilians, but also of the intellectuals of their former African colonies like Guiné-

Bissau. This observation may shed light on Amílcar Cabral’s (1924-1973) contradictory

position concerning race relations and political hegemony in Guinea’s independence

struggle. In 1969, Cabral, along with Fidel Castro (The Declarations of Havana, 2008),

Che Guevara (The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo,

2000), Víctor Dreke (In the Whirlwind of the Cuban Revolution: From the Escambray to

separating the permissible from the real] (O Negro no Mundo… 63).

 10

the Congo, 2002), and others, articulated the Guinean revolutionary struggle primarily as

a class problem of oppressed peoples against Imperialism.17 In his book, Revolution in

Guinea (1969), Cabral clarifies that, for him, the Guinean revolutionary “we” is black;

however, at the same time, he states, “but we are men like all other men” (77). Cabral

goes on to say that “our struggle is the struggle of the oppressed peoples in which we do

not confuse exploiters with skin color” (79, 80).18 Nevertheless, Cabral’s failure to

distinguish blacks and whites is unsettling when taking into account that the European

colonizers were mostly white.19 In this context, the Afro-Brazilian intellectual Abdias do

17
Out of all of Cuba’s military activities in the African colonies, their longest and most successful mission
was in Guinea. By 1965-66, Amílcar Cabral, the revolutionary leader and founder of the PAIGC (The
African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) asked for Cuban fighters. When speaking
of Guinea and the Cuban intervention, Piero Gleijeses argues that Amílcar Cabral and Gaston Soumialot
wanted mostly black Cubans so as not to be conspicuous (203). Nevertheless, the Afro-Cuban Víctor
Dreke, who ranked second in command to the Argentine intellectual and guerilla leader Ernesto Che
Guevara, has remarked that aside from not knowing why Castro appointed him as squadron chief, Dreke
also never found out why Castro ordered him to choose Afro-Cuban military operation personnel for the
liberation struggles in the African colonies (85, 121, 131). One might very well ask how Che Guevara or
Afro-Cubans could be “inconspicuous” when they did not speak any African languages fluently and had no
significant prior experiences or knowledge of the African continent and her cultures? It is important to note
how Dreke simultaneously denies and confirms the existence of racial discrimination in Cuba. For
example, Dreke argues that with the advance of the revolution, racial discrimination had disappeared, yet at
the same time, observes that aside from African Americans, many Africans complained about confronting
racism in Cuba. Students from Guinea frequently complained about racism, and many black Africans in
Cuba were called congo, signaling their status as second-class citizens (86, 151).
18
In Paulo Freire and Sérgio Guimarães’ A África Ensinando a Gente: Angola, Guiné-Bissau, São Tomé e
Príncipe [Africa Teaching Us: Angola, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe] (2003), Guimarães
interviews an Angolan man named Lúcio on the topic: “Experiência de aluno, no tempo colonial: “Havia
dois negros no meu colégio. Dois!” [A student’s experience in colonial times: there were only two blacks in
my high school. Two!]. In Lúcio’s high school class, some students were mestiços, but only two of
approximately two hundred students were black. The rest were white. When Lúcio states that blacks did not
have access, Sérgio poses the question, “E qual era a razão principal? Era econômica? Ou havia alguma
interdição mesmo? [And what was the main reason? Was it economic? Or was there some kind of
prohibition?] Lúcio responds, “era econômica, mas ao mesmo tempo também racial”[it was economic, but
at the same time racial] (124-5). Lúcio makes a casual and uncritical correlation between the skin color and
economic position of Angolan blacks, yet refrains from commenting on the political and historical
conditions of why and how only two Angolan blacks out of two hundred whites and some mestiços, living
in a country of a black majority, could not “afford” entry into such a privileged school.
19
C.L.R. James The Black Jacobins (1938) is an important counterpoint to Cabral’s position concerning the
relationship between European colonizers and the colonized, and especially the role of mulattoes in San
Domingo around the end of the eighteenth century. Throughout The Black Jacobins, James explains that,
much like the slaves colonies in the Americas, as whites developed sexual relationships with black
 11

Nascimento reminds us that even those who seek to defend concepts of blackness, as

Amílcar Cabral did in Guiné-Bissau and the Cape Verde islands in the late 1960s and

early 1970s, sometimes cannot help but betray them (Mixture… 113).

Another influential cultural theory that is celebrated openly in Vianna’s O

Mistério do Samba and that is akin to Lusotropicalism is that of transculturación. Around

1940, the Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz (1881-1969) generated the theory of

transculturación [transculturation]; prior to its existence, the words acculturation,

diffusion, cultural exchange, migrations and osmosis of culture⎯ all words coined within

Anglophone cultures⎯ conveyed the idea that Third World nations have no culture and,

as such, only later obtain the “culture” of European nations. Transculturation, as Ortiz

conceived it, is a two way process between cultures. Although popular in the field of

literary studies, transculturation confronts obstacles in the social sciences.20 In his classic

concubines, the number of mulattoes began to grow. Eventually, some mulattoes in San Domingo gained
certain “privileges” that allowed them to study in France. Ultimately, the presence of “educated mulattoes”
became somewhat commonplace in San Domingo. As mulattoes became more specialized in professional
terms, they positioned themselves against the abolition of slavery. James observes that “the mulatto
proprietors remained pro-British and aligned themselves with whites for the counter-revolution. Hence, in
the West Indies, black slaves and mulattoes despised each other then, as they do now (129, 43). Since
mulattoes and whites were generally against abolition, Toussaint L’Ouverture had a difficult time trusting
anyone who was not black (e.g. the English, the Spanish, the French, the mulattoes of San Domingo).
Although Haiti is the only country in the New World to have had a successful slave revolution, that does
not mean that slaves in other countries in the Americas or blacks during the liberation movements in Africa
throughout the 1950s and 60s were equal to whites politically, economically and socially.

20
In the book, Latin Americanism (1999), Román de la Campa refers to the existence of the
“unquestionable flaws” of transculturation; however, he only seeks to address the “failure to engage Latin
American feminism and women’s writing” (59). Albeit very briefly, De la Campa underscores the role of
transculturation as an ideology largely based in an understanding of mestizaje (mixture), which, for some,
is all too willing to erase difference in the name of cultural and racial synthesis. Nevertheless, in what
seems to be an ongoing tendency in the field of Hispanic Studies, De la Campa focuses exclusively on the
role of transculturation in literary studies—for example, Ángel Rama’s redeployment of the concept of
transculturation in the Latin-American novel, yet manifests no interest or knowledge how transculturation
is employed in the social sciences within and outside the Hispanist field, not to mention any awareness of
how transculturation is so often craftily used to perpetuate a vague idea of “cultural hybridity,” and
Otherness, whose main political objective is to camouflage the cultural and racial hierarchies that abound in
Latin-American societies (65).
 12

oeuvre, Contrapunteo Cubano del Tabaco y el Azúcar [Cuban Counterpoint of Tobacco

and Sugar], Ortiz explains

En todos los pueblos la evolución histórica significa siempre un tránsito

vital de culturas a ritmo más o menos reposado o veloz; pero en Cuba han
sido tantas y tan diversas en posiciones de espacio y categorías
estructurales las culturas que han influído en la formación de su pueblo,
que ese inmenso amestizamiento de razas y culturas sobrepuja en
trascendencia a todo otro fenómeno histórico.

[In all countries the historic evolution always means a vital shift of
cultures at a rhythm more or less relaxed or fast; yet in Cuba the cultures
that have influenced the shape of the nation of that immense mixture of
races and cultures have been so many and so diverse in positions of space
and structural categories that they exceed in transcendence all other
historical phenomena] (255).

In this passage, Ortiz emphasizes the “inmenso amestizamiento de razas y

culturas,” as if Cuba were the only nation in the Americas to have such an amalgam of

cultures, peoples and races. Note that Ortiz does not isolate a specific race or culture;

rather he praises the African, Indigenous, and European elements as integral parts of

Cuban national identity. According to Darién Davis, Post World War I Cuba was

concerned with challenging its colonial past, especially its relationship with the United

States (12). In this sense, transculturation easily gained esteem for its exceptionalism and

political usefulness as an alternative device for Cubans (and Latin Americans in general)

to challenge the “imperialist” discourse of the United States. Nevertheless, the fact that

Ortiz opposed himself to acculturation does not mean that it is irrelevant. A theory coined

by Anglophones, acculturation reveals a lot about hegemonic relationships in post-

colonial societies. In effect, Ortiz’s theory of transculturation allowed Latin-American

 13

intellectuals to make the case that “somehow the Spanish system of slavery [like the

Brazilian one] had some intrinsic humaneness” (Davis 547).21

With the hopes of ameliorating the social, political, and economic position of

Afro-Cubans in society, Evaristo Estenoz formed the Partido Independiente de Color

[The Independent Party of Color] in 1908. Almost immediately after the parties’

formation, the dominant Cuban political class deemed the Partido Independiente de

Color a “racist organization” and prohibited its existence. In 1910, the Cuban government

ratified the Morúa amendment, which banned black political movements altogether.

Around this time, the Cuban government prohibited the entry of black immigrants and

promoted the entry of white Europeans into Cuba. Nevertheless, as Afro-Cuban

resistance grew in 1912, the ruling political class in Cuba massacred between two

thousand to five thousand Afro-Cubans throughout the island. This historical moment,

known as the Cuban Massacre of 1912, marks the end of black Cuban political

mobilization until the present.22 Although José Marti represented the sovereignty of the

21
In the introduction to Fernando Ortiz’s Contrapunteo Cubano del Tobacco y el Azúcar, Bronislaw
Malinowski opposes the theory of acculturation on the grounds that it introduces, albeit implicitly, a
repertoire of moral, normative and evaluative concepts that are not attuned to the historical dimensions of
Cuban society. Following Malinoswki, once on American soil, the original cultures of European
immigrants are modified and also provoke a change at the base of the culture that receives. Upon
transmigration to the Americas, Germans, Italians, Polish, Irish, among other immigrants, always bring
their own cultures, foods, popular melodies, great musicians, languages, customs, superstitions, ideas and
temperaments. In this context, Malinowski defines transculturation as “un proceso en el cual siempre se da
algo a cambio de lo que se recibe; es un “toma y daca” [a process in which something is always taken and
given in exchange, it is a “give and take” (125). Although it is true that European immigrants brought their
cultures, food, music and languages to the Americas, I question the significance and meaning of the
“change at the base of the culture that receives.” It is not coincidental that the primary focus here is on
European immigrants. Racial history and politics both in Cuba and Brazil demand a rethinking of the “give
and take” supposition, where human relations among all citizens are understood as “even transactions.” The
“give and take” concept is questionable in light of the disproportionate number of afrodescendants in
middle and higher levels of government, academia, business, diplomacy and military positions in Cuba, and
even more so in Brazil, where approximately half of the population is composed of afrodescendants.
22
The leadership of the Partido Independiente de Color and other less prominent protest groups decided to
organize an armed protest on May 20, 1912 that intended to force the president José Miguel Gómez to
pressure Congress to relegalize their party. By manifesting their willingness to resort to armed protest, the
 14

Cuban people, he was also an ideal candidate to be canonized as Cuba’s hero for being

white and for denying the existence of racial differences with his celebratory phrase, “no

hay odio de razas porque no hay razas” [there is no racial hate because there are no

races]. Consequently, Marti’s racial ideology “allowed blacks to be “equal” parts of the

nation as long as they agreed not to assert their racial identity” (Sawyer 40).

Very similar to Brazil—which also founded its nationhood on its African and

Iberian roots, and since the 1930s propagated the idea of being a “mulatto nation” devoid

of racial prejudice—Cubans established a society in which most people see themselves in

terms of class, not of religion, race or gender. Although the Afonso Arinos Law in Brazil,

much like Cuba’s nationalistic constitution of 1940, promised “no discrimination” on

paper, these laws should by no means imply an absence of racism in Brazilian and Cuban

society, nor be imagined as a guarantee of foreseeing the application and enforcement of

those laws. Accordingly, Fidel Castro’s statement of Cubans being “todos hermanos” [all

brothers], reinforces the endurance of Martí’s position. Once the racial question was

resolved on an official level, Fidel Castro’s regime emphasized that the only major task

left was to abolish economic inequalities in Cuban society. Much like Fidel Castro,

Carlos Prío Socorrás, of the Partido Revolucionario Cubano [The Revolutionary Cuban

Party], boasted of having solved the black problem. This belief flourished, in part, due to

small deeds like the passing of an anti-discrimination law in congress (De la Fuente 238,

241). Given that mulattoes both in Cuba and Brazil most likely did not view black

independientes sparked an outburst of racism that swept through Cuba. Even before the protest, the
government and mainstream newspapers accused the independientes of launching a “race war” against
Cuba’s whites. In order to mobilize whites against this initiative, the press spread false rumors that
reactivated antiblack stereotypes. Although the independientes demonstrated only in Oriente, white
repression was indiscriminate and almost unopposed nationwide (Helg 194). Also consult Carlos Moore,
Castro, The Blacks, and Africa (1988).
 15

identity affirmations as socially advantageous, the elimination or evasion of négritude

and blackness in official state discourse made it easier for mulattoes to identify with the

dominant white class. The rest of Latin America was not much different in this regard. In

Venezuela, Gil Fortoul defended the idea that there existed a ‘social race.’ Since the

Spanish were not “pure,” only culture, not race, would determine Venezuela’s future

(Wright 56, 81,83). Similarly, in Brazil, the invention of the homem cordial [cordial man]

came into existence as a political tool to deflect the reality of social and racial

antagonisms within society.

Introduced by Sérgio Buarque de Hollanda in the book Raízes do Brasil [Roots of

Brazil] (1936), the homem cordial is another prevalent cultural trope in the Brazilian

imaginary of social and race relations. Before Hollanda touches upon the concept of the

homem cordial, he constructs similar arguments to those of Freyre concerning Portuguese

history and society. In Portugal, according to Hollanda, there was never a “closed

aristocracy” and the Portuguese nobility never became “rigorous.” As such, Portugal, in

distinction from the rest of Europe, would characterize itself as a “mixed society” without

class distinction. Hollanda contends that some Portuguese preferred the Companhia de

Jesus [Company of Jesus] over Catholicism, especially that of the Council of Trent—the

transition from Christianity, spiritual sentiment, to Christianity as a “political institution.”

The local “espírito lusitano” [Portuguese Spirit] of the Igreja Lusitana [The Portuguese

Church] is, in a sense, a vehicle for the Portuguese intimist relationship to religion. At the

same time, Hollanda conjectures that Catholicism possesses a “simpatia comunicativa” [a

communicative amiability] that is absent in Protestant cultures. This theorization reminds

 16

us of Freyre’s characterization of the Portuguese as being “socially plastic” and

“climatically adaptable.”

These ideas lead Hollanda to rationalize that “a vida parece ter sido aqui [no

Brasil] incomparavelmente mais suave, mais acolhedora das dissonâncias sociais, raciais,

e morais” [life seems to have been here in Brazil incomparably more gentle, more

receptive of the social, racial and moral dissonances] (30). This adaptability,23 whether in

Hollanda or as we will see in Hermano Vianna’s O Mistério do Samba, would facilitate

the “blackness” or “Africanization” of the Portuguese, and consequently, Brazilians. It is

within this framework that Hollanda constructs the trope of the homem cordial. In his

own words, Hollanda states that “a contribuição brasileira para a civilização será de

cordialidade—daremos ao mundo o ‘homem cordial.’ A lhaneza no trato, a hospitalidade,

a generosidade, virtudes tão gabadas por estrangeiros que nos visitam, representam, com

efeito, um traço definido do caráter brasileiro” [The Brazilian contribution to civilization

will be cordiality—we will give the “homem cordial” to the world. Sincerity in treatment,

hospitality, and generosity, virtues that are so eulogized by foreigners who visit us,

represent, with results, a defined trait of Brazilian character] (136, 137).

Nevertheless, Hollanda’s ideas would not remain unchallenged. The essayist,

journalist and poet Cassiano Ricardo rebuked Hollanda’s definitions of the homem

cordial. In Ricardo’s view, not only is cordiality a universal characteristic of human

beings, it is also a double-edged sword of “inimizade” [hatred] on one side and

“amizade” [friendship] on the other. In effect, Ricardo satirizes Hollanda’s idealizations

of Brazilians as being kinder or more special than people of other nations. Yet, at the

23
As José Fonseca Dagoberto accurately puts it, the harmony that is expressed by the trope of the homem
cordial serves as a tool to mask the conflicts that are rooted in individual and collective social relations in
Brazil (47).
 17

same time, although Ricardo outright denies the existence of racial prejudice in Brazil, he

observes that “o problema de minorias raciais e culturais quase são inexistentes entre

nós” [the problem of racial and cultural minorities are almost inexistent among us] (206).

The use of the word “quase” signifies that Ricardo does recognize the existence of racial

and cultural minorities in Brazil. Ricardo’s reluctant admittance of racial and cultural

minorities in Brazil is crucial. The question at hand, therefore, should not be whether

racial and cultural minorities exist in Brazil. On the contrary, the question is whether

Brazilian intellectuals will have the courage to include racial and cultural minority

discourses in their international verbalizations of Brazilian culture as opposed to

advertising the harmonious national identity paradigm as the only possibility.

My decision to write the essay, Destronando O Mistério do Samba de Hermano

Vianna: a Derrota de uma Recomendação Postergada [Dethroning Hermano Vianna’s

The Mystery of Samba: The Postponed Defeat of a Recommendation] has blossomed

from the many discussions I have had over the years, and that I continue to have, with

people interested in samba in the United States and in Brazil. Upon conversing about

samba, almost all of my interlocutors have something in common: they usually

recommend one book on samba, Hermano Vianna’s O Mistério do Samba. As a point of

departure, I would like to explore what might be the reasons for the constant

recommendation of Vianna’s text. Is it possible that some Brazilian and foreign

academics, among others, suggest O Mistério do Samba as recommended reading24 in

24
Seven of the twelve Brazilian writers and musicians—that is, primarily non-academics—with whom I
conducted interviews over the past few years in Rio de Janeiro recommended several authors of books on
Brazilian popular music. On the whole, José Ramos Tinhorão stands out as the most prominent of all
Brazilian researchers. Ricardo Cravo Albin, for example, considers Mário de Andrade, Ary Vasconcelos
and José Ramos Tinhorão pioneers in the field of research on Brazilian popular music. Likewise, Nei
Lopes, gives high ratings to all of Tinhorão’s books, in addition to Muniz Sodré’s Samba, O Dono do
Corpo (1979), and Tárik de Souza’s Tem Mais Samba (2003). Lopes also remarked that as a non-academic,
 18

lieu of other texts because it offers a positive freyrean image of Brazilians—that is, as a

transcultural people who are united without racial oppositions? Is there any relationship

between the market success of O Mistério do Samba and the comfort and familiarity that

many Brazilians have, consciously or not, with Gilberto Freyre’s theories on mestiçagem

[mixture]? And also, are there less idealized paths to imagine the encounter between

(afro) sambistas and intellectuals that interrogate the limits of the applicability of

transculturalism and lusotropicalism in the socio-historical context of samba in Brazil?

O Mistério do Samba [The Mystery of Samba] (1995) is a text that explores the

role that samba has played in the formation of Brazilian national identity since 1930. In

this text, Vianna’s championing of the concept of hybridity as a means to characterize

Brazilian people obfuscates the more conflictual and non-harmonious aspects of Brazil’s

socio-economic and race relations.

Before an in-depth critical analysis of O Mistério do Samba, it is necessary to

pose the following question: what occurred in the history of ideas to catapult samba from

a regional cultural phenomenon to a symbol of national identity? At the outset of the

academic theses on Brazilian popular music do not interest him. Sérgio Cabral spoke highly of both
Tinhorão and Hermano Vianna. In turn, Muniz Sodré referred to only one text, which is Carlos Sandroni’s
Um Feitiço Decente: Transformações do Samba no Rio de Janeiro, 1917-1933 (2001). In fact, Sodré
considers Sandroni’s text better than his own, Samba, O Dono do Corpo, for its contribution to the thesis of
syncopation; yet, as Sodré pointed out correctly, Sandroni’s text is not centered on the thematic of blacks.
Although Marília T. Barboza da Silva recognizes the importance of Tinhorão, she also found shortcomings
in his “Marxist vision which compromises the aesthetics of music.” In addition, Barboza also places Ary
Vasconcelos, Mário de Andrade, and Almirante (Henrique Foréis Domingues) at the top of her list of
prized researchers. Mário de Andrade was also recommended; however, Barboza also stated that she learns
most about samba through anthropology and sociology (e.g. Arthur Ramos, Alberto da Costa e Silva, and
Nei Lopes). Some of Martinho da Vila’s favorite books and authors are Sérgio Cabral, Hiram Araújo, and
Haroldo Costa’s Fala, Crioulo (1982). Lastly, Elton Medeiros demonstrated admiration for Tinhorão’s
“knowledge of historiography,” yet finds distasteful his “bitterness” and “policing” of human behavior (See
Interviews).
 19

chapter “O Encontro” [The Encounter], Vianna initiates his discussion with an anecdote

on the life of Gilberto Freyre. Before travelling to Rio de Janeiro for the first time in

1926, Freyre had studied in Columbia University in New York and visited several states

in the United States. In 1926, Freyre narrates an experience that he had in Rio de Janeiro

with some white intellectuals and Afro-Brazilian musicians: “Sérgio e Prudente

conhecem de fato literatura inglesa moderna, além da francesa. Ótimos. Com eles saí de

noite boemiamente. Também com Villa-Lobos e Gallet. Fomos juntos a uma noitada de

violão, com alguma cachaça e com os brasileiríssimos Pixinguinha, Patrício, Donga”

[Sérgio and Prudente know modern English literature aside from French. Excellent. We

went together to an evening of guitar with some cachaça and with the very Brazilian

Pixinguinha, Patrício, Donga] (19). This "noitada de violão" [evening of guitar] between

white and black Brazilians would be of singular importance for Vianna, since it marks the

beginning of the “invenção de uma tradição musical” [the invention of a musical

tradition] of the Brazil Mestiço, where samba music occupies the forefront as the defining

element of nationality (20).

In an effort to construct Brazilian national identity in the midst of the Estado

Novo, intellectuals of Brazilian high society, such as the modernist writer Mário de

Andrade, saw themselves impelled to engage in identity projects in literature and in the

arts that promulgated a sense of national unity within all socio-economic strata of society.

Yet, there was an issue to be resolved. Vianna highlights the trend of many scholars to

perpetuate the narrative that, until the beginning of the 1930s, Afro-Brazilians lived

socially and economically marginalized in a “dinâmica repressora” [repressive dynamic]

that weakened at the advent of the Estado Novo with the “conquista do carnival”
 20

[conquest of carnival].25 The “conquest of carnival,” as described by Vianna, would be

the historical moment in which Afro-Brazilians gain social inclusion (and economic

empowerment) alongside wealthy Brazilians. In other words, as the Estado Novo came

into existence, wealthy Cariocas [people from the city of Rio] would forge “relações

intensas” [intense relations] more so than in prior decades with people of lower social

classes (and hence, other races) in Brazil (28, 29).

The use of the words “intense relations” in this context is insidious because it

conveys a misleading racial image of the ruling Brazilian political class and their social

and sexual practices as receptive to people of all economic classes. As the Brazilian

ethnographer of the African diaspora, Arthur Ramos, has pointed out, “os contatos

culturais não implicam necessariamente o contato de raças porque podem ser indiretos,

isto é, quando os membros do grupo não chegam a uma associação pessoal imediata”

[cultural contacts do not imply necessarily racial contact because they can be indirect,

that is to say, when the members of a group do not arrive at an immediate personal

association] (243). Likewise, Vianna seems to disagree with most scholars that samba

makes passage, in the 1930s and 1940s, from a cultural phenomenon of Rio de Janeiro to

the maximum symbol of Brazilian national identity; yet he does not lay down any

alternative hypotheses. Certainly, it is inaccurate to theorize aprioristically a social reality

that was and that is happening in time and space through a framework that divides the

25
It is important to note that Vianna cites Thomas Skidmore’s sociological perspective of “American
negrophobia,” a nation, mind you, whose current president is an afrodescendant; yet his “analysis” of
Brazilian race relations reverts to an uncritical and poetic description of how “we Brazilians” know that the
“reality of miscegenation” became a topic of pride for authors like Gilberto Freyre. In other words, Vianna
goes to great lengths to situate Brazilian race relations ahistorically, steering away from any data produced
by the numerous twentieth and twenty-first century Brazilian sociologists who have addressed “Brazilian
negrophobia” (32). Moreover, it is no coincidence that the majority of texts on samba focus on the remote
past of samba’s history. In my view, this is a saída [escape] from taking on a discussion of Brazilian race
relations in the present or non-distant past.
 21

social history of samba into only two moments (and tendencies): one of the repression of

blacks, and the other as the “valorization of blacks” that would come to be racially

diluted anthropophagically due to their “intense relations” with whites. After the 1930s,

not all Brazilians of the upper and middle classes had “intense relations” with darker-

skinned co-nationals of lower socio-economic classes. While on the topic, it is crucial to

reflect upon the poetic licenses that the concept of “intense relations” lends to Vianna as

a tool to deracialize Brazilians. In this regard, it is curious that when Freyre studied with

professor Franz Boas in Columbia University, before meeting the Afro-Brazilian

musicians in Rio de Janeiro in 1926, he had learned that the cultural production of Afro-

Brazilians was something to be celebrated. This particular idea was reinforced after

having lived in a society in which African Americans did not have civil rights. In a sense,

Professor Boas’ intellectual motivations to situate blacks, mulatos, and mestiçagem

[racial mixture] in its “justo valor” [fair value] was a political goal to be achieved, still

very remote from Afro-Brazilians’ social, economic and political reality then and now

(Vianna 78).

Freyre’s reasoning was similar to that of Boas: since so much music, culinary

traditions and art originated from the African diaspora in Brazil, Afro-Brazilians should

be included in the racial template of the nation as one of the three official races (Indians,

whites and blacks), and not as a separate category, as in the United States.26 Hence,

Freyre, like Boas, ascribed a positive value to Afro-Brazilians in his writings.

Nevertheless, although history and politics in Brazil and the United States are and were

26
The drama of Brazilian race relations was beautifully expressed in the year of abolition, with Olavo
Bilac’s poem “Música Brasileira” [Brazilian Music] (1888) which, through music, defines the three races
(indians, blacks and whites), as early as 1888, as a “flor amorosa de três raças tristes” [loving flower of
three sad races] (175).
 22

distinct from each other, Afro-Brazilians as much as African Americans pertain(ed) to the

lowest social and economic class in society. With this in mind, the foundational ideas of

Brazilian cordiality and social plasticity would strive to obfuscate the marginalization of

Afro-Brazilians. How is it so then that, implied as a unique experience, there were white

intellectuals and black musicians intermingling in Rio de Janeiro in 1926, yet at the same

time, "todos os brasileiros estavam penetrados pela influência negra?" [all Brazilians

were penetrated by the black influence] (Vianna 28).27 A reader of Vianna must and

should inquire as to what he means when he states that “all Brazilians were penetrated by

black influence.” When did this “penetration” occur, under what circumstances, and what

does it mean exactly? Is it sexual, musical, social, racial or something else?

Contrary to Vianna, Jeffrey D. Needell argues quite convincingly in his article

“Identity, Race, Gender, and Modernity in the Origins of Gilberto Freyre's Oeuvre,” that

much of Freyre’s celebration of miscegenation stemmed from generalizations of his own

personal sexual experiences and those of young privileged white boys with mulata

servants (69). This notion of “penetration” sets the stage for the deployment of the theory

of transculturalism as a mode “par excellence” to comprehend the meanings of the

encounter between black sambistas and white intellectuals. As Vianna openly declares,

“o transculturalismo me parece um conceito muito mais rico e preciso para pensar as

relações interculturais que a aculturação” [transculturalism seems to me a more rich and

27
A very telling illustration of the ambivalent phantasy of the africanization of all Brazilians can be
witnessed in the documentary É Candeia [It’s Candeia] (2010). As the actor Milton Filho puts it, “meu pai
é branco e minha mãe é negra. Assim eu sou brasileiro negro, afro-descendente como qualquer outro
brasileiro” [my father is white and my mother is black. Therefore, I am an black Brazilian, an
afrodescendant like any other Brazilian]. In the same vein, Caetano Veloso stated with hubris-tinged
laughter during one of his shows, “o fato é que no Brasil nós podemos dizer o seguinte: nós talvez não
tenhamos tido nenhum presidente branco, entendeu? Mas talvez sim, talvez o presidente Geisel” [The truth
is that in Brazil we can say the following: that perhaps we have never had a white president, right?
However, maybe we have, perhaps president Geisel] (O Brasil...).
 23

precise concept to think about the intercultural relations than acculturation] (172). I agree

with Vianna that the theory of transculturation is a potentially relevant perspective;

however I see no compelling reason why racial and/or ethnic discourses should be

eschewed from the transculturative framework in the service of Brazilian national

identity, as Vianna has done.28

In the second chapter of O Mistério do Samba entitled “Elite Brasileira e Música

Popular” [Brazilian Elite and Popular Music], Vianna examines the topic of Brazilian

identity in the area of music vis-à-vis the eighteenth century icon of the Brazilian

modinha, Domingos Caldas Barbosa. Fruit of a white father and Angolan black mother,

the mulato Carioca Domingos Caldas Barbosa was the greatest representative of

modinha of his time. In the eighteenth century, the Brazilian modinha differed from the

Portuguese one due to its sexual audacity regarding musical themes. Around that time,

Caldas Barbosa would play in the Portuguese courts in Lisbon. There, he incorporated

musical influences of the Italian operetas that were then in vogue, influences that the

Portuguese composers would bring to Portugal after having studied in Italy. As far as this

28
In the article, “The Prehistory of Samba: Carnival Dancing in Rio de Janeiro, 1840-1917,” John Charles
Chasteen proposes that there are two dominant narratives on samba: those, most notably Brazilians, who
argue that the post-1917 apotheosis of samba, understood as a blend of African and Portuguese musical
ideas, stands as one of the most persuasive emblems of a cherished vision of Brazilian identity, linked
through carnival to a concept of a social leveling which, though confined to a few days of the festival, still
forms part of a unifying national spirit (e.g. Vianna’s O Mistério do Samba); on the other hand, there are
those for whom the glorification of an Afro-Brazilian dance is a kind of theft, harnessed and coopted by the
upper and middle classes, an appropriation of black culture out of context (e.g. Ana Maria Rodrigues’
Samba Negro, Espoliação Branca) (30). This dissertation does not fit into either of these molds; it
deliberately avoids a rehashing of the traditional debates on carnival’s modernization as well as the
transculturalist history of samba and the other musical genres that have influenced it, unlike Chasteen, who,
despite his claim of simply “presenting evidence for the positive and the negative view,” clearly exposes
his penchant for transculturalism, affording him the opportunity to shy away from the perennial question of
racial mixing and race relations and hierarchies in that history (30). On the contrary, my dissertation paves
new territory that makes visible Afro-Brazilian identity discourses in samba lyrics. These discourses, due to
their very acculturalist nature, confront the transculturalist paradigm, specifically in the area of racial
studies and race relations in Brazil.
 24

historical context is concerned, Vianna does indeed provide an idea of the inter-cultural

and musical fermentation of the times: “como já é possível perceber, o vaivém de

influências, inclusive internacional, não esperou pelo advento dos meios eletrônicos de

comunicação de massa, ou mesmo pela divulgação dos primeiros discos, para provocar

modificações em gêneros musicais de todo o mundo” [as it was already possible to

perceive, the flux of influences, even international, did not wait for the advent of

electronic media of mass communication, or even for the spreading of the first discs, to

provoke modifications in the musical genres of the world] (39). In addition, in the

beginning of the nineteenth century, the Englishman Thomas Lindley narrates what

household festivities were like in Salvador, Bahia:

Em algumas casas de gente mais fina ocorriam reuniões elegantes,

concertos familiares, bailes, e jogos de cartas. Durante os banquetes e
depois da mesa bebia-se vinho de modo fora do comum, e nas festas
maiores apareciam guitarras e violinos, começando a cantoria. Mas pouco
durava a música dos brancos, deixando lugar à sedutora dança dos negros,
misto de coreografia africana e fandangos espanhóis e portugueses.

[In some homes of wealthy people there would occur elegant gatherings,
family concerts, dances, and card games. During these banquets and after
dinner, one would drink more than the usual, and in the more sizeable
gatherings, there would appear guitars and violins, initiating the song.
However, the music of the whites was very short lived, giving way to the
seductive dance of the blacks, mixed with African choreography and
Spanish and Portuguese fandangos] (37).

Evidently, in the second chapter of O Mistério do Samba Vianna, returns to pre-

freyrean times to underscore that in Brazil there already existed “intense relations”

between whites and blacks. Yet, in the beginning of O Mistério do Samba, Vianna makes

reference not only to Gilberto Freyre and the “noitada de violão” [evening of guitar] in

Rio de Janeiro in 1926, but also to Freyre’s own cultural theories to make a distinction
 25

between samba pre -1930 as “opressão de negros” [oppression of blacks] and samba post-

1930 as the “conquista of carnival” [conquest of carnival], made possible by the “positive

valorization” of blacks. Although Vianna speaks of modinha and lundu and not black

rhythms in Salvador, Bahia around the end of the eighteenth century, he contradicts

himself by alleging, “a sedutora dança dos negros triunfava sobre a música dos brancos.”

In other words, what does he mean by “a valorização positiva do negro” [the positive

valorization of blacks] in Brazilian society? Irrespective of the definitions of musical

genres in question, which are ferociously debated, some scholars point out that blacks in

Brazil were frequently persecuted in public space before and after 1930.29 Nevertheless,

as Thomas Lindley’s narration indicates, some of the more affluent light-skinned Bahians

would allow Afro-Brazilians, along with their music and dance, to “take over the party,”

leaving the impression that the Bahian ruling class was usually inclined to embrace Afro-

Brazilians.

In making reference to the experience of Lindley in Salvador, Bahia, Vianna

argues, “tal fusão, realizada há tanto tempo, torna de certa maneira vã toda tentativa de

procurar estabelecer o que é realmente africano ou europeu em nossas danças ‘populares’

atuais” [such fusion, touted from a long time ago, makes in vain, in a certain sense, any

attempt to seek to establish what is African or European in our current ‘popular’ dances]

29
In the nineteenth century, long before the advent of samba schools around the end of the 1920s, slaves in
Rio de Janeiro played music in spaces and during times that would reduce the possibility of getting caught
by the police: “The drum came in many sizes and shapes. The largest, such as the caxambú, were usually
not seen and drawn by foreign artists, because police persecution led slaves to hide them and bring them
out only at night in hidden locations” (Karasch 232). Although Alison Raphael does not provide exact
dates, she observes, “at Carnival time, blacks who sang and danced on the streets or in public plazas were
frequently attacked by police. The city was attempting to develop into a European-style capital, and the
prevalent ideology was that Blacks and mixed-race persons constituted a plague on the city’s—and the
nation’s—future” (74-5). Note the critical approach of the two foreign scholars, Karasch and Raphael. In
contrast to Vianna and Freyre, Karasch and Raphael touch upon the racial and social dissonance in samba’s
history more so than the harmonious aspects.
 26

(38). Here, I do not agree with Vianna’s transculturalist perspective of not being able to

separate European choreographies from African ones, among many reasons, because he

does not cite or even mention one text that examines the history of choreography in

African, European and Brazilian dance and music. Therefore, Vianna’s argument remains

highly speculative.30 Likewise, Vianna is opposed to the possibility of distinguishing

between African and European choreography on the grounds of “authenticity.” In O

Mistério do Samba, Vianna elucidates that authenticity is not an inherent trait of the

object (34). Given that the “object” is, for transculturators, part of a transcultural process

and hence “impure,” Vianna finds no reason to define what it is.

Despite the role of transculturation in samba’s history, one can still postulate

differences in choreographies without upholding the tenets of “authenticity.” One concept

should not be confused with the other. Following Vianna, the discourse of authenticity

does not occur in the origin, but rather in the transit of a phenomenon when, for example,

musicians employ certain reference points from a specific musical genre that are not

shared by others. In this case, it is true that authenticity is not inherent to the object.

However, to speak of the possibility of distinguishing between African and European

choreographies does not necessarily have to do with a defense of origins; nor does it

negate the inter-cultural mixtures of people. Rather it points to the identification of

30
Although not necessarily the “main problem,” I agree that “a principal questão que se pode apontar como
limitadora do enfoque de Hermano Vianna é a problemática das fontes utilizadas, ou, no caso deste livro,
da ausência das mesmas. O autor pretende renovar o debate sobre o tema sem levar a cabo novas pesquisas,
buscando meramente reinterpretar elementos levantados por outros pesquisadores dentro dos parâmetros
teóricos que adota” [the main question that one can illustrate as limiting of Hermano Vianna’s analysis is
the problematic of the sources used, or, in the case of this book, the absence of them. The author intends to
renovate the debate on the topic without putting together new research, merely seeking to reinterpret
elements studied by other researchers within the theoretical parameters that he adopts] (Melo Gomes 526).
In general, Melo Gomes makes a solid criticism of O Mistério do Samba, yet does not address the central
theme of my differences with Vianna, which are the theoretical concepts of transculturalism (e.g. between
popular culture and hegemonic culture) and the deshistoricization of race and the economy of individuals in
Brazilian society within the context of samba.
 27

certain aesthetic patterns that prevail with greater antiquity in certain geographic and

ethnic communities more than in others.

For example, although Vianna considers Fernando Ortiz’s theory of

transculturalism preferable, he adds something that supposedly was absent in Ortiz’s

theorization: “o transcultural não é a combinação de elementos que antes eram puros;

esses elementos (as duas partes da equação de Malinowski), já são produtos

transculturais, e nunca—na história cultural do mundo—pode ser encontrado um

elemento que já não tenha passado por algum processo transcultural” [the transcultural is

not a combination of elements that once were pure; those elements (the two parts of the

equation of Malinowski), are already transcultural products, and never—in the cultural

history of the world—can an element be found that has not gone through some sort of

transcultural process] (172). Despite Vianna’s sound discourse on “purity,” one must not

lose sight of the term “elements” and its ambiguity in the socio-historical context of

samba. Transculturalism may be effective to shed light on the exchange of symbols and

cultural products; yet, at the same time, it confronts its limits as a theory of race relations

due to its dehistoricization of ethnicity in Brazilian society. In other words, the word

“impurity” should not connote an absence of taxonomical qualifications and sociological

impunity that all Brazilians are racially mixed. Given this “impurity,” the racial makeup

of popular and hegemonic sectors of society, for the transculturators, is negligible.

One of my primary contentions with O Mistério do Samba consists in the

emphasis on the mestiço in Brazil: 31

31
According to Gerald J. Bender, “a study of the racial composition of Latin America reveals that Brazil—
with slightly over one-quarter of its population considered mestiço—has a smaller proportion of mestiços
than all but five countries in South and Central America and the Caribbean. Mestiços comprise over half
the population in ten of the eighteen former Spanish colonies, constituting over two-thirds of the
 28

Foi Gilberto Freyre quem conseguiu executar a façanha teórica de dar

caráter positivo ao mestiço. O brasileiro passou a ser definido como a
combinação, mais ou menos harmoniosa, mais ou menos conflituosa, de
traços africanos, indígenas e portuguesas, de casa-grande e senzala, de
sobrados e mucambos. A cultura brasileira, mestiçamente definida, não é
mais causa do atraso do país, mas algo a ser cuidadosamente preservado,
pois é a garantia de nossa especificidade (diante das nações) e do nosso
futuro, que será cada vez mais mestiço.

[It was Gilberto Freyre who managed to execute the theoretical prowess of
imbuing a positive character to the mestiço. The Brazilian came to be
defined as a combination, more or less harmonious, more or less
conflicting, of African traits, indigenous and Portuguese, of the masters
and the slaves, of the sobrados and mucambos. Brazilian culture, defined
as mestiço, is no longer the cause of delay of the country, but something to
be carefully preserved for that it is the guarantee of our specificity (next to
other nations) and of our future that will be more and more mestiço] (63-
4).

The first edition of Casa Grande & Senzala was published in Rio de Janeiro in

December, 1933, during an epoch of nationalist surge. Nationalism was so ever-present

in the political discourse of many Brazilian intellectuals and musicians that Freyre even

hated jazz (Vianna 85). This point is fascinating given that jazz is an American music of

strong, albeit not exclusive, African-American import. What is certain is that Freyre

managed to solidify a discourse around Brazilian identity that was part of the Brazilian

intellectual debate since the end of the nineteenth century. Although there was racial

inhabitants in seven of these countries. Even in the non-Iberian West Indies—colonized by England, France
and Holland—approximately one-third of the twelve million inhabitants are classified as mestiço (33, 34).
In sum, the pattern of miscegenation in Brazil was neither typical of the Portuguese colonies in general nor
unique in the New World (Bender 45). Thomas Skidmore also points out that the main factor to be
remembered is that the question of the mestiço is not and never was exclusive to Brazil. Miscegenation was
common in the United States and must have occurred between whites and slaves, given that before
Abolition there were very few free blacks. The question is not whether miscegenation occurred (which is
common to all slave systems), but rather what happened to the generation of mestiços (O Brasil
Visto…185).
 29

mixture in all former slave colonies in the Americas, the dominant Brazilian intellectual

tradition, with representatives like Freyre, has gone farther perhaps than most countries

to contend, without sociological basis, that Brazilians are more racially mixed than

North Americans. Albeit briefly, Vianna mentions that Germans in southern Brazil did

not want to mix with darker-skinned Brazilians (72). There are cities, or even towns and

enclaves like Santa Maria de Jetiba in Espírito Santo, where a large portion of the

inhabitants of Pomeranian descent speak mostly German or a dialect of such, affirming

not just their lack of “intense relations” with Afro-Brazilians, but also the importance of

their European linguistic, cultural and ethnic identity. Likewise, might similar attitudes

concerning race relations also be present in other major Brazilian cities?

In Casa-Grande & Senzala, Freyre makes the following comment regarding the

racial composition of Brazilians vis-à-vis the Portuguese colonizer: “pelo intercurso com

mulher índia ou negra multiplicou-se o colonizador em vigorosa e dúctil população

mestiça, ainda mais adaptável do que ele puro ao clima tropical” [due to the intercourse

with the indian and black woman, the colonizer multiplied himself in vigorous and

ductile mestiço population, more adaptable than himself as pure, to the tropical climate]

(108, 109). The concept of the Brazilian in Freyre’s oeuvre as mestiço, fruit of three

races, serves the mission to unite, albeit in document, people of all socio-economic

sectors and racial backgrounds in Brazilian society. In this light, there is an

epistemological continuation of Freyre’s lusotropicalist thought in the transculturalist

(modernist) formulation of Vianna: “não existe a possibilidade de descansar no território

do Outro porque o Outro está entre nós, até mesmo em “nosso sangue.” Oswald de

Andrade diz: o Brasil é uma “formação étnica rica.” Estamos no centro do (de volta ao)
 30

problema da mestiçagem” [there is no possibility to rest in the territory of the Other

because the Other is between us, even in “our blood.” Oswald de Andrade says: Brazil is

a “rich ethnic formation.” We are at the center of (and around) the problem of

mestiçagem] (105). Beyond Vianna, there are other writers on samba such as Roberto

Moura, who affirm that “no Brasil, nem essa aristocracia branca nem esta democracia

parda existem na realidade” [in Brazil, not that white aristocracy nor this democracy of

mestiço origin exist in reality] (Moura 25). This last example from Moura’s A Tia Ciata e

a Pequena África no Rio de Janeiro (1983) [Aunt Ciata and the Little Africa in Rio de

Janeiro], is particularly clever and unsettling, for it “defines” racial identity via negation

and not affirmation.

Caio Prado Jr., on the other hand, offers a theoretical perspective on racial

questions in Brazil that is more in sync than Freyre with the reality of the history of

Brazilian race relations:

Outra condição do sistema é de natureza étnica, resultado da posição

deprimente do escravo preto, e em menor proporção, do indígena, o que dá
no preconceito contra todo indivíduo de cor escura. É a grande maioria da
população que é aí atingida, e que se ergue contra um sistema que além do
efeito moral, resulta para ela na exclusão de tudo quanto de melhor
oferece a existência na colônia. O papel político desta oposição de raças,
ainda pouco avaliado, é no entanto considerável.

[Another condition of society is of ethnic nature, a result of the shameful

position of the black slave, and in lesser grade, the indigenous, which
lends itself to prejudice and discrimination against people of dark skin.
And the great majority that is affected and that erects itself against a
system that, beyond its moral effect, results for them in the exclusion of
everything that is best that the existence in the colony offers. The political
role of this opposition of races, still understudied, is still considerable]
(367).
 31

In contrast to Vianna, although Prado Júnior pointed out in his classic work

Formação do Brasil Contemporâneo (1942) that dark-skinned people in Brazil are

discriminated against, not just due to their inferior social or economic position to co-

nationals, but also due to the color of their skin, his observation concerning the political

role of racial oppositions, especially in critical studies on samba, still holds sway. Albeit

with a distinct focus, Antônio Candeia Filho and Isnard Araújo’s Escola de Samba:

Árvore que Esqueceu a Raiz (1978), Ana Maria Rodrigues’ Samba Negro, Espoliação

Branca (1984), Muniz Sodré’s Samba: O Dono do Corpo (1998), Nei Lopes’ A Utopia

da Ascencão Social do Sambista (1981), João Baptista Borges Pereira’s Cor, Profissão e

Mobilidade: O negro e o Rádio de São Paulo (1967), and Alison Raphael’s doctoral

dissertation Samba and Social Control: Popular Culture and Racial Democracy in Rio de

Janeiro (1980) are some of the few books on samba that provide an alternative to the

mestiçagem [mixture] paradigm, as seen in the works of Gilberto Freyre. Nevertheless,

these books present certain limitations for they do not openly dissect the prevalent

ideologies and cultural theories in samba texts and Brazilian intellectual history; nor do

they trace a genealogy of black militancy and consciousness in samba lyrics, which is the

main thrust of this dissertation.

In conclusion, Vianna seems prone either to idealize race relations or to avoid

presenting Brazil as a racially and economically stratified society. Aside from not posing

certain questions, Vianna’s penchant for the transculturative framework encourages a

vague or misleading picture of Brazilians regarding their social and economic class

positions as well as their sexual practices and racial attitudes in the twentieth century. As

seen in this essay, Vianna’s preference for transculturation correlates to the prevalent idea
 32

of Brazil as an intrinsically hybrid society and his desire to characterize all Brazilians as

mestiços and socially integrated. Could this be the reason why so many Brazilians

recommend O Mistério do Samba? Moreover, I have also highlighted the theoretical

limitations of transculturalism as an analytical approach to race relations in Brazilian

society. That said, it will be interesting to see in future research which samba texts Afro-

Brazilians will recommend as suggested readings. Will it be Vianna’s or different ones?

 33

CHAPTER 1
Racial Discourses around Samba
1955-1970

Zé Keti’s “A Voz do Morro”: The ‘Appearance’ of Race in the Mid 1950s

Born in Inhaúma, José Flores de Jesus (Rio de Janeiro, September 16, 1921—Rio

de Janeiro, November 14, 1999), better known as Zé Keti,32 was the nephew of the

flautist and pianist, João Dionísio Santana, and the son of Josué Vale da Cruz, a sailor

and cavaquinho player. Keti was an active samba musician, newspaper reporter and

malandro,33 who was known for his love of women and his love for dancing samba no pé

32
The grandfather of Zé Keti was animated, to such a degree that when he played piano or flute, he would
get together with musicians like Pixinguinha and Cândido das Neves in tocatas that would go on until the
early morning. When domestic life became dull, Keti’s mother enjoyed dancing in the Prazer das Morenas,
a dance club of factory workers and local youth. In this ambience, Zequinha, as he was called, would
quietly spy around. From this, his nickname became Zé Quietinho, then Zequéti, and ultimately Zé Keti
with a K due to the vogue of names with K in the Kennedy era (Khrushchev) (Zé Keti… 20).
33
Signifying “astuteness” or “cleverness,” these were the principal meanings of the word “malandro” in
Rio de Janeiro from the 1920s on, due to the stereotypes of black sambistas as “un” or “sub” employed,
living between artistic marginality and perspectives of social integration. Attitude and label,
“malandragem” is explicit in the works of composers and interpreters like Geraldo Pereira, Heitor dos
Prazeres, Ismael Silva, Jorge Veiga, Moreira da Silva, Wilson Batista, among others. According to Câmara
Cascudo, the origin of the figure of the “malandro” would take root in the children of the freed urban slaves
who, rejecting formal work with severe work hours and defined obligations, sought to represent, at the
conclusion of the slave order, the role of the white masters, and perpetuate one of the axioms of that order:
“white does not work, call the black.” In the beginning of the 21st century, “malandragem,” modus vivendi
of the “malandro,” survives only as an aesthetic and cultural attitude (Enciclopédia… 410). Beginning in
 34

throughout Rio de Janeiro. Some examples of his best-known sambas are “A Voz do

Morro,” “Acender as Velas,” “Diz que Fui por Aí,” “Leviana,” “Malvadeza Durão,”

“Máscara Negra,” and “Mascarada.”34 In the first half of this chapter, I use Zé Keti’s “A

Voz do Morro” (1955) to show that, while he did not highlight Afro-Brazilian issues in

his sambas, he denounced the stigmatization of sambistas in Brazilian society. Thereafter,

I focus on Nelson Pereira dos Santos’ film Rio, Zona Norte (1957) in which Grande Otelo

interprets the life of Zé Keti to reiterate a similar point, which is that racial issues are

subsumed by a Marxist framework that underscores the relationship between hegemonic

class positions and socio-economic exploitation. In the second half of the chapter, I argue

that through the 1960s with the Show Opinião (1964) there are textual allusions to race;

yet given the lack of interest in this topic within the ruling political class of society, the

importance of these allusions remain overlooked or undiscussed. I also show that around

the same time there is an ideological shift that fueled an increase in the number of Afro-

Brazilian sambas-enredo represented by the samba schools in Rio de Janeiro’s carnival,

which later set the stage for the politicization and militancy of Afro-Brazilian concerns in

samba lyrics beginning in the 1970s.35

1974 at the invitation of the journalist, Osmar Flores, Zé Keti began to work as a reporter of Brazilian
popular music and media culture, with weekly contributions, for the Gazeta de Notícias. Aside from
commenting on the political injustices in the Brazilian music industry, Keti dedicated his column primarily
to Rio’s samba schools, blocos carnavalescos [carnival street parades], ranchos and sociedades [carnival
groups and associations], and television and music personalities.
34
Aside from playing on matchboxes, Keti had a special gift for composing beautiful melodies, so much so
that he is considered by many to be one of the best samba musicians of all time. In Nelson Pereira dos
Santos’ short documentary, Meu Compadre Zé Ketti (2003), first-rate samba icons like Délcio Carvalho,
Colombo, Elton Medeiros, Guilherme de Brito, Jair do Cavaquinho, Monarco, Nelson Sargento, Noca da
Portela, Walter Alfaiate, Wilson Moreira and Zé Cruz, pay tribute to Zé Keti by singing and playing several
of his sambas in his house in Inhaúma, Rio de Janeiro, while feijoada is being cooked in the kitchen.
35
Some of the more overt political Afro-Brazilian articulations in early—1970s samba culture which,
fueled the creation of the Grêmio Recreativo de Arte Negra Escola de Samba Quilombo in 1975, are
connected to the beginnings of samba culture in the 1920s. Around this time, samba music was highly
 35

In “A Voz do Morro,” [The Voice of the Morro36] one of the principal musical

scores in Nelson Pereira dos Santos’ film, Rio, 40 Graus (1955), Zé Keti sings: 37

Eu sou o samba
A voz do morro sou eu mesmo sim senhor
Quero mostrar ao mundo que tenho valor
Eu sou o rei do terreiro
Eu sou o samba
Sou natural daqui do Rio de Janeiro
Sou eu quem levo a alegria
Para milhões de corações brasileiros
Salve o samba, queremos samba
Quem está pedindo é a voz do povo de um país
Salve o samba, queremos samba

restricted to local black communities, and subsequently changed with the new attitude and ideology of the
Varga’s regime in the 1930s, which sought to use popular culture as a means to bolster the political regime
(Raphael 16).
36
Morros are geographical formations that are lower and less steep than mountians where a large number
of Brazil’s urban poor reside.
37
Bryan McCann argues that “the lyrics, and the arrangement of the film’s soundtrack [“A Voz do Morro”]
are standard samba-exaltação. But when heard as the accompaniment to the film’s blistering criticism of
racial polarization in Rio, the samba takes on an entirely different meaning. Pereira dos Santos, as
filmmaker, turns samba-exaltação into critical samba” (91). This argument runs counter to McCann’s
categorizations of samba music at the end of Chapter 2 of his book, “Samba and National Identity,” where
he states that critical sambas take place during the years 1945-1955. If McCann’s categories were any
indication of the complexity of samba lyrics and works, then “A Voz do Morro” would already be “critical”
in accordance with the historical period, despite the fact that “A Voz do Morro” had spent several years in a
dusty drawer before gaining commercial notoriety. Although categorizations exist and are necessary, they
are more problematic when there is no evaluation of their limitations. Critical samba, following McCann,
are those sambas that touch upon “the failures of the Brazilian nation, and in particular the failures of its
ostensible racial democracy” (93). Certainly, Keti did not discuss racial themes in his sambas like David
Nasser and Custódio Mesquita in “Algodão” [Cotton] (1944). Nevertheless, Keti’s sambas are known for
their criticism of Brazilian cultural politics and the dictatorship (e.g. “Opinião” 1965; “400 Anos de
Favela” 1966; “Fogo no Morro” 1968). Note that societal criticism specifically through samba lyrics
reinforces the inequality in urban space and power relations between blacks and whites in Brazilian society.
“A Voz do Morro” is critical of the establishment in a poetic manner, before and aside from Nelson dos
Santos’ cinematographic adaptation of it. In an interview with Nelson Pereira dos Santos, he agreed with
my criticisms of McCann’s position, and added, “Sim, Zé Keti é crítico no plano existencial, mas não no
plano político” [Yes, Zé Keti is critical in an existential sense, but not in a political one] (Interview,
06/01/2010). In an interview with Sérgio Cabral, I commented, “A Voz do Morro” não depende do filme
do Nelson Pereira dos Santos para ser considerado um samba-crítico. Você concorda com isso? Sim,
concordo. [“A Voz do Morro” does not depend on Nelson Pereira dos Santos’ film to be considered a
critical-samba. Do you agree with that? I agree] (Interview, 07/13/2010). Likewise, it is also important to
point out the similarity between Zé Keti’s 1955 “A Voz do Morro” verse, “quero mostrar ao mundo que
tenho valor,” and Paulinho da Viola’s 1968 samba verse in “Enredo 14 anos,” “sambista não tem valor /
nesta terra de doutor.” In both verses, the inferior socio-economic status and class position of sambistas to
their co-nationals is stressed—however without treatment of the racial dimensions.
 36

Essa melodia de um Brasil feliz38 (Keti).

In this samba-exaltação,39 the lyrical voice adopts from the very first verse a

mythic and deified presence. Upon stating, “Eu sou o samba,” the lyrical voice focuses

on the inhabitants of the morro, people like Zé Keti himself, who are often

underrepresented in the upper and middle echelons of Brazilian society. As the

unpretentious, omnipotent lyrical voice develops in the second verse, “A voz do morro

sou eu mesmo sim senhor,” the reader comes to understand the necessity of the voice of

the morro to be taken as a dignified human being, equal to those who live outside the

morro, “Quero mostrar ao mundo que tenho valor.” Nevertheless, although the honoring

of the lyrical voice sets the residents of the morro and the space itself in a context of

human equality and ethical value, this particular strategy also presents a downfall in

terms of the construction of the self-representation of the inhabitant of the morro. For

example, in the fourth verse, the lyrical voice claims to be the king of the terreiro, “Eu

sou o rei do terreiro.” Clearly, as the main domain of Afro-Brazilian religious and

musical culture, the terreiro has played an extraordinarily vital role in the development of

samba before and since the beginning of the twentieth century. The casas gegê-nagôs of

João Alabá and Cipriano Abedé, as well the blocos carnavalescos of women like Tia Fé

and Tia Tomásia, in the morro do Mangueira, and those of Tia Ciata, Tia Veridiana, Tia

Amélia de Aragão, Tia Presciliana and others in Cidade Nova of Rio’s Zona Norte, had

38
I am samba / I am the voice of the morro, yes sir / I want to show the world that I am valuable / I am the
king of the terreiro / I am samba / I am natural from Rio de Janeiro / It is I who brings happiness / to
millions of Brazilian hearts / Long live samba, we want samba / those who are asking for it is the voice of a
people of a country / Long live, samba, we want samba / That melody of a happy Brazil.
39
Although I consider it to have elements of critical samba as well, I will refer to “A Voz do Morro” as
samba-exaltação.
 37

an impact on the babalorixá40 José Espinguela, and his central role in the idea of the

conception of the samba schools.

Muniz Sodré addresses the difference between samba da planície and samba do

morro:

Como se pode perceber, o morro, no contraste com a planície, significa

um espaço mítico de liberdade. No samba tradicional carioca, a freqüente
louvação (por muitos considerada alienante) de aspectos da vida no morro
pode ser entendida como a referência a um dispositivo simbólico capaz de
minar o sistema de valor da cultura dominante. O morro, assim como a
Terra de São Saruê para os sertanejos, é a utopia do samba.

[As one can see, the hills, in contrast to the plains, signifies a mythic space
of liberty. In the traditional samba from Rio, the frequent praises (by many
considered alienating) of aspects of the life in the hills can be understood
as a reference to a symbolic order able to mine the value system of the
dominant culture. The hills, like Terra de São Saruê for the desert people,
are the utopia of samba] (Samba... 65).

Nevertheless, the morro as the “espaço mítico de liberdade” can be a problematic

concept when it stands by itself, for it runs the risk of presenting the life of the inhabitants

of the morro as ahistorical, intensifying their socio-economic and political marginality.

On this note, the political scientist Jorge Da Silva states, “não é possível que as elites

continuem validando e até mesmo incentivando apenas as manifestações isoladas de uma

cultura africana estanque, folclorizada” [it is not possible that the elites continue to

validate and even incentivize only the isolated manifestations of a static and folklorized

African culture] (211). Certainly, anybody is capable of falling into this trap, not just

people of the ruling political class. In “A Voz do Morro,” the lyrical voice is responsible

for the celebration of the mythical aspects of the morro.

40
Is a designation in Brazil that is given to the priest-head of a candomblé, and is interchangeable with the
term pai-de-santo. Signifying “priest of the cult of the orixás,” the word babalorixá originates from the
Yoruban babalóòrisà of what is now present-day Nigeria and Benin (Enciclopédia... 87).
 38

In the rest of the samba-exaltação, the lyrical voice repeats the verse “Eu sou o

samba,” and introduces other concepts. Although a favela or morro is not specified, in the

verse, “Sou natural daqui do Rio de Janeiro,” it is clear that the lyrical voice is the

Carioca Zé Keti himself who speaks. A contradiction arises upon comparing the second

half with the first half of the samba-exaltação. In the second half, the lyrical voice is

aware that he is the source of happiness, “Sou eu quem levo a alegria,” for many

Brazilians and that Brazilian people want it, “Salve o samba, queremos samba / Quem

está pedindo é a voz do povo de um país.” In the last verse, the lyrical voice treads even

further, espousing that samba is the melody of a happy Brazil, “Essa melodia de um

Brasil feliz.” Yet, the lyrical voice has generated a dichotomy between the beginning and

the end of the samba-exaltação. How is it that the lyrical voice demands to be valued by

other Brazilians, pointing out his discontent with the political, economic and social

inequalities in Brazilian society, yet, at the same time, celebrates samba as the music of a

“happy Brazil?” Although the lyrical voice transmits a unifying force throughout the

samba for all Brazilians, it also points out that the sambista and the inhabitants of the

morro or favela are ignored on other fronts. This point is significant for it encourages us

to pose the question, o povo de quem? [whose people?], while analyzing the political

imaginary of the ruling class in the 1950s and the limitations of what and who they can

represent.

A fitting example of the limitations of representation of other peoples’ historical

reality, especially that of Afro-Brazilians, can be found in Adam Stepan’s documentary,

Samba! (2007). In this provocative film, the socialite Vera Loyola pontificates with

sociological reductionism, “Sou católica e segundo a Bíblia, Jesus Cristo disse que
 39

sempre haverá ricos e pobres” [I am catholic and according to the bible, Jesus Christ said

that there will always be rich and poor]. Loyola’s statement illustrates her complacency

with socio-economic stratification and avoidance of racial hierarchies in Rio de Janeiro.

In the month of February, when carnival takes place, Vera makes an appearance, waving

her hands and shouting, “Estou com meu povo” [I am with my people]. In counterpoint, a

group of Afro-sambistas sing, “o povo de cá e o povo de lá” [the people over here and the

people over there]. The sambistas’ perspective sheds light on the polarity of voices

concerning identity discourses and urban space in Rio de Janeiro. Note that Loyola is just

one of many celebrities whose timely and politically expedient presence41 in Rio’s

carnival illustrates the striking imbalance of power relations between Afro-Brazilians and

Brazilian and International celebrities. As a media spectacle, the numerous (Afro)

Brazilian authors of Rio’s carnival are overshadowed by the potential appearances of not

only national celebrities like Bruno Barreto, but also international ones such as Paris

Hilton, Demi Moore, Nicole Kidman, Leonardo Di Caprio, Kate Moss and Cameron Diaz

(O Globo, 02/07/2011).

In “A Voz do Morro,” the lyrical voice suggests that upper and middle-class

Brazilians and foreigners are disconnected from the lives and urban spaces of the

inhabitants of the favelas and morros. As Muniz Sodré and Raquel Paiva observe, “a

cidade oficial sempre finge não ver a cidade excluída, esta mesma que sempre se

caracterizou pela ocupação ilegal do solo, decorrente da ausência de políticas públicas

41
As the cultural critic and writer, Sérgio Jaguaribe, reflected upon the Grêmio Recreativo de Arte Negra
Escola de Samba Quilombo in 1981, “muita gente diz que é quilombola, mas na verdade só aparecem no
dia em que a tevê filmou o desfile da Escola no centro da cidade, Maria Bethânia, um monte de artistas e
colunáveis que nem sabem onde fica a sede da Escola. Crítico de música, também nunca vi lá [many people
contend that they are somehow linked to the Quilombo, but the truth is that they only appear on the day that
the television films the samba school procession in the center of the city. Maria Bethânia and a bunch of
artists and celebrities have no clue where the headquarters of the school is located. I also have never seen
music critics there before] (Pasquim abre…12).
 40

coerentes em materia de produção do espaço urbano” [the official city always pretends to

not see the excluded city, which has always characterized itself by the illegal occupation

of land, result of the absence of public politics that are coherent in the area of the

production of urban space] (Cidade… 82). It is not just the “official city” that pretends

not to see the “excluded city.” Of all world cities, favela visits are most noticeably

characteristic of Rio de Janeiro. Despite this, many upper- and middle-class Cariocas

have little or no contact with morros and favelas.

Although the transit of upper- and middle-class Cariocas has often been limited in

the favelas due to social and class differences and interests, it has become even more so

with the growth of drug trafficking and violence since the 1980s. Certainly, there are

exceptions of politicians seeking votes, upper- and middle-class people wanting to buy

drugs, and tourism companies that take foreign and national tourists to the quadras of

some of the famous samba schools like Mangueira, Salgueiro, Vila Isabel, among others,

where they can dance and listen to music; yet, as a general rule, one does not venture

around freely in the favelas.42 However, the recent implementation of UPPs in Rio’s

favelas (Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora) or Pacifying Police Unit, leaves many doubts

and uncertainties as to how community policing in shantytowns might improve social

42
The quick entry and exit phenomenon in Rio’s favelas and morros is a recurring theme and most
noticeable with celebrities. In 2010, Beyoncé and Alicia Keys made an appearance in the morros of
Conceição and Santa Marta. Likewise, in 2009, Madonna stepped into Santa Marta, as did Michael Jackson
in 1996. On his visit, Jackson taped the clip “They Don’t Care About Us” [Eles Não Ligam para Nós],
which should leave one wondering to what extent music can mobilize citizens politically. In 2002, while
staying at the most elegant hotel in Rio de Janeiro, the Copacabana Palace, Morgan Freeman visited the
morro de Mangueira “to get to know the social projects and samba of Mangueira.” Some of the other
celebrities who have entered morros and favelas are Edward Norton (Tavares Bastos, 2007), Lenny Kravitz
(Rocinha, 2007), Xuxa (Complexo da Maré, 2008), Sylvester Stallone (Tavares Bastos, 2008), Madonna,
Prince Charles (Nova Holanda in the Complexo da Maré 2009) (O Globo, 02/09/2010). Such celebrity
appearances tend to be self-interested and centered on professional marketing, rather than the amelioration
of the economic predicament of Rio’s urban poor.
 41

attitudes towards Rio’s urban poor and stimulate their socio-economic integration into the

rest of Brazilian society.

While on the topic, it may be convenient to recall the efforts of Rio’s current

governor Sérgio Cabral and the mayor Eduardo Paes and their decision to construct a

Berlin Wall à brasileira separating the inhabitants of Rocinha and Chapéu Mangueira, in

addition to another eleven favelas, from the rest of Carioca society. The article, “Após

reunião com líderes comunitários, Cabral muda projeto de muros para favelas” notes that

favela leaders like the president of the Associação de Moradores [Housing Association]

of the Rocinha, Antônio Ferreira, also known as Xaolin, and the president of the

Movimento Popular de Favelas [Popular Movement of Favelas], William de Oliveira,

changed their minds after being convinced that the walls would help the community

advance urban projects like the construction of squares and areas of recreation. The

objective was not to “fence people in” but to “mark” the parameters of the territory of the

favelas, impeding more unauthorized construction from taking place on virgin soil (Folha

de São Paulo, 05/19/2009). As Muniz Sodré puts it, “identifica-se, assim, o lugar do povo

como “espaço da marginalidade” ou da “falta de ordem e educação,” abrindo-se caminho

para medidas autoritárias de cima para baixo. Os morros, as favelas, seriam, no Rio de

Janeiro, lugares passíveis dessa correção culturalista [In this manner one identifies the

place of the working class as “a space of marginality” or “lack of order and education,”

opening paths to authoritative measures from the top to the bottom. The morros, favelas,

would be, in Rio de Janeiro, susceptible places of that culturalist correction] (O

Terreiro... 76). Not only does it remain unclear what Ferreira and de Oliveira’s position

was before the decision to build the wall, but it also leaves much curiosity as to why they
 42

changed their minds. The deep inequalities that define the relationship between Ferreira,

de Oliveira and Rio’s police authorities are a reminder of the unlikelihood of fair

negotiations. In a city where police officers are paid off by drug lords, and one of the

main interests of politicians is the accruement of votes, one should speculate as to who

has benefited most from such machinations.

Perhaps too much attention is paid to the aforementioned wall, especially if one

considers that the greatest “wall” of all need not be constructed in a literal sense for

wealthy people to keep a distance from poor communities. To illustrate this point, one

can refer to the year 1922, when the Brazilian novelist Lima Barreto wrote the novel

Clara dos Anjos. Among the various sub-themes, central to this novel are the racial and

class disparities between the rich and the poor; yet, Barreto—who, as a student of

urbanism and the art of novel writing—paints a colorful picture of urban life in Rio’s city

center and periphery. Almost the entirety of Clara do Anjos unravels in the subúrbios of

Rio de Janeiro.43 Although subúrbios connote destitution, they distinguish themselves

from favelas and morros for not being located on the tops of hills, rocks, and mountains,

but instead on the flat urban sprawls outside the urbs. As the anthropologist Roberto da

Matta notes, “nas cidades brasileiras, a demarcação espacial (e social) se faz sempre no

sentido de uma gradação ou hierarquia entre centro e perferia, dentro e fora. Para

verificar isso, basta conferir a expressão brasileira “centro da cidade,” e também a

conotação altamente negativa do espaço sub-urbano—suburbano—, novamente em

contraste com os Estados Unidos” [in the Brazilian cities, the spatial demarcation (and

social) always is made in the sense of a gradation or hierarchy between the center and the

43
Subúrbios are neighborhoods that are found alongside train lines (Cidade... 165).
 43

periphery, inside and outside. To verify this, it is sufficient to confer the Brazilian

expression “city center,” and also the highly negative connotation of the sub-urban

space—suburban—, once again in contrast with the United States] (A casa e a rua... 32).

In effect, the center is desirable, valued, and respected, while the subúrbio has a

pejorative connotation as inferior to the city center. In Barreto’s Clara dos Anjos, there is

an unforgettable scene in which the protagonist, Cassi, decides to leave the subúrbio to

go for a stroll in the center of Rio:

Na ‘cidade’, como se diz, ele percebia toda a sua inferioridade de

inteligência, de educação; a sua rusticidade, diante daqueles rapazes a
conversar sobre coisas de que ele não entendia e a trocar pilhérias; em face
da sofreguidão com que liam os placards dos jornais, tratando de assuntos
cuja importância ele não avaliava, Cassi vexava-se de não suportar a
leitura; comparando o desembaraço com que os fregueses pediam bebidas
variadas e esquisitas, lembrava-se que nem mesmo o nome delas sabia
pronunciar; olhando aquelas senhoras e moças que lhe pareciam rainhas e
princesas, tal e qual o bárbaro que viu, no Senado de Roma, só reis, sentia-
se humilde; enfim, todo aquele conjunto de coisas finas, atitudes apuradas,
de hábitos de polidez e urbanidade, de franqueza no gastar, reduziam-lhe a
personalidade de medíocre suburbano, de vagabundo doméstico, a quase
coisa alguma.

[In the ‘city’, as one says, he (Cassi) perceived all of his inferiority of
intelligence, of education; his rusticity, amidst those boys who conversed
about things that he did not understand and to exchange jokes; in face of
the impatience with which they read the placards of the newspapers,
treating topics whose importance he did not evaluate, Cassi vexed for not
being able to stand reading; comparing the laxity with which the
customers ordered varied and extravagant drinks, he recalled how he could
not even pronounce their names; watching those women and girls who
seemed to him queens and princesses, and such the barbarian who saw, in
the Senate of Rome, just kings, he felt humble; in short, that whole
repertoire of fine things, perfected attitudes, of refined and high costumes,
of liberality in spending, left him to the existence of mediocre suburban, of
domestic vagabond, to almost nothing] (128-29).
 44

Despite the fact that this passage refers to the subúrbio and not to the favela or

morro as in Zé Keti’s “A Voz do Morro,” it harps on the cultural and social gaps between

people of the city center and the subúrbios. The inhabitants of the favelas and morros in

present day Rio de Janeiro live in an analogous predicament regarding their socio-cultural

and economic dichotomy to upper- and middle-class Cariocas.44 With far little improved

socio-economic mobility in present day society, mulatas like Clara dos Anjos may have

not been able to “afford” to step foot outside of the subúrbios like Cassi to have a

leisurely stroll around the city center of Rio de Janeiro. It is worthwhile to note that there

is more attention given to race in Clara dos Anjos (1922) than in “A Voz do Morro”

(1955). This is a reminder that racial concerns, although addressed to varying degrees,

were already present in Brazilian literature in the nineteenth century with writers like

Machado de Assis and Castro Alves, and in the eighteenth century with poets and

musicians like Domingos Caldas Barbosa.

44
It is worth pointing out the reactions of Rio’s Zona Sul residents to the October 18, 1992 incident of
collective ransacking of youngsters from the poor communities of Rio’s Zona Norte who dispersed onto the
famous beaches of Rio’s Zona Sul to loot and terrorize bathers. This ocurrence reveals the prejudice and
insecurities in relation to the inhabitants of Rio’s Zona Norte and the favelas located in the morros, which
are geographically close, but socially distant from the members of Rio’s upper and middle classes.
In response to this incident, some middle-class residents in Rio made declarations of fear against the “gangs
of poor blacks” and launched martial arts clubs in the Zona Sul to defend themselves against an “invasion,”
observations that underscore both class and racial tensions in Rio de Janeiro (Telles 162, 163). Chico
Buarque’s song “Gente Humilde” [Humble People] (1970) is a prime example of the separation between
the wealthy people of Rio’s Zona Sul and the poor of the subúrbios. In this song, the soft melancholic voice
of Buarque narrates from the perspective of the Carioca-urbanite who takes the train to the subúrbio.
Throughout the song, the lyrical voice identifies with the inhabitants of the subúrbio, referring to them as
“minha gente” [my people], however the most revealing verses are “Como uma inveja dessa gente / Que
vai em frente / Sem nem ter com quem contar” [Like an envy of those people / Who go ahead / Without
even having anybody to count on]. The words “dessa gente” are most truthful in that they reflect the socio-
economic and cultural division between the lyrical voice of Buarque and the inhabitants of the subúrbios;
in contrast, “minha gente,” confounds paternalist empathy and assumed reciprocity of those feelings with
the plight of Rio’s urban poor.
 45

Cinema Novo and the Afro-Sambista

Nelson Pereira dos Santo’s film, Rio, Zona Norte (1957) tells the story of the

Afro-sambista, Espírito da Luz, who is considered by many to be the best sambista alive.

Since Espírito is poor, with almost no alternative financial opportunities, he attempts to

sell his sambas to music producers. White music producers promise to give Espírito large

sums of money for his sambas, yet they break their end of the bargain by paying Espírito

very little. Eventually, the producers play Espírito’s samba, Eu Mexi com Ela, on the air

under the authorship of another sambista, Alaor Costa. Even when Espírito profits

economically, he loses his money and his son, Lourival, who is stabbed to death by local

thugs in the morro. In addition to Eu Mexi com Ela, Espírito da Luz presents other songs

of his own authorship like Malvadeza Durão, which is in reality, one of Zé Keti’s most

famous songs.

Throughout Rio, Zona Norte, it is clear that the businessmen of the music industry

are mostly white, and proceed from a socio-cultural upbringing, and economic reality, far

removed from that of the Afro-sambistas; this is precisely why the producers search for

“authentic” musicians like Espírito da Luz, who were raised in the morros of Rio de

Janeiro. As the businessman Mauricio affirms, “sempre ao lado do sambista de verdade”

[always next to the real sambista].45 All in all, Espírito’s position regarding the

exploitation of samba is multifaceted. For example, Espírito chuckles upon being told

45
Afro-Brazilian musicians like Espírito da Luz are certainly not exceptional in the Americas regarding the
relationship between black musicians and white patronage. When speaking of the emerging middle class of
African Americans in the context of blues and jazz musicians in the 1920s, Amiri Baraka remarks that
“negroes could not become “captains” of industry and could never have belonged to any first families
(except, perhaps, as family retainers), so it was the professional men—doctors, lawyers, ministers—who
were the heads of the new black society. And these people wanted more than anything in life to become
citizens” (130).
 46

that he will make a lot of money with his sambas. Such a reaction points to his

knowledge of what it means to be an Afro-Brazilian samba musician trying to sell sambas

to white producers, “calma menina, o negócio também não é assim” [take it easy now,

the business is not quite like that]. However, when Espírito sells his samba, Eu Mexi com

Ela, he is shocked to hear that the “true author” of his songs is Alaor Costa. Despite his

bewilderment, Espírito knows that he needs money to survive. Therefore, when Maurício

tries to convince Espírito that “a sua música vai morrer na pratileira. Tu leva mil agora, e

tu leva dinheiro mais tarde” [your music is going to die on the shelf. Take a thousand

now, and you will get more money later on], Espírito accepts the argument and offer,

and, upon Maurício’s request, signs away his authorial rights on a piece of paper, “não

tenho nada a ver com esta composição” [this composition is not mine].

As expected because of the constant abuses, there is a moment in the film when

Espírito pushes Maurício off of his chair, and tells him “este samba é meu” [this samba is

mine]. This concept is fundamental to the production or locus of samba, for it reminds us

of Zé Keti’s “A Voz do Morro,” in which the lyrical voice sings, “eu sou o samba / A voz

do morro sou eu mesmo sim senhor / Quero mostrar ao mundo que eu tenho valor.” In

this lyric, the lyrical voice clarifies that he is samba and that samba music is not of the

“povo,” contrary to the verbalizations of (white) actresses like Vera Loyola, who has

used Rio’s carnival as a vehicle to publicize her “solidarity” with Brazilians of lower

socio-economic classes.46

46
In the documentary O Mistério do Samba (2008), Carioca Marisa Monte sings with several members of
the samba school Portela. Witness how Monte, much like Chico Buarque and most non-Brazilians, have the
luxury of entering and leaving favelas as desired.
 47

Robert Stam makes some keen observations regarding blackness and racial

discourses in Brazilian cinema. Upon analyzing Marcel Camus’ film Black Orpheus

(1959), Stam argues that “Camus should be given credit for emphasizing the blackness

not only of Rio’s carnival but also of Brazil, something that Brazilian films themselves

had tended to shy away from” (174, 177). Moreover, Black Orpheus glosses over who

controls the samba schools and who profits from their performances, much like the film’s

success made millions around the world yet brought little to the Brazilian artists who

participated in it. The reluctance to examine blackness has been sustained by the

proliferation of lusotropicalism, which portrays Brazilians as sexually and socially

integrated. For many Brazilians, the inclusion of racial perspectives is either retrograde,

counterproductive to social progress, or simply counter to what many Brazilians pride

themselves on, racial mixture.47 Race is either a thing of the past, or even more

dangerous, and convenient for the ruling political class, an “invention that never existed.”

47
The English born, naturalized Brazilian social anthropologist, Peter Fry, notes that in Brazil, “when some
ideas from outside have been eaten and digested, they seem to lead to a kind of nausea in relation to other
ideas that enter into contradiction with them. Quotas are nauseous to many not only because they appear to
contradict racial democracy tout court, but also because they seem to threaten the very idea of
“anthropophagy” itself” (Politics… 83). In “Why Brazil is Different” (2005), Fry concludes his article by
stating that Brazil is not any “better” or “worse” than the United States as far as race relations go; however,
he clearly manifests a “special benevolence” for Brazilian race relations. According to Fry, “the Portuguese
can rightly be accused of cultural imperialism and quotidian racism, but the society which their inheritors
built in Brazil is one in which race does not legally segregate or discriminate” (7). So, if the Portuguese can
be accused of “quotidian racism” and “cultural imperialism,” why should one expect there to be no
“quotidian racism” on the behalf of Brazilians? Likewise, racial discrimination operates irrespective of
laws, which often times are not enforced properly in Brazil. In addition, why would “legal” segregation
exist in a country where, even today and despite efforts of racial quotas, Afro-Brazilians are still
“informally” segregated due to their inferior economic, social and educational status in society? Suffice it
to say that racial quotas are clearly “political responses” to the symptoms and surreptitious forms of racial
segregation in Brazil. Fry also elaborates a distorted picture of Brazilians and their relationship to Afro-
Brazilian religions. In Fry’s view, “anyone who has spent New Year’s Eve on Copacabana beach in Rio de
Janeiro and observed the millions of Brazilians bringing flowers to throw into the ocean, knows that respect
for Yemanjá, the Yoruba goddess of the sea, is shared by people of all colors and classes” (7). What, might
one very well ask, is the significance of some Brazilians paying tribute to Iemanjá one day of the year? In
short, it is totally misleading to leave the impression that all Brazilians openly embrace Afro-Brazilian
cultures, religions and their deities. It may prove fruitful to ask to what extent governments, educators, and
 48

Stam notes that Pereira dos Santos was the first Brazilian director to have a non-

paternalist view towards blacks (158). In Rio, Zona Norte, dos Santos “emphasizes

racially reflected forms of class exploitation” (163). To be more precise, Pereira dos

Santos highlights some of the structural dynamics of class exploitation, yet creates a

script in which the actors do not dispute the Afro-Brazilian condition. The racial quotient,

therefore, in Rio, Zona Norte is “treated” only in as much as the majority of the urban

poor who are filmed in Rio’s morros happen to be Afro-Brazilians.48 Just because Afro-

Brazilians appear in films or television does not mean that the directors who hire them

champion black causes or ideas.49 Black Orpheus (1959) employed several black actors,

some of whom, like Abdias do Nascimento, were politically active with Afro-Brazilian

issues.50 Similar to the plight of Espírito da Luz and Zé Keti, the actors of Black Orpheus

were not well compensated despite the film’s success. In Rio, Zona Norte, neither

Espírito nor Maurício nor anyone else suggests that racial discrimination plays a role in

the exploitation of the sambista. Pereira dos Santos employs a common non-racialized

the media promote and sanction love and respect for Afro-Brazilian religions in modern day Brazilian
society?
48
As Nelson Pereira dos Santos clarified in an interview, “dá para ler a discriminação que acontece no
filme pela posição social do negro” [one can read the discrimination that occurs in the film through the
social position of blacks] (Interview, 06/01/2010).
49
Joel Zito Araujo illustrates in his excellent documentary A Negação do Brasil: O Negro na Telenovela
Brasileira [The Negation of Brazil: Blacks in Brazilian Soap Operas] (Senac, 2000), that in many Brazilian
soap operas historically Afro-Brazilians have been relegated to roles subordinate to those of whites. In the
Brazilian rendition of the movie A Cabana do Pai Tomás [Uncle Tom’s Cabin] in 1969, the white actor
Sérgio Cardoso was selected over many competent Afro-Brazilians actors, and his face was painted as to
interpret the role of Uncle Tom.
50
The cast of Black Oprheus is: Bruno Mello (Orfeu), Marpessa Dawn (Eurídice), Lourdes de Oliveira
(Mira), Léa Garcia (Serafina), Ademar da Silva (Morte), Alexandro Constantino (Hermes), Waldemar da
Silva (Chico), Jorge dos Santos (Benedito), and Aurino Cassiano (Zeca).
 49

Marxist perspective51 in which one takes notice that the “partners,” “disc jockeys,” and

“executives,” are mostly white, and the sambistas are black, yet racist attitudes are not

articulated overtly. There is a display of ‘cordial’ Brazilian racism in which

condescension is masked by Maurício’s communicative warmth and camaraderie (Stam

163). Similarly, and in the name of “social evolution,” the Show Opinião injected the

national Brazilian imaginary with popular culture. In so doing, the Show ideologically

juxtaposed itself against the “overvaluing” of international traditions and values, while at

the same time forfeiting a critical eye on the racial hierarchies in Brazilian society.

The Show Opinião: “Engagé Politics” in 1964

An extension of the Grupo Opinião and the Teatro de Arena of São Paulo, the

Show Opinião opened on December 11, 1964 in the theatre of the Super-Shopping Center

in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro. The three main performers of the Show Opinião were the

young Carioca middle-class singer, Nara Leão, the black Carioca sambista, Zé Keti, and

the Afro-Brazilian musician from the state of Maranhão, João do Vale.52 In the section

51
Carlos Moore raises a point that has not been sufficiently stressed, which is that both Marx and Engels
supported Western colonization and the imposition of slave labor in the Americas in particular, inasmuch
as slavery was deemed necessary for modern Western industrial growth, the rise of a salaried class of
Aryan workers, and the progression of “mankind” towards socialism. According to Moore, aside from
Marx’s prejudice towards blacks and Jews, he considered Indian and Asian civilizations inferior to Europe,
and demonstrated no interest in black history and events of his time such as the Haitian Revolution of 1804,
nor does he mention any objections to white supremacist theories. As Moore remarks, “using the West as
its yardstick, Marxism-Leninism measures the rest of the world… and finds its wanting. What was strictly
European and temporal becomes “universal” and “definitive”; non-Western societies in general (and Black
societies in particular) are exempt from Marx’s and Engels’ analyses” (Were Marx…125, 142). Or in
Cedric J. Robinson’s own words, “the construct of Negro, unlike the terms African, Moor, or ‘Ethiope’
suggested no situatedness in time, that is history, or space, that is ethno- or politico-geography. The Negro
has no civilization, no cultures, no religions, no history, no place, and, finally, no humanity which might
command consideration” (105).
52
One of the great muses of bossa nova, Nara Leão (Vitória, Espírito Santo, 1942—Rio de Janeiro, 1989)
was also connected to other Brazilian musical styles such as Tropicalismo. Leão had a vibrant and
illustrious career, beginning her professional in 1963 with the musical “Pobre Menina Rica” [Poor Rich
Girl], composed by Vinícius de Moraes and Carlos Lyra. An outstanding singer and composer, João Batista
do Vale (Pedreiras, Maranhão, 1933—São Luís, Maranhão, 1996) established himself as a musician in
 50

“As Intencões de Opinião” [The Intentions of Opinião], of the text, Arena, Opinião

(1965), Armando Costa, Oduvaldo Vianna Filho, and Paulo Pontes explain the

ideological principles behind the Show. Following Vianna Filho and company, the Show

Opinião had two main intentions:

Êste espetáculo tem duas intenções principais. Uma, é a do espectáculo

pròpriamente dito; Nara, Zé Keti e João do Vale têm a mesma opinião—a
música popular é tanto mais expressiva quanto mais tem uma opinião,
quando se alia ao povo na captação de novos sentimentos e valores
necessários para a evolução social; quando mantém vivas as tradições de
unidade e integração nacionais. A música popular não pode ver o público
como simples consumidor de música; êle é fonte e razão de música.

[This spectacle has two main intentions. One, is the spectacle proper;
Nara, Zé Keti e João do Vale have the same opinion—popular music is
more expressive the more one has an opinion, when one aligns him or
herself with the people in the concretization of new feelings and necessary
values for social evolution; when traditions of unity and national
integration are maintained alive. Popular music cannot see the audience as
a simple consumer of music; the audience is resource and reason of music]
(Costa 3).

The second intention articulates the importance of a ‘lost’ Brazilian tradition,

teatro de autor [independent theatre], and the creation of a repertory tailored to the

requests and issues of the public. Within this intention, the following concepts are

developed:

Uma super valorização intelectual do teatro que tira sua espontaneidade, a

importação mecânica de sucessos comerciais da Europa e Estados Unidos,
um feitiche do teatro internacional, uma falsa relação de subordinação
entre o diretor e o ator que anula o poder criador do ator brasileiro, a

1953 with his first song, a baião, entitled “Madalena.” Recorded by Zé Gonzaga, “Madalena” became a hit
in the northeast of Brazil. Invited by Zé Keti in the early 1960s, do Vale appeared in the famous Zicartola
bar in Rio de Janeiro. Around that time, Oduvaldo Vianna Filho (o Vianinha) of the Show Opinião invited
do Vale to perform and represent the northeastern part of the show (Dicionário... 397, 760).
 51

transferência das rédeas da direção cultural do teatro brasileiro para

diretores estrangeiros (ao invés de incluí-los no processo geral da criação)
terminaram por fazer do nosso teatro um teatro sem autoria, sem
deliberação, à matroca. O teatro cá, o público lá.

[An overly intellectual valorization of theatre that takes away its

spontaneity, and the mechanic importation of commercial successes from
Europe and the United States, a fetish of international theatre, a false
relation of subordination between the director and the actor that annuls the
creative power of the Brazilian actor, the transference of the reigns of the
cultural direction of Brazilian theatre to foreign directors (contrary to
including them in the general process of creation) who ended up making
our theatre one without authorship, without deliberation, without direction.
The theatre here, the audience over there] (Costa 3).

In effect, it was necessary to “restabelecer o teatro de autoria brasileira. É preciso

que finalmente e definitivamente nos curvemos à nossa fôrça e à nossa originalidade”

[...Re-establish the authorship of Brazilian theatre. It is necessary that finally and

definitively we bend ourselves to our own force and originality] (Costa 3). The principles

of the Show Opinião reflected those of the Cinema Novo, which sought out local or

“organic” approaches to political and aesthetic issues particular to the Brazilian polity.
 52

Photo 1. 1 Zé Keti and Nara Leão. Show Opinião, 1966. Source: Funarte.
 53

Photo 1.2 Zé Keti. Source: Funarte.

 54

In an animated interview conducted on October 27, 2009 in his Copacabana

home, Ferreira Gullar made the following comments regarding black politics and the

Show Opinião:53

Felizmente não tinha esse problema. Aí, eu perguntei, Zé Keti falava

nisso? Não, ninguém pensava nisso. Isso aí é algo importado dos Estados
Unidos. O Brasil nunca teve esse problema racial, teve um problema
cultural. Perguntou Gullar, a escravidão é racismo? Não, é comercial,
respondeu ele. Os negros escravizaram negros na África. O Brasil
precisava de braço. A pessoa é inferior por ter sido escravo, não por ser
negro. Mesmo quando o Teatro Experimental do Negro apareceu,
ninguém se opôs àquilo, muito pelo contrário, foi prestigiado. O
capitalismo é filho da puta, quer saber do lucro, não pensa na raça da
pessoas.

[Fortunately that problem did not exist. Then I asked, did Zé Keti talk
about these issues? No, nobody thought about that. That is something
imported from the United States. Brazil never had racial problems, here
the problems have been cultural. Slavery is racism? Gullar asked. No, it is
commercial, he responded. Blacks enslaved blacks in Africa. Brazil
needed workers. People are inferior for having been slaves, and not for
being black. Even when the Black Experimental Theatre appeared, nobody
opposed it, on the contrary, it was celebrated. Capitalism is a son of a
bitch, it wants to know about monetary gains, it does not think about one’s
race] (Interview, 10/27/2009).54

53
Upon my posing the question, “when did Afro-Brazilian politics begin to take force in Brazil?,” Gullar
responded, “foi mudando em 1980, por aí” [it changed in 1980, around there]. Nevertheless, members of
Brazil’s first black social movement—A Frente Negra Brasileira (September 16, 1931—1937) [Black
Brazilian Front], which also became a political party in 1936, founded the weekly independent Afro-
Brazilian newspaper, (1933-1937) [The Voice of Race], whose slogan was “O Preconceito de Cor no
Brasil, Só Nós os Negros Podemos Sentir” [Racial Prejudice in Brazil, Only We Blacks Can Feel]. In 1933,
A Voz da Raça published an introductory note entitled “A Voz da Raça,” in which the directors of the
newspaper declare that “este jornal aparece na hora em que precisamos tornar público, nos dias de hoje, de
amanhã e de sempre, os interesses e comunhão de ideias da raça, porque as outras folhas, aliás veteranas,
por despeitos políticos, tem deixado de os fazer” [this newspaper appears at a time in which we need to
make known, at present, tomorrow and always, the interests and communion of the ideas of race, because
other newspapers, long established ones, for political disdain, have abandoned such interests] (03/18/1933).
Likewise, in Chapter 2, I examine the thematization of Afro-Brazilian racial discourses through samba
lyrics and Afro-Brazilian literature in the 1970s.
54
Gullar’s Marxist perspective sidesteps the Afro-Brazilian condition not only in society but also in the
history of Brazilian theatre. The Afro-Brazilian scholar, artist, and politician, Abdias do Nascimento,
founded and directed the Teatro Experimental do Negro [Black Experimental Theatre] (1944), which, aside
from its focus on the Afro-Brazilian condition, spawned the first generation of black actors and actresses in
Brazilian theatre. Nascimento’s play Sortilégio [Sortilege], (1951), much like Nelson Rodrigues’ Anjo
 55

On December 7, 2009, I interviewed Carlos Lyra in his apartment in Ipanema.

When asked if Zé Keti engaged racial issues, Lyra responded, “raça nem passava pela

cabeça. Ele era muito intuitivo, não era racionalista como muitos de nós.55 Não existe cor,

existe coração. Eu não tinha nada em contra disso tudo. Eu era Black Power em Fire

Island, Nova York, mas não misturei política com música” [race was not even a thought.

Zé Keti was very intuitive, he was not a rationalist like many of us. There is no color,

there is heart. I had nothing against all that stuff. I was Black Power in Fire Island, New

York, but I did not mix politics with music] (Interview, 12/07/2009).

Nevertheless, there are other examples in the text of the Show Opinião where

societal issues are addressed as class problems.56 For example, Zé Keti sings, “Eu acho

que o povo precisa estudar / Foi o jornal que disse / Que 99, que 99, que 99 por cento do

povo / Não passa nem pela porta da faculdade / Que só 1 por cento pode ser doutor /

coitado do pobre, do trabalhador / coitado do pobre, do trabalhador” [I think that the

populous has to study / It was the newspaper that said / that 99, that 99, that 99 percent of

Negro [Black Angel] (1946), among many others, spearheaded the movement towards the defolklorization
of Afro-Brazilians, especially, but not exclusively, in theatre. There were also other significant Afro-
Brazilian playwrights such as Rosário Fusco and Romeu Crusoé, and non Afro-Brazilians such as Nelson
Rodrigues, Tasso da Silveira, Agostinho Olavo, Lúcio Cardoso, Joaquim Ribeiro, José de Morais Pinho,
among others (Dramas…24).
55
In the statement, “[Zé Keti] não era racionalista como muitos de nós,” Lyra did not clarify as to why Keti
was not “rational like most people,” nor did he specify who belongs to the category of the personal pronoun
“we.”
56
Although censorship has existed in Brazil since colonial times, it has also played a defining role in
society even since the beginning of samba. The verse “O chefe da polícia” [the police chief] in what is
considered to be the first samba aired, “Pelo Telefone” (1917) [On the Telephone], was changed to “o chefe
da folia” [the chief of celebration]. Likewise, the intense censorship of musicians from 1964 until 1980
coincided with the military coup in 1964 and the enactment of the AI-5 in 1968, which gave almost
absolute power to the military regime (Albin 2, 82). As per my interviews with Ferreira Gullar and Carlos
Lyra, Keti did not discuss or think about race. Nevertheless, it may be possible that Keti commented on
racial issues while in the company of other Afro-Brazilians. On this note, it is important to keep in mind
that the text of the Show Opinião was a collaborative effort, and as such, subject to the desires of its
creators, television audience, and the expectations of the military regime.
 56

the populous / does not go through the door of the university / that only one percent can

be a doctor / pity the poorman, the worker / pity the poorman, the worker] (Opinião, 38).

In a country like Brazil where almost half of the population is preto or pardo57 (black or

mixed) and an extraordinarily low percent of students enrolled in Brazilian universities

are also black, it is difficult to accept Gullar’s Marxist criticism of Brazilian society and

culture. One must take into consideration that capitalism is a system governed by people

with certain attitudes about what generates money and for whom it should be generated.

It is significant that a black musician like Elton Medeiros has a divergent perspective on

this matter, in part, because he himself is black and knows that race is a significant factor

in Brazilian society.58 Even in the book Para ter Opinião, Maria Helena Kühner and

Helena Rocha overlook the presence of race in the Show Opinião. As Nara Leão sings,

“Negro sem futuro / Perna de tição / Boca de porão / Camisa de saia / Te deixo na praia /

57
Following the IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística) [The Brazilian Institute of
Geography and Statistics], in September 2006, the population that declared itself preto or pardo
represented 42,8% of the 39,8 million of people who were 10 years or older in the six metropolitan regions
investigated by the Pesquisa Mensal de Emprego (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Salvador,
Recife and Porto Alegre). The PME follows the race and color classification system adopted by the house
research of the IBGE, in which the interviewee can choose among five options: branca, preta, parda,
amarela or indígena (white, black, mixed, yellow or indigenous). Likewise, in this same year, the IBGE
confirms the existence of racial inequality in educational indicators. For example, the black or mixed
population had 7,1 years of study on average and was less educated that the white population which had 8,7
years of study on average. (IBGE...). In the article, “Márcio Thomaz Bastos Assume Defesa da Política de
Cotas Raciais” [Márcio Thomaz Bastos Defends the Politics of Racial Quotas], the ex-minister of justice of
Luís Inácio Lula da Silva’s government, Márcio Thomaz Bastos, commented on the University of
Brasília’s adoption of a quota system in 2004. According to Bastos, “a universidade brasileira é um espaço
de formação de profissionais de maioria esmagadoramente branca, e, ao manter apenas um segmento étnico
na construção do pensamento dos problemas nacionais, a oferta de soluções se torna limitada” [The
Brazilian university is a space of professional formation for an overwhelming white majority, and upon
maintaining only one ethnic segment on the construction of the thought of national problems, the offer of
solutions becomes limited] (Varjão). While considering that the IBGE’s statistics are from 2006, and
Bastos’ comments from 2011, one can only imagine just how few blacks were in Brazilian universities in
1964.
58
The liner notes of the Show Opinião album (1965) state that the “intelectuais romperam com a cultura de
elite e decidiram-se a levar a cultura ao povo” [intellectuals broke with the elite culture and decided to
bring the culture to the people]. Nevertheless, to what extent can intellectuals break with elite culture in its
entirety if they do not incorporate critiques from members of other social classes?
 57

Escovando urubu” [Blackman without a future / Filthy leg / Ditch mouth / Skirt shirt / I

leave you on the beach / Beating an Urubu ] (Opinião, 30-31). Whether recognized or not

as such, this is a clear allusion to racial concerns.59

Afro-Brazilian History in the Sambas-Enredo during the 1960s

Ever since what is considered the first samba to be aired,60 “Pelo Telefone” [On

the Telephone] (1917), until Candeia’s “Dia de Graça” (1970), samba musicians whether

inside or outside the ala de compositores [composers wing] of the samba schools,

generally composed lyrics whose content was devoid of black empowerment. As Nei

Lopes explains:

Durante muito tempo, a questão racial só esteve presente nas letras do

samba através de mensagens racistas, ou fotografando o preconceito.
“Nega do cabelo duro, qual é o pente que te penteia? (Rubem Soares e
David Nasser61, 1942); “Tava jogando sinuca, uma nega maluca me

59
Nara Leão manifested a lot of courage upon embracing samba music and criticizing bossa nova or “the
samba of white elites.” Leão’s intervention in bossa nova unpacked the superficiality of its initial phase,
which was characterized by themes such as the beach, women, the ocean, and boats. As Martinho da Vila
explains: “eu fiz um espectáculo com a Nara Leão na Boate Sucata, no Rio de Janeiro, local sofisticado, só
frequentado pela elite carioca e de outros estados. As pessoas estranharam quando ela decidiu me chamar
para participar do espetáculo. Ela ajudou a quebrar muitos preconceitos” [I performed with Nara Leão in
the Sucata Club, in Rio de Janeiro, a sophisticated venue, only frequented by the elite from Rio and other
states. The attendees were disgruntled when Nara called on me to participate in the show. She helped break
a lot of prejudices] (Ele é…39).
60
“Pelo Telefone” was composed by Ernesto Joaquim Maria dos Santos (Donga) and Mauro de Almeida.
In an interview given to the Museu da Imagem e do Som in Rio de Janeiro in 1969, Donga commented that
“Pelo Telefone” was a samba that he made with the intention of not removing himself from maxixe, which
was much in vogue around the time (Matos 39). Before “Pelo Telefone,” Sérgio Cabral notes there were
sambas that were recorded without being labeled as such, as well as musical genres that were not samba but
used the name and that were also recorded from those albums as the one of the first samba (33).
61
David Nasser (São Paulo, 1917—Rio de Janeiro, 1980) was a lyricist and journalist who composed his
first samba when he was eighteen year old. The lyrics of the samba “Chorei Quando o Dia Clareou” [I
Cried When the Sun Broke], with melody written by Nelson Teixeira, was a success in the carnival of that
year, and would be recorded by Aracy de Almeida in 1939. Aside from his intense collaboration in the
world of samba, Nasser also published eight books, among them, Mergulho na Aventura [Dip into
 58

apareceu. Vinha com o filho no colo e dizia pro povo que o filho era meu”
(Evaldo Rui e Fernando Lobo, 1950); “Pela primeira vez que eu fui à
gafieira, tive uma decepção quando entrei no salão. É que uma crioulinha,
cheia de coisinha, recusou-me a contradança, me dizendo assim: ‘Não está
vendo logo que eu não me passo? Eu acho bom tu te mancar, palhaço! Se
eu gostasse de dançar com preto, eu andava com um urubu dependurado
no braço” (samba-de-breque, parece que do repertório do cantor Jorge
Veiga, lançado na década de 1950). Estes são apenas alguns exemplos de
sambas que eram engraçados na época, mas que agora soam muito tristes,
principalmente quando constatamos que foram escritos por mulatos, como
é o caso do último exemplo. As letras de conscientização e militância só
aparecem, para o grande consumo, efetivamente a partir da década de 70.
Embora no repertório dos sambas-de-terreiro das escolas haja algumas
abordagens pioneiras, mas sempre passando pelo viés da História oficial,
como nos sambas-enredo.

[During a long time, the racial question was only present in samba lyrics
through racist messages, or photographing prejudice: “Black girl of hard
hair, which is the comb that combs you? (Rubem Soares and David
Nasser, 1942); “I was playing pool and a crazy black woman approached
me. She came with the baby in her lap and said to everybody that the baby
was mine” (Evaldo Rui and Fernando Lobo, 1950); “For the first time I
went to a gafieira, I had such a disappointment when I came into the hall.
It was a little crioula, full of herself, she denied me a dance, laying it on
me like so: You do not see that I do not go for that? I think it is fine that
you limp, clown! If I liked to dance with a black man, I would walk with
an urubu hanging from my arm“(samba-de-breque, seems to be from the
repertory of the singer, Jorge Veiga, which came out in the 1950s. These
are only some examples of sambas that were funny around the time, but
that now sound sad, above all when we verify that they were written by
mulatos, which is the case of the last example. The lyrics of consciousness
and militancy only appear, for the masses, in the 1970s. Although the
repertory of sambas-de-terreiro of the schools had some pioneering
approaches, yet always glossing over the filter of official history, like in
the sambas-enredo. (Interview, 8/18/2010).

In the 1960s there was a significant increase in the number of sambas-enredo

dealing with Afro-Brazilian themes. Some books on Rio’s carnival place substantial

emphasis on Fernando Augusto da Silveira Pamplona’s role in the rise of Afro-Brazilian

sambas-enredo. However, Pamplona clarified in an interview given on July 29, 2010 that

Adventure], Para Dutra Ler na Cama [So Dutra Reads in Bed], and O Velho Capitão [The Old Captain]
(Dicionário... 517).
 59

Nelson de Andrade was a much more significant contributor regarding the valorization of

Afro-Brazilian themes in sambas-enredo in the 1960s.62 In 1957, in conjunction with

Roberto de Carvalho, Pamplona created the title “Rio Colonial” for the Teatro Municipal

of Rio de Janeiro, which was the winning project. Until then, most works were based in

European themes, like the Venetian dances and the French court.63 Furthermore, in 1957,

Pamplona transformed the elite theatre with elements of Afro-Brazilian semiotics.

Miércio Tati invited Pamplona in 1959 to become a member of the jury of the samba

schools’ processions, which, at the time, took place on the Avenue Rio Branco. As the

historian Júlio César Farias notes:

O enredo de temática afro-brasileira expandiu-se a partir da década de

1960, quando o Salgueiro começou a exaltar o negro, evidenciando ‘vultos
negros silenciados pela oficialidade’. É uma das temáticas preferidas do
Carnaval, não só pelas possibilidades de sua constituição plástica, mas
porque retoma as origens de uma raça, precursora do samba e do próprio
Carnaval brasileiro.

[The enredo of Afro-Brazilian themes expanded after 1960 when

Salgueiro began to exalt blacks, exposing ‘black faces silenced by
officiality.’ It is one of the preferred themes of carnival, not only due to
the possibilities of its visual constitution, but rather because it re-

62
See Maria Laura Viveiros de Castro Cavalcanti’s Carnaval Carioca: Dos Bastidores ao Desfile (1994)
and Julio Cesar Faria’s O Enredo de Escola de Samba (2007).
63
In 1920, the Bostonian playwright and Nobel Laureate in Literature (1936) and Pulitzer Prize winner for
drama (1920, 1922, 1928, 1957), Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953), wrote the play The Emperor Jones. This
play tells the tale of Brutus Jones, an African American who kills a man, goes to prison, escapes to a
Caribbean island, and establishes himself as Emperor. On May 8, 1945, the Teatro Experimental do Negro
(TEN) opened with The Emperor Jones in the Teatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro. Likewise, in 1957,
Abdias do Nascimento’s play Sortilégio, also referred to as, Mistério Negro [Black Mystery], was
performed both in the Teatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro and the Teatro Municipal de São Paulo. The
realization of plays centered on black history in the socio-cultural spaces of Brazil’s predominantly white
high society is of upmost importance. In a letter written to the TEN in November 1944, O’Neill lamented
the absence of African-American playwrights writing about African-American problems, and added that,
the true authors of texts for black interpreters have to be blacks themselves (Dramas… 24). Since 1944, the
Teatro Experimental do Negro has upheld the tenets of Négritude in the arts and society, which were to
restore, value and exalt the contribution of Africans to the Brazilian formation.
 60

introduces the origins of a race, precursor of samba and Brazilian carnival

itself] (79).

Likewise, in an interview with Martinho da Vila on June 18, 2010, he stated that

“até então (1960) ninguém falava em Zumbi;64 foi o momento de renascer Zumbi” [until

then (1960) nobody talked about Zumbi; it was the moment to have Zumbi reborn]. In

other words, Zumbi was to be reborn, not as fantasy, but as historical fact, that is, to be

dislodged from the mythifying process of a one-dimensional ideology and recodified and

relocated into its historical dimensions. In interviews, both Martinho da Vila and Marília

T. Barboza da Silva emphasized the importance of Pamplona in the rise of Afro-Brazilian

sambas-enredo in Rio’s carnival.65 Before the 1960s, there were some, albeit very few,

sambas-enredo of Afro-Brazilian themes such as Lei Áurea (Unidos da Tijuca, 1948) and

Navio Negreiro (Salgueiro, 1957). In the 1960s, the number of sambas-enredo that

64
Zumbi dos Palmares (c.1655-1695) is the name of the greatest leader of the confederacy of “quilombos
de Palmares,” most likely born near Pernambuco, where he lived his struggles and died. Some historical
accounts affirm that Zumbi was born in Palmares and brought to the city to study, where, after receiving his
formal education, returned to Palmares and became a proto-martyr for the liberty of Afro-Brazilians
(Enciclopédia... 698).
65
Nei Lopes disagrees about the importance of Fernando Pamplona in this regard: “meu amigo Pamplona é
um artista plástico, professor da Escola de Belas Artes, e, no meu entender, na época, final da década de
1950, buscou mais foi efeitos visuais nos enredos que idealizou. Baseou-se numa grande epopéia, que foi a
de Zumbi, e procurou mexer nos brios do povo do morro. Mas como ele mesmo conta, foi difícil convencer
os negros a se vestirem de africanos, pois todos queriam, como era de hábito, vestir trajes da nobreza
colonial. Além disso, a virada do Salgueiro (da qual participei como simples “component,” a partir de
1963), coincide com o auge da companhia Brasiliana, do balé de Mercedes Batista, com o “Orfeu da
Conceição” de Vinícius e a adaptação cinematográfica do Marcel Camus. Quanto ao Nelson de Andrade,
também meu camarada, era um comerciante sagaz, e um político dirigente da escola, a quem o que
interessava era a vitória no carnaval. Inclusive, quando saiu do Salgueiro levou seu projeto para a Portela”
[My friend Pamplona is a visual artist, a university professor of Art, and as I understand, around the end of
the 1950s, what he sought after the most were the visual effects in the enredos that he made. The enredo
was based on the great epic, Zumbi, and Pamplona tried to involve himself in the generosity of the people
of the morro. Yet, as he himself recounts, it was difficult to convince blacks to dress as Africans since they
were used to dressing as colonial nobility. Aside from that, the victory of Salgueiro (which I participated in
as a simple “component” after 1963) coincides with the rise of the troupe Brasiliana of the ballet of
Mercedes Batista and Orfeu da Conceição of Vinícius de Moraes and the cinematic adaptation of Marcel
Camus. As far as Nelson de Andrade is concerned, once again my friend, he was a sagacious businessman,
and a leading politician of samba schools, for whom the victory of carnival mattered. In fact, when he left
Salgueiro, he took his project to Portela] (Interview, 08/18/2010).
 61

centered on Afro-Brazilian themes incremented to roughly nine well-known ones:

Quilombo dos Palmares (Salgueiro, 1960), Casa Grande e Senzala (Unidos da Tijuca,

1961), Chica da Silva (Salgueiro, 1963), Chico Rei (Salgueiro, 1964), A Escravidão

(Unidos da Ponte, 1964), História de um Preto Velho (Mangueira, 1964), Lei do Ventre

Livre (Beija-Flor, 1965), Glória e Graças da Bahia (Império Serrano, 1966) and Sublime

Pergaminho (Unidos de Lucas, 1968).66 Likewise, in the 1970s, there appeared a

minimum of eighteen sambas-enredo of Afro-Brazilian themes in Rio’s carnival.

Hence, in the 1960s there emerged a valorization of Afro-Brazilian themes in the

sambas-enredo of Rio’s carnival, setting the stage for the politicization and militancy of

Afro-Brazilians in the sambista lyrics in the 1970s. When the question was posed:

“Segundo o seu ponto de vista, quais são alguns dos sambistas mais importantes quanto à

tematização de questões raciais na sociedade brasileira no século XX?” [In your point of

view, who are some of the most important sambistas regarding the thematization of

questions of race in twentieth-century Brazilian society?], Nei Lopes responded

66
Paulina L Alberto asserts that “under the military dictatorship that began in 1964, ideologies of
brasilidade [Brazilianess] and racial democracy took on an even more totalizing, indeed suffocating
character. The military governments sought to enforce the image of a racially harmonious, Africanized
Brazil at home and abroad, while preempting the development of homegrown or U.S.– or African-inspired,
racially oppositional politics. These objectives led them to emphasize Brazil’s Africaness in terms of a
folkloric, ancient, and depoliticized African presence, heavily mediated by cultural and racial mixture and
contained by process of nationalization” (20). While Alberto’s explanation underscores quite accurately the
positionality of the military governments concerning racial politics, she loses sight of the presence and
growth of racial discourses in samba culture from the 1960s on, when Afro-Braziliana went from a re-
historicization of Afro-Brazilian history to a more intense black politicization in the 1970s with Antônio
Candeia Filho, Martinho da Vila, and especially Nei Lopes, among other sambistas, not to mention the
emergence of black politics in the works of writers and film directors such as Oswaldo de Camargo,
Waldyr Onofre, Antônio Sampaio, Odilon Lopes, Ola Balogun; in samba organizations, O Grêmio
Recreativo de Arte Negra Escola de Samba Quilombo; in institutes, Porto Alegre’s Senghor Institute, The
Black Consciousness and Unity Group; in dance, the dance troupe Olorum Baba Mim; in Bahian music, Ilê
Aiyê, Olodum; in political activism, the MNUCDR (Movimento Negro Unificado Contra a Discriminação
Racial) [Unified Black Movement against Racial Discrimination]; FECONZU (Festival Comunitário
Negro Zumbi) [Black Zumbi Community Festival]; Grupo Palmares [Palmares Group]; and in the press,
Árvore das Palavras (1974-76), Jornego (1978-82), Cadernos Negros (1978).
 62

“primeiro Candeia, depois Luiz Carlos da Vila; e Martinho, embora este muitas vezes

caia na esparrela da ‘mestiçagem’. São poucos” [First Candeia, then Luiz Carlos da Vila;

and Martinho, although many times he falls into the deception of ‘mixture.’ There are

few]. When I asked Martinho da Vila the same question, prompting him to speak about

Candeia, he commented:

o Candeia não tem muita coisa nesse sentido. Tem aquele ‘negro acorda,’
esse que botou ele na..., mas antes disso tinha muita coisa. O sambista de
uma maneira geral, ele colocava a questão porque o samba do morro, o
sambista falava, o seu barraco, o seu emprego, a sua pobreza, então está
falando a mesma coisa. Sabe como é, só não tá panfletário diretamente,
como se diz. Está falando poeticamente. Em todos os sambas está lá pelo
meio.

[Candeia does not have much in that sense. He has that ‘black man wake
up’, that put him in the..., before that there was a lot. Sambistas generally
posed the question because the samba de morro, the sambista would say,
your tent, your job, your poverty, so he is talking about the same thing.
You know how it is, it just is not directly pamphletary, as one says. He is
talking poetically. In all sambas, it is in there].

Although not overtly, da Vila contends that the racial dimensions of Afro-

Brazilians are present in the lyrics of most sambistas in phrases such as “o seu barraco,”

“o seu emprego,” and “a sua pobreza.” Nevertheless, when I interviewed Sérgio Cabral

we agreed that racial formulations were not always present in samba lyrics, and when

they were, the cases were exceptional (David Nasser, Custódio Mesquita, among others).

In agreement with Nei Lopes, militancy and politicization in samba lyrics took force in

the 1970s with Antônio Candeia Filho, Nei Lopes, Luiz Carlos da Vila, Martinho da Vila,
 63

and, to a lesser degree, Paulinho da Viola.67 In the 1970s, these sambistas used samba as

a political forum within which they raised issues of blacks in Brazilian society.

In conclusion, I have argued that in the 1950s Brazilian intellectual and cultural

production tended to veer away from ethnic discourses as a relevant approach to the

interpretation of Brazilian history. In this light, I have shown that in Zé Keti’s “A Voz do

Morro” (1955) the lyrical voice critiques the link between territory and social

discrimination in Rio de Janeiro without underscoring race relations. Likewise, Nelson

Pereira dos Santos’ film Rio, Zona Norte (1957) presents an artistic vision akin to that of

Zé Keti’s “A Voz do Morro,” in which societal problems are linked to class and

economic exploitation. In the 1960s, on the other hand, I analyzed the text of the Show

Opinião (1964) to highlight the simultaneous emergence of racial themes and the

resistance to the recognition and interpretation of those themes by the dominant Brazilian

political class. In the same decade, the sambas-enredo of Rio de Janeiro’s samba schools

evince a partial thematic shift in which there is a significant increase and celebration of

Afro-Braziliana. This suggests that in 1964, with the military coup d’état, and in 1968,

with the enactment of the AI-5, the (non) prioritization of Afro-Brazilian issues is not a

67
In the essay, “The Multiplicity of Black Identities in Brazilian Popular Music,” José Jorge de Carvalho,
examines the treatment of Afro-Brazilian identity in cults such as Candomblé, Shango, Macumba and
Umbanda, in the religious brotherhoods or Congadas, as well as in several musical genres and styles such
as MPB, marcha, samba-reggae, funk, samba and rap. Following de Carvalho, before the advent of
transnational musical styles associated with black culture such as reggae, funk and rap, which increased the
identification of Afro-Brazilians with various black movements, images of blacks in Brazilian music could
be fit into categories such as “the black woman as crazy, ugly and stupid,” “the poor, old, humble black
man,” or “the black man as the malandro (the romantic hustler), among others. In one of the subsections of
his essay, “Turning the Tide to Black Pride: Funk and Rap,” de Carvalho contends that images of Afro-
Brazilians in the early eighties differ from those in the past because they inaugurate a black eye that is
observing and evaluating the racial situation in the country and aim at creating a new group of images, or
counter-images, with explicit political content (30). On the whole, de Carvalho’s observations are valuable.
However, given the breadth of his study, he overlooks the transition of the new counter-images of Afro-
Brazilians that begin, not in the early eighties, but mainly in the 1960s and 1970s, as evidenced in the
sambas-enredo of Rio’s carnival and soon thereafter in the lyrics of Antônio Candeia Filho, Nei Lopes,
Martinho da Vila, Luiz Carlos da Vila, among others.
 64

direct result of government censorship. Although not exclusively, the ensuing chapter

will focus on the manifestation of racial discourses in Antônio Candeia Filho’s “Dia de

Graça” (1970) and in Afro-Brazilian literature with Oswaldo de Camargo’s short stories

“Negrícia” and “Esperando o Embaixador” (1972) in the early 1970s. Through the

Grêmio Recreativo de Arte Negra Escola de Samba Quilombo and Black Soul, the

chapter will also examine Candeia’s preference for nationalist discourses, as well as his

paternalistic and contradictory stance regarding Brazil’s relationship to Africa.

 65

CHAPTER 2
Candeia, Quilombo and Black Soul
1970-1977

Se preto de alma branca

Pra você
É um exemplo de dignidade
Não nos ajuda, só nos faz sofrer
Nem resgata nossa identidade
[If a black with a white soul
For you
Is an example of dignity
It does not help, it just makes us suffer
Nor does it save our identity]

Jorge Aragão, Identidade (2004)

Black Consciousness in Samba Lyrics circa 1970

In the early 1970s, one of Zé Keti’s friends, fellow member of the Grêmio

Recreativo Escola de Samba Portela and police officer, Antônio Candeia Filho (Rio de

Janeiro, August 17, 1935—Rio de Janeiro, November 16, 1978) would make his mark as

the first samba musician to elaborate an Afro-Brazilian racial consciousness in samba

lyrics.68 Before Candeia, the topic of race and race relations in Brazilian society was

either avoided, or when treated, was infused with messages of racism and prejudice. In

the first half of this chapter, I analyze Candeia’s well-known partido alto entitled, “Dia

68
To his credit, Candeia composed his first samba when he was thirteen years old and ended his musical
career with a total of one hundred and ten compositions. Likewise, Candeia recorded five solo LPs, and in
1953, when he was seventeen years old, co-authored, along with Altair Prego, his first samba-enredo for
Portela, “Seis Datas Magnas” [Three Magnificent Days], which, for the first time, achieved the maximum
grade in every criterion of carnival (400 points).
 66

de Graça”(1970) and Oswaldo de Camargo’s short stories “Negrícia” and “Esperando o

Embaixador” (1972) to show that racial discourses expanded both in samba lyrics and in

Afro-Brazilian literature around the same time.69 In the second half of the chapter, I focus

on the ideological program of the Grêmio Recreativo de Arte Negra Escola de Samba

Quilombo (1975) and illustrate that Candeia and the founders of Quilombo erected the

principles of the samba school not on ethnic discourses, but on culturalist ones. The

chapter ends on a similar note with an examination of Candeia’s partido alto “Sou Mais o

Samba” (1977). Here I argue that the nationalist hubris and anti-internationalism of “Sou

Mais o Samba” is a response to the Brazilian appropriation of American Black Soul,

which was deemed by many sambistas and intellectuals as a serious threat to Brazil’s

musical heritage and national identity politics.

As seen in Chapter 1 through Zé Keti’s “A Voz do Morro” (1955) and Nelson

Pereira dos Santos’ film Rio, Zona Norte (1957), there is a prevailing Marxist perspective

that eschews or dilutes race as a relevant factor in the unequal distribution of wealth and

power in Brazilian society. In the 1960s, with the text of the Show Opinião (1964), racial

themes emerge, yet at the same time, are countered by a master narrative of influential

Brazilian intellectuals who contend that racism is a concept foreign to Brazilians.70

Although at times more symbolic than politically effective, the sambas-enredo of Rio de

Janeiro’s samba schools in the 1960s witnessed an increase in the treatment of Afro-

Braziliana. By the end of the 1960s, Candeia would take the first tentative steps to

69
Solano Trindade’s “Sou Negro” (1958) [I Am Black], is one of the very few exceptions of a direct and
positive affirmation of black racial identity in Brazilian literature before the 1970s.
70
This type of sentiment can be found in recent books such as Ali Kamel’s Não Somos Racistas: Uma
Reação aos que Querem Nos Transformar Numa Nação Bicolor (2006) [We Are Not Racists: A Reaction
to Those Who Want to Transform Us into a Bicolor Nation].
 67

politicize black identity by using hyphenated discourse, however not without

reservations.

“Dia de Graça” (1970) consists of three stanzas and thirty-four verses. In this

partido alto,71 Candeia addresses the centrality of race in samba culture and Brazilian

society:

Hoje é manhã de Carnaval

Há o esplendor
As escolas vão desfilar garbosamente
E aquela gente de cor
Com a importância de um rei
Vai pisar na passarela
Salve a Portela!
Vamos esquecer os desenganos
Que passamos
Viver a alegria que sonhamos
Durante o ano
Damos o nosso coração
Alegria e amor
A todos sem distinção de cor

Mas depois da ilusão,

Coitado, negro volta
Ao humilde barracão.
Negro, acorda, é hora de acordar
Não negue a raça
Torne toda manhã
Dia de graça.

Negro não humilhe

Nem se humilhe a ninguém
Todas as raças
Já foram escravas também.
Deixa de ser rei só da folia
E faça da sua Maria
Uma rainha de todos os dias
E cante um samba na universidade

71
As explained in Leon Hirszman’s documentary, Partido Alto (1982) in which Candeia performs, partido
alto, once referred to as batucada, is the beginning of samba which has its origins in Bahia.
 68

E verás que teu filho será

Príncipe de verdade.

Aí, então
Jamais tu voltarás
Ao barracão72 (Autêntico…).

The first refrain inserts the reader in the euphoric morning light of Rio’s carnival,

which is presented as a domain of joy and fantasy, where dreams and happiness reign and

where Afro-Brazilians march like powerful kings: “Hoje é manhã de Carnaval / Há o

esplendor / As escolas vão desfilar garbosamente / E aquela gente de cor / Com a

imponência de um rei / Vai pisar na passarela / Salve a Portela.” As the partido alto

points out, the “gente de cor” [Afro-Brazilians] who glide down the catwalk are the

limelight of carnival. Likewise, the lyrics also convey the idea that carnival is the time to

“esquecer os desenganos” [forget deceptions] that we have lived and to “viver a alegria”

[live the happiness] that we dream of. Carnival is, in a sense, a social and racial

democracy where “alegria” [happiness] and “amor” [love] are paid to all “sem distinção

de cor” [without distinction of color]. The Brazilian anthropologist, Roberto da Matta,

explains the temporary inversion of societal codes and dismantling of hierarchies that

occur during Rio’s carnival. Following Da Matta:

72
Today is the morning of carnival / There is the splendor / The schools will strut with elegance / And
those people of color / With the majesty of a king / Will step on the runway / Long live Portela! / Let us
forget the deceptions / That we lived / Live the happiness that we dream of / During the year / We give our
heart / Happiness and lsove / To all without distinction of color / Yet after the illusion, / Oh, black man
goes back to his humble shack / Black man, wakeup, it is time to wakeup / Do not deny race / Make all
mornings / Days of grace / Black man, do not humiliate / Nor humiliate anybody else / All races / Already
were enslaved too / Quit being only the king of festivals / And make your Maria / A queen of all days / And
sing a samba in the university / And you will see that your child will be / A true prince / Only then / will
you never return / to the shack.
 69

A inversão carnavalesca brasileira se situa como um princípio que

suspende temporariamente a classificação precisa das coisas, pessoas,
gestos, categorias e grupos no espaço social, dando margem para que tudo
e todos possam estar deslocados. É precisamente por poder colocar tudo
fora do lugar que o Carnaval é freqüentemente associado a “uma grande
ilusão,” ou “loucura.” A transformação do carnaval brasileiro é, pois,
aquela da hierarquia quotidiana na igualdade mágica de um momento
passageiro.

[The Brazilian carnivalesque inversion situates itself as a principle that

temporarily suspends the precise classification of things, of people, of
gestures, of categories, and groups in social space, giving margin so that
everything and all people can be dislocated. It is precisely due to the
ability to take everything out of place that Carnaval is frequently
associated with “a great illusion,” or “craziness.” The transformation of
Brazilian carnival is that of the daily hierarchy in the magical equality of a
fleeting moment] (171).

In “Dia de Graça,” Candeia demonstrates his awareness of the duality mentioned

above. The flipside of the egalitarian carnival is the daily hierarchal reality that sambistas

face. Rather than limit his imagery to only sambistas, however, Candeia opens it to

blacks in general, “Mas depois da ilusão, / Coitado, negro volta / Ao humilde barracão.”

Candeia, on the one hand, channels the “rhetoric of racial democracy73” to the space and

time of carnival [sem distinção de cor], while on the other, racializes Brazilians in

everyday society. In effect, Candeia expands on the concept that the samba schools are

“the equalizers of races, where everyone is equal, no blacks, no whites” (Raphael 208).

The verse, “Negro, acorda, é hora de acordar / Não negue a raça / Torne toda manhã / Dia

de graça,” is a call to Afro-Brazilian consciousness.74 Candeia evokes Afro-Brazilians as

73
As Bryan McCann asserts, “the myth of racial democracy is itself perhaps a misleading term. Perhaps it
is more useful to speak of a rhetoric of racial democracy, understanding that this rhetoric was used and
continues to be used in different ways by different actors (“Black Pau”… 47).
74
This moment in “Dia de Graça” is reminiscent of the poem “Nevoeiro” [Fog] (1928) in Fernando
Pessoa’s Mensagem. Similar to the lyrical voice in “Dia de Graça” which calls Afro-Brazilians to “wake
up,” in “Nevoeiro,” the poetic voice sings, “Ó Portugal, hoje és nevoeiro… / É a hora!” [Oh, Portugal,
today you are fog… The time is now!] (95).
 70

a collective body in order to ameliorate their lives. In the verse, “Negro, não humilhe /

Nem se humilhe a ninguém,” Candeia stresses the centrality of ethics in that Afro-

Brazilians should set a positive example to be followed by others and not discriminate

against people. When Candeia states, “Todas as raças / Já foram escravas tambem,” he

reminds us that all races have been enslaved. Nevertheless, this point is problematic

given that it is often used by reactionaries to make the argument that, if everyone has

been enslaved, then why would there have to be a need for ethnic or racial discourses?

Slave relations among African tribes in Africa are not being raised here. The fact is that

blacks, and not whites, were enslaved in the Americas. This is in large part why the

lyrical voice in “Dia de Graça” evades a nationalistic or all-inclusive ethnic discourse

when engaging social history in Brazilian society.

In the verses, “Deixa de ser rei só da folia / E faça da sua Maria / Uma rainha de

todos os dias / E cante um samba na Universidade / E verás que teu filho será / Príncipe

de verdade,” Candeia constructs the topic of black empowerment. Here Candeia transfers

the greatness of blacks from the time and space of carnival to the daily reality of

Brazilian society. In the early 1970s—when racial quotas came into existence in the

American university system—the lyrical voice suggests that Afro-Brazilians become

kings outside of carnival and sing samba in the university, which is a passive way of

underscoring the need for Afro-Brazilians to study in the universities. Historically

speaking, Afro-Brazilians have been almost completely absent in academia, until the

implementation of racial quotas in the UNB (Universidade de Brasília) in June 2004. The

partido alto closes with the verses, “Aí, então / Jamais tu voltarás / Ao barracão.”

Ultimately, Candeia provides, albeit lyrically, “a recipe” for Afro-Brazilians, which

 71

stipulates that if they become aware of their history in Brazil and that of blacks in the

world, and take the necessary steps to study in universities, then their greatness will go

beyond carnival. In that case, instead of living in a “barracão” [shack], Afro-Brazilians

will live in more affluent neighborhoods. In the book, Candeia: Luz da Inspiração

[Candeia: Light of Inspiration] (2008, 3rd edition), João Baptista M. Vargens analyzes

“Dia de Graça.” To his credit, Vargens touches upon the inside / outside dynamic

mentioned above between the fantasy world of Rio’s carnival and the oppressive non-

carnival reality. Nevertheless, Vargens’ reading of “Dia de Graça” overlooks a much

deeper reality regarding sociological change and cultural production in Brazil. That is to

say, “Dia de Graça” is not contextualized as an historical turning point in the fabrication

of an emerging ethnic discourse, that is, of Afro-Brazilian identity in the genre of samba.

As to provide historical background concerning the transition from sporadic

thematizations of prejudice and racism to the development of an Afro-Brazilian

consciousness, it is worthwhile to take a close look at Aníbal de Machado’s 1931 short

story entitled, “A Morte da Porta-Estandarte” [The Death of the Flagbearer], an evocative

and little-known work about Rio’s carnival. One attentive glance at the title reveals

Machado’s grim outlook on Rio’s carnival in the famous Praça Onze. Whereas Candeia

presents an inside-outside dynamic, in which Rio’s carnival is a time and space of

colorblindness and empowerment for blacks and the outside world is one of destitution,

Machado destabilizes the inside-outside framework, suggesting that even during carnival

blacks are not “reis da folia” [kings of carnival]. From the onset of “A Morte da Porta-

Estandarte,” the narrative voice illustrates that the happiness of blacks is under threat,

“ah, negro, não deixes a alegria morrer” [ah black man, do not let your happiness die]
 72

(38). Throughout the short story, the protagonist without a name, “o negro” [black man],

does not join the bloco carnavalesco due to the absence of a girl named Rosinha. As the

narrator points out, “o negro, indiferente à alegria dos outros, estava com o coração

batendo, à espera. Só depois que Rosinha chegasse, começaria o Carnaval” [The black

man, indifferent to the happiness of the others, was there waiting with his heart beating.

Only after the arrival of Rosinha would carnival begin] (39). Moreover, Rosinha acts as a

leitmotiv of the various absences in the life of the “negro” (e.g. the recognition of Afro-

Brazilians as first class citizens by their lighter-skinned co-nationals).

Although there is no Afro-Brazilian racial consciousness in “A Morte da Porta-

Estandarte,” as there is in “Dia de Graça,” Machado’s short story captures racial

prejudice and discrimination. As the third person narrator comments, “E está sofrendo o

preto. Os felizes estão se divertindo” [And the black man is suffering. The happy people

are enjoying themselves] (41). Through euphemisms, the narrator establishes a

dichotomy between “o preto” [the black man] and “os felizes” [the happy white people].

In “A Morte da Porta-Estandarte,” Machado achieves at least two goals. One the one

hand, he deconstructs the internationally dominant paradigm of Rio’s carnival as always

blissful for all people, and at the same time, historicizes race relations in Rio de Janeiro in

the 1930s, serving as a counterpoint to the luso-tropicalist paradigm of foundational texts

written just a few years later, such as Gilberto Freyre’s Casa Grande & Senzala (1933)

and Sérgio Buarque de Hollanda’s Raízes do Brasil (1936). As far as race relations are

concerned, there is a moment in which an English woman asks someone indirectly, “mas

eles [os negros] são ferozes?” [but the, blacks, aren’t they ferocious?], to which someone

responds, “Não senhorita, pode aproximar-se à vontade, os negros são mansos” [No, Ms.,
 73

you can get as close as you wish, Blacks are tame] (42). Nevertheless, at the same time,

the hegemonic voices of the English woman and the other unidentified person are

countered by that of an Afro-Brazilian woman, “nóis é que temo mêdo de vancês” [We

are the ones who are afraid of you] (42).

The short story ends with the death of a woman named, Odete, which is attributed

without evidence to a black man, “o crime do negro abriu uma clareira silenciosa no meio

do povo” [The negro’s crime opens a silent space among the people] (46). The ease of

criminalizing Afro-Brazilians is apparent in expressions such as, “se o branco é

inerentemente bom e eu sou negro, então eu não sou negro” [If whites are inherently

good and I am black, then I am not black], “branco que corre é atleta, negro que corre é

ladrão” [The white man who runs is an athlete, the black man who runs is a crook], and

other ones that I have heard in more recent years such as “vou libertar o mandela” [I am

going to free Mandela], which some Brazilians use to express the need to defecate. This

last popular figure of speech associates the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and ex-

President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, someone who is recognized for the peaceful

end of the apartheid regime and for building the foundations for a new democratic South

Africa to human feces. According to José Fonseca Dagoberto, jokes concerning the

relationship between whites and blacks in Brazilian society configure themselves in a

relaxed discriminatory process, projecting themselves as discourses of dissimulation, of

consolidation, and of secret accusation of social exclusion and racism. In this regard,

jokes run against the ideology of ethnic, racial, and social democracy, revealing its farce.

Racist expressions, therefore, reinforce the unjustifiable insistence of some Brazilians’

belief that there is no racial prejudice, that everyone is equal, and that they are unfamiliar
 74

with the presence of discriminatory attitudes in Brazil (41, 47). Case in point: the English

woman in “A Morte da Porta-Estandarte” is depicted as bigoted for having to ask if

blacks are ferocious. On the other hand, the unknown local voice seems devoid of

prejudice upon reassuring the English woman that Afro-Brazilians are calm. This

observation also makes Gilberto Freyre’s theory of “morenidade,” [brownness] hard to

swallow, which characterizes the “homem brasileiro” [Brazilian man] as “quase sem

discriminação” [almost without discrimination].

As we have seen, there is a significant difference between the treatment of

blackness in Candeia’s “Dia de Graça” and Machado’s “A Morte da Porta-Estandarte.” In

the former case, the lyrical voice sculpts the concept of Afro-Brazilian racial

consciousness by counterposing the supremeness of blacks in the alleged temporary

racial democracy of Rio’s carnival to the daily reality of Brazilian society in which race

and socio-economics are not only intertwined, but demark visible hierarchies regarding

the distribution and location of races and ethnicities in the urban spaces of Rio de Janeiro.

In the latter case, racism and prejudice are treated, however, without a call for Afro-

Brazilians to take action collectively.

Afro-Brazilian Literature in the Early 1970s

One of the tell-tale signs of the construction of an Afro-Brazilian racial

consciousness in the samba lyrics of the early 1970s is its presence in other Brazilian

literatures around the same time. A fine example of the elaboration of a black racial

consciousness can be found in Oswaldo de Camargo’s (Bragança SP, October 24, 1936—

present) short stories “Negrícia” [Blackness] and “Esperando o Embaixador” [Waiting

 75

for the Ambassador] (1972). The short story, “Negrícia,” draws on the links between

black identity discourses and musical genres in Brazil. In this short story, a first person

narrator/flaneur/columnist goes to a “creole party” to report events. Repelled by the

“musiquinha de branco rico” [sweet music of rich white men], the narrator asks: “cadê o

samba do Noel, cadê o Ataulfo e o Caymi?” [where is the samba of Noel, Ataulfo and

Caymi?]. The following dialogue touches upon divergences in terms of racial, cultural,

and social codes and values among Brazilians:

Isso é lindo! — suspirou Wanda mulata

Não me diz nada— respondi eu. Ataulfo é superior

[That is beautiful!— sighed brown skinned Wanda

That does not do anything for me— I responded. Ataulfo is superior]
(31).

In this passage, there are also non-whites, such as Wanda the mulata, who enjoy

the “musiquinha de branco rico.” Despite this fact, the narrator prefers samba to

European classical music. It is worth noting that, although Ataulfo Alves and Dorival

Caymi were Afro-Brazilians, Noel Rosa was not. All in all, the narrator brings our

attention to both samba as a Brazilian national music and to the African identity therein.

The rejection of European classical music is significant in that, while it devalues white

musical production, which enjoys unbridled freedom in the cultural spaces of high

society, it also underscores the perennial symptom in Brazil of valuing foreign materials

and cultural products more than national ones. Not to be understated is the narrator’s

confrontation with the attitudes of conventional Brazilian society, which, in the eyes of

Abdias do Nascimento, has never considered African culture as true culture (114).
 76

Perhaps most significant in “Negrícia” is the narrator’s use of the personal pronoun “we,”

which refers specifically to Afro-Brazilians and not to Brazilians in general, “não é coisa

nossa, é cultura imposta” [It is not our thing. It is imposed culture] (34).

Similarly, the short story “Esperando o Embaixador,” develops the topic of Pan-

Africanism, black awareness,75 and racial and national identity in Brazil. In this short

story, the narrator, Lírio, has great expectations to meet the ambassador of Nigeria, who

is allegedly in town to pay homage to the writer Teobaldo Luiz for his most recent book

publication. However, after a short while at the reception party, Lírio soon realizes that

the ambassador of Nigeria is not present. Impeccably dressed in a suit, Lírio says

goodbye to his aunt Luiza and dashes off to catch a taxi. While seated in the taxi, Lírio

strikes a conversation with the chauffeur:

Você é preto, não é?

Tá na cara, não vê?
Acha importante relações culturais entre nós e a Nigéria?
Que nós? Você diz o Brasil?
Não… nós, os das associações, as associações negras… Você não sabe?

[You are black arent you?

It’s in the face don’t you see?
Do you think cultural relations between us and Nigeria are important?
Which who? You mean Brazil?
No…Us. Those of the associations, the black associations… You don’t
know?] (77).

In this dialogue, Lírio’s questions regarding self-awareness and cultural relations

between “us” and Nigeria leave the chauffeur bewildered. Since the chauffeur does not

75
In Camargo’s short story, “Negritude,” the first person narrator, Massango, encounters Berenice amidst
his other friends and begins to flip through one of her books on Négritude. Upon so doing, Massango
becomes aware of his self-identification with the content on Négritude. Aside from self-discovery within
the text, Berenice explains to Massango that Négritude was movement of cultural revindication primarily
rooted in Africa in the 1930s. After his exposure to Négritude, Massango quickly becomes disinterested in
watching his friends playing music, driven by the concern that afrodescendants were not accompanying
Africa (75).
 77

consider himself black and does not see the relevance of racial matters, “Não vejo o

interesse…nunca pensei que fosse preto, sou chofer, tenho dois filhos” [I do not see the

interest… I never considered myself black, I am a chauffeur, I have two kids…], he only

recognizes himself and Brazilians in terms of national identity. As an Afro-Brazilian who

is not conscientizado [aware], the chauffeur admits to his unfamiliarity with black

organizations such as “Negros Contemporâneos” [Contemporary Blacks] and the “Casa

de Cultura Luiza Mahim” [House of Culture Luiza Mahim]. Once at the party, Lírio

revels in the aroma and visual appearance of the many black guests. Eventually, Lírio

meets the hostess of the party, an Afro-Brazilian woman named, Gabriela, with whom he

plays checkers. As Lírio discloses to Gabriela his anticipation to greet the ambassador,

Gabriela breaks the news to him that the ambassador is with her father and will not attend

the party. Before leaving the party, Lírio proclaims: “mas acontece que vim pelo

embaixador de um país irmão” [But it happens that I came to see the ambassador from a

brother-country], once again stressing his desire to understand himself and the

predicament of Afro-Brazilians and their history in a Pan-Africanist context.

Understanding Quilombo: Brazilian Culture?

As seen in “Dia de Graça,” Candeia focuses on Afro-Brazilians and not on

Brazilians in general, signifying his awareness, albeit not always consistent, of his black

racial identity. A few years later, in 1975, Candeia erected the Grêmio Recreativo de Arte

Negra Escola de Samba Quilombo in collaboration with several sambistas from Portela,

such as Paulinho da Viola, Casquinha, Valdir 59, Elton Medeiros,76 as well as other great

76
Although Nei Lopes and Martinho da Vila are properly introduced in their respective chapters of this
dissertation, Paulinho da Viola, Elton Medeiros, and Jorge Coutinho are all very important figures in samba
 78

names in Brazilian popular music and culture like Jorge Coutinho, Nei Lopes, Martinho

da Vila, and Clara Nunes. In addition to the intervention of the journalists Waldinar

Ranulpho, Clovis Scarpino, Juarez Barroso, and Lena Frias, the Instituto de Pesquisa das

Culturas Negras (IPCN) [The Research Institute of Black Cultures], as well as the Centro

de Estudos Afro-Asiáticos [The Center of Afro-Asian Studies] also lent their support,

creating the matrix from which all black institutions would later blossom (Pasquim

abre…12). With regard to the existence of Quilombo77 as a samba school, it only

music and history. Born in 1930 in Rio de Janeiro, Elton Medeiros is a composer of Brazilian Popular
Music, a member of the Association of Music, Arrangers, and Regents, and an administrator who studied in
the Department of Political and Economic Sciences in Rio de Janeiro at the University Cândido Mendes
(UCAM). As a composer, singer, and rhythm player, Medeiros has collaborated with highly respected
samba musicians such as Cartola, Zé Keti, and, most notably, Paulinho da Viola. Medeiros gained visibility
along with samba legend Clementina de Jesus in 1965 in the show “Rosa de Ouro” [Rose of Gold]. Paulo
César Batista de Faria, more commonly know as Paulinho da Viola, was born in 1942 in Rio de Janeiro.
Son of the guitarist of the choro group Época de Ouro [Time of Gold], Benedito César Ramos de Faria, da
Viola had the privilege as a young man of learning from Brazilian music virtuosos such as Pixinguinha and
Jacob do Bandolim in his own home. Author of a vast number of records, da Viola reveals a strong
influence of choro music in his samba compositions and is an active member of the samba school, Portela.
Born in 1934, Jorge Coutinho is an actor and native of Rio de Janeiro. Coutinho appeared in films such as
Assalto ao Trem Pagador (1962), Ganga Zumba (1964), Chuvas de Verão (1978), Quilombo (1984),
Memórias do Cárcere and Cinco Vezes Favela. In television, his accolades include programs such as Roque
Santeiro, A Escalada, Dona Beija, Irmãos Coragem, Abolição and Partido Alto, among others. From 1971
to 1983, Coutinho was one of the creators and organizers of the Teatro Opinião’s famous “Noitada de
Samba” [Evening of Samba], which launched or consolidated the prestige of artists such as Clara Nunes,
Roberto Ribeiro, João Nogueira, Clementina de Jesus, Xangô da Mangueira, and Nelson Cavaquinho
(Enciclopédia…212).
77
It is important to note that Quilombo was much more than a samba school. As the Grêmio Recreativo de
Arte Negra Escola de Samba, Quilombo frequently organized conferences in their headquarters on topics
related to the study of the black contribution in the cultural formation of Brazil. More than a carnival
procession, Quilombo had several groups of various dances of black origin such as jongo, caxambu,
capoeira, maculelê, afoxé, samba de lenço, samba de caboclo, lundu and maracatú (Candeia... 81, 82).
Historically speaking, quilombos were the settlements of runaway slaves in Brazil. For example, in 1740,
the Conselho Ultramarino [The Ultramarino Counsel], defined a quilombo as any nucleus that reunites
more than five runaway slaves irrespective of whether they possessed a building or not (Enciclopédia...
550). In addition, Quilombo, was also a weekly world-class newspaper produced by the Teatro
Experimental do Negro [Black Experimental Theatre]. Directed by Abdias do Nascimento, Quilombo
published ten editions from December 1948 to July 1950, and was built on the participation of highly
acclaimed white and black national and international collaborators such as Guerreiro Ramos, Ironides
Rodrigues, Edison Carneiro, Solano Trindade, Nelson Rodrigues, Rachel de Queiroz, Gilberto Freyre,
Arthur Ramos, Murilo Mendes, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Péricles Leal, Orígenes Lessa, Roger
Bastide, George Schuyler (American), Efrain Tomás Bó (Argentine), among others. Aside from exploring
issues of the black diaspora around the world, and lasting longer than most Afro-Brazilian publications at
that time, one of Quilombo’s main objectives was to unite the greatest minds in the Brazilian arts and
 79

marched in Rio’s carnival on two occasions before its dissolution: in 1977 with the theme

As Mãos do Povo [The Hands of the People], and in 1978 with Ao Povo em Forma de

Arte [To the People in the Form of Art]. Nevertheless, as Paulinho da Viola stated on July

25, 1978, Quilombo paraded in Marquês de Sapucaí and also had the intention of

presenting themselves in places such as Niterói or on the 28 de setembro in Vila Isabel

(Candeia… 83). Quilombo came into being as fruit of a shared feeling among many of

the members of the Grêmio Recreativo Escola de Samba Portela, such as Elton Medeiros,

who argued that the samba schools in Rio de Janeiro were being stripped of their original

character, impeding the sambistas from maintaining their authenticity (Candeia… 75).

Some people went so far as to accuse Quilombo of being a center of racist ideas. Candeia

explains in January of 1976 in the Última Hora / Revista:

Não negamos que se trata de um movimento de resistência. Não uma

resistência especificamente contra os muitos brancos que estão
engrossando os contingentes das escolas. A resistência é tão-somente
contra a total descaracterização da coisa. Evitar que daqui a mais uns
tempos ninguém saiba exatamente o que era uma escola de samba. O que
era um sambista e de como e para o que eles se reuniam, cantavam e
dançavam, utlizando seu ritmo próprio tradicional. Não vejo razão para
evitar que um branco bem intencionado, interessado no samba, nos nossos
costumes, conviva conosco. O que repeliremos são os que, pretos ou
brancos, pretendam “inovar” o samba, descaracterizando-o afastando-o de
suas raízes culturais. Nosso objetivo é salvaguardar a essência das origens
do nosso samba. Não podemos impedir que alguém prossiga, com êxito
financeiro, mesmo ferindo o nosso patrimônio cultural, a apresentar coisas
outras como o nosso samba. Mas podemos provar, na prática, que a
verdade está conosco e que também se pode evoluir, preservando-a.

[We do not deny that this is about a movement of resistance. Not

specifically a resistance against the many whites that are filling the
contingencies of samba schools. The resistance is mainly against the total
disfiguration of the samba school. To avoid that from now into the future

sciences, whites and blacks, and to launch an original project of resistance against racism in Brazil
(Quilombo...11).
 80

nobody knows exactly what a samba school was. What a sambista was,
and how and why they got together, sung, danced, utilizing their own
traditional rhythm. I see no reason to dispel a well-intentioned white man,
interested in samba, in our customs, be amongst us. What we will repel are
those who, blacks or whites, intend to “innovate” samba, soiling its
character, distancing it from its cultural roots. Our objective is to save the
essence of the origins of our samba. We cannot impede that someone goes
ahead, with financial success, even wounding out cultural patrimony, to
present things like our samba. Yet we can show in practice that truth is
with us and that it can evolve, preserving it (Candeia... 75).

As Candeia explains, Quilombo certainly was not a racist organization. Despite

this fact, it is worth noting how he disengages from ethnic discourse on samba as seen in

“Dia de Graça.” In the above interview, Candeia approaches the topic of Quilombo and

the samba schools from the culturalist/nationalist perspective,78 which is latent in phrases

such as, “salvaguardar as origens do nosso samba” [saving the origins of our samba] and

“pretendam ‘inovar’ o samba, descaracterizando-o, afastando-o de suas raízes culturais

[intend to ‘innovate’ samba, diluting it, pulling it away from its cultural roots]. When

Candeia speaks of “nosso samba” he is not referring to samba from the ethnic perspective

as does the narrator in Camargo’s short story “Negrícia” (1972), who, upon enunciating

“não é coisa nossa,” alludes specifically to Afro-Brazilians. Likewise, when speaking of

roots, Candeia opts for the word “cultural,” without specifying the ideological wars and

the political siding of the “actors” in the carnival industry. In conversation with Martinho

da Vila on June 18, 2010, da Vila did not consider Candeia to be significant as far as

78
Similarly, in O Samba na Realidade: A Utopia da Ascensão Social do Sambista [Samba in Reality: The
Utopia of the Social Ascension of the Sambista] (1981), Nei Lopes asserts that samba has become an object
of consumption for the masses and that the owners of the means of production of samba are not the
sambistas themselves, but people of the middle class who know almost nothing about samba. Nevertheless,
under the “Princípios Básicos do Quilombo” [Basic Principles of the Quilombo], an unspecified collective
voice of the Quilombo argues, from a nationalist perspective, that nobody in the world can dance samba
like Brazilians, and adds that, ginga, the dance movement associated with the semi-balletic art form of
capoeira, can only truly be danced by Brazilians, “Ginga?... Só os brasileiros” [Ginga?... Only Brazilians]
(83).
 81

black politics are concerned in Brazilian culture and samba lyrics. Martinho stated that

“Candeia não tem muita coisa nesse sentido. Tem aquele “negro acorda” [Candeia does

not have much in this sense. He has that “negro acorda”].

The ebb and flow of nationalist and ethnic discourses in Candeia’s works can also

be detected in his co-authored book with Isnard Araújo, Escola de Samba: Árvore que

Esqueceu a Raíz [Samba School: Tree that Forgot the Root] (1978), whose passive title,

voluntary or not, already suggests an accommodating view on the discriminatory

machinations of the samba industry. On the one hand, Candeia and Isnard are aware of

the “spontaneous” and “natural” aspects of the “modernization” of the samba school and

the involvement of the Carioca middle class in that history, “evidentemente não podemos

culpar a classe média nessa corrida natural e espontânea às Escolas de Samba. Afinal de

contas, o samba é do povo brasileiro. Achamos que este é um problema de estrutura

econômica e social no Brasil” [evidently we cannot blame the middle class in that natural

and spontaneous rush of the samba school. Ultimately, samba is of the Brazilian nation.

We think that this is a problem in Brazil whose nature is of economic and social structure

in Brazil] (90). Yet, at the same time, Candeia and Isnard racialize the dominant Carioca

political and economic class, emphasizing its dominion and power in all sectors of

society: “a parte branca, ou menos negra, continuará monopolizando o poder político, o

poder econômico, o privilégio da instrução e do bem-estar” [the white part, or less black,

will continue monopolizing the political power, the economic power, and the privilege of

education and of well being] (83). Nevertheless, it is a conceptual entanglement to

classify samba as a “product of the Brazilian nation” and a “natural evolution” that

acquits “the Carioca middle class,” while at the same time arguing that there is white
 82

domination in Brazilian society. In other words, Candeia and Araújo continue with the

push-pull dynamic where they simultaneously confirm and ignore the existence of white

domination within the political, economic and educational order in Brazilian society. In

this manner, Candeia and Araújo refrain from a thorough discussion of the institutional

and societal causes and consequences of the evolution of samba schools as characteristic

of Brazilian race relations discourses.

When asked whether the “authentic” sambista can afford to march in the major

samba schools upon considering the luxury and high prices of costumes, Candeia fails to

connect the marginality of Afro-Brazilians to their historical condition as former slaves:

“realmente a autenticidade e o luxo não estão assim muito bem relacionadas, que

normalmente todo sambista, de uma certa forma, é sempre o elemento de menor poder

adquisitivo, então, não se coaduna bem com aqueles detalhes do luxo, da ostentação e da

riqueza” [in truth, authenticity and luxury do not go well together, given that normally,

sambistas, in a sense, are always the ones that have the least power of acquisition,

therefore the “authentic” sambista does fit with those details of luxury, ostentation and

wealth] (Eu Sou Povo!).

The intellectual divide between the proponents of Afro-Brazilian identity politics

and the proponents of racial miscegenation and brasilidade [Brazilianess] in the

sociological context of Rio’s samba schools and Brazilian society manifests vividly in the

1981 article, “Fernando Pamplona: Carnavalesco pra Ninguém Botar Defeito” [Fernando

Pamplona: Carnavalesco Nobody Can Talk Bad About]. In this article, the carnavalesco,

Fernando Pamplona, and the renowned staff writer of the alternative press magazine o
 83

Pasquim, Sérgio Jaguaribe, also known as Jaguar, debate the topic of racial, cultural, and

national identity within the context of samba schools and Brazilian society:

Jaguar: No julgamento das escolas, tinha algum crioulo?

Pamplona: Edson Carneiro.
Jaguar: A formação dele é branca.
Pamplona: Vou te mostrar 18 livros pra provar que não. Mas isso pra mim
não importa, porque o que existe é brasileiro. No júri precisa ter gente, e
não cor, deixa de ser preconceituoso.
Jaguar: Suas intenções podem ter sido boas, mas acho que voce foi lá
inteferir na cultura deles.
Pamplona: A cultura deles é a minha, é a sua.
Jaguar: A minha não. Eu sei que não é a minha.

Jaguar: [On the panel of judges of the schools, were there any blacks?
Pamplona: Edson Carneiro.
Jaguar: His formation is white.
Pamplona: I am going to show you 18 books to prove the contrary. Yet,
that does not matter to me because what exists are Brazilians. The panel of
judges needs people and not color, stop being bigoted.
Jaguar: Your intentions may have been good, but I think you interfered
with their culture.
Pamplona: Their culture is mine, and yours.
Jaguar: Not mine. I know that it is not mine].
(Fernando… 8, 9).

According to Jaguar, Afro-Brazilians exist, and samba is primarily a fruit of their

own history and culture. This affirmation implies a major distinction between Jaguars’

racial, social, economic, and cultural identity and that of most Afro-Brazilians. Pamplona,

on the other hand, exclaims that “90% da nossa raça é miscigenada! O Brasil não é e

jamais será um país negro! O Brasil é um país mestiço, e com muito orgulho!” [90

percent of our race is mixed! Brazil will never be a country of blacks! Brazil is a country

of mestiços, and with much pride!] (Fernando… 9). Ideologically speaking, Pamplona’s

negation of the existence of Afro-Brazilians perpetuates their subservience to lighter-

 84

skinned co-nationals, for it equates the historical condition of former slaves, who are to

this day socially, economically, and politically marginalized and underrepresented in the

governmental, mediatic, commercial, and diplomatic ranks of Brazilian society, to the

hegemonic domain and machinations of a predominantly lighter-skinned ruling class.

In the book, La Globalización Imaginada [Globalization Imagined] (1999), the

Argentine-born academic and anthropologist, Néstor García Canclini, details the nuances

of identity politics in several Latin American nations. According to Canclini, whereas in

the United States identity politics and the use of the hyphen (e.g. Italian-American)

complicate the negotiation of the individual affirming various cultural or ethnic

belongings, in Brazil, individuals preserve for themselves the possibility of distinct

affiliations, being able to circulate between identities and mix them. On the contrary, the

use of the hyphen does not preclude individuals in the United States from affirming other

cultural or ethnic belongings; hyphenization, rather, recognizes the existence of cultural

and ethnic diversity, thus facilitating awareness for the possible identification with or

rejection of otherness. As examined above in the 1981 O Pasquim interview, Fernando

Pamplona manifests a superficial “affiliation” with black Brazilian culture that brings

into question Canclini’s interpretation of the concepts of “circulation” and “mixing” in

the Brazilian discussion on alterity. Although Canclini argues that in Brazil the cultural

dimension is preserved with notions such as profound interrelation, identification, and

possible cohabitation with other segments of the population, he also notes that there is a

loss of the emblematic concept of what is territorialized—that is, ethnicity as a parcel of

nationhood (117).
 85

Canclini’s explanations of the historical Brazilian tendency to forfeit ethnicity do

not differ much, if any, from Nei Lopes’ position on the issue. Nevertheless, as a white

Argentine, Canclini is much more respected and known internationally than Lopes, who

is one of the most informed and lucid minds on the topic. This disparity in the granting of

legitimacy to Afro-Brazilians in national and international spheres is unsettling upon

recognizing that Lopes is not only a theoretician, but also a practitioner of samba and

Brazilian culture who certainly has a more acute understanding of and insight into

Brazilian problems than Canclini. Lopes explains the problematic of Brazilian identity

politics:

Aqui cabe falarmos sobre desafricanização, que é o processo psicológico

e cultural através do qual se retira ou se procura retirar um tema ou de um
indivíduo os conteúdos que o identificam como de origem africana. E isso
vem de muito longe. A principal estratégia do escravismo nas Américas
era fazer com que os cativos esquecessem o mais rapidamente sua
condição de africanos e assumissem a de “negros,” marca de
subalternidade, a fim de prevenir o banzo e o desejo de rebelião ou fuga,
reações frequentes, posto que antagônicas. O processo de desafricanização
começava já lá do outro lado do Atlântico, com conversões forçadas ao
cristianismo, antes do embarque. Seguia-se a adoção compulsória do nome
cristão, bem como do sobrenome do dono, o que representava, para o
africano, verdadeira e trágica amputação. Posterioramente, vinham as
distinções clássicas entre “da costa” e “crioulo,” entre “boçal” e “ladino.”
E isso estimulava a rivalidade entre crioulos e africanos, apreciada e
incentivada pelos escravocratas. As iniciativas de desafricanização da
Diáspora eram e continuam um processo altamente desagregador. Que
hoje se traduz no elogio da mestiçagem, usado, muitas vezes em
substituição à frustrada tentativa de branquear fisicamente a população
nacional. É assim que, historicamente, os grandes intelectuais e artistas
afrobrasileiros são mostrados como “mestiços geniais,” reservando-se a
qualificação “negro” ou “preto,” embora com carga positiva, apenas para
os subalternos ou que se destacaram pela força física.

[Here we should talk about desafricanization, which is the psychological

and cultural process one takes away or tries to take away from a theme or
an individual the content that identifies him as African origin. And that
 86

comes from way back. The principal strategy of slavery in the Americas
was to have the captives forget as fast as possible their condition as
Africans and to assume the one of “blacks,” a mark of subalternity with
the finality of preventing the banzo and the desire of rebellion or flight,
frequent reactions, even antagonistic. The process of desafricanization
began already on the other side of the Atlantic, with forced conversions to
Christianity, before embarkation. There continued the compulsory
adoption of Christian names, as well as the last name of the owner, which
represented for the African a true and tragic amputation. Afterwards came
the classic distinctions between “da costa” and “crioulo,” between “boçal”
and “ladino.” And that stimulated the rivalry between crioulos and
Africans, appreciated and incentivized by the slave owners. The initiatives
of desafricanization in the Diaspora were and continue to be a highly
dividing process which today translates itself into the praise of mestiçagem
[mixture] used many times in substitution of the frustrated attempt to
physically whiten the national populous. And as such, historically the
great Afro-Brazilian artists and intellectuals are shown as “mestiços
geniais” [genial mestiços], reserving the qualification of “negro” or
“preto,” although with a positive meaning, only for the subalterns or those
who stand out for their physical force. (Interview, 08 /18 /2010).

The “descaracterização” [disfiguration] of the bloco de afoxé, Filhos de Gandhy,

does not appear to be reason of concern for the Bahian musician and former Minister of

Culture of Brazil (2003-2008), Gilberto Gil, who is known for his celebratory stance on

racial miscegenation.79 In Lula Buarque de Hollanda’s documentary Filhos de Gandhy

79
Although distinct concepts, both disfiguration and de-africanization in samba schools and blocos are
linked to the protocols and demands of modernization in capitalist society. Ashis Nandi’s discourses on
British imperialism in postcolonial India are most relevant to the Afro-Brazilian predicament. According to
Nandi, “society has had to make major compromises with outer forces of oppression, backed by the
powerful ideology of modernity and by an all-conquering technology, and it is still struggling to work
through that experience. It has been forced to cultivate the creative self-protection which the victims often
show when faced with an inescapable situation: a slightly comical imitativeness which indirectly reveals
the ridiculousness of the powerful, which overtly grants their superiority yet denies their culture (this may
involve the rejection of values such as work, productivity, masculinity, maturity or adulthood, rationality
and normality); an uncanny ability to subvert the valued skills or traits which may ensure one’s adaptation
to the ‘system’ (such as intelligence, creativity, achievement, adjustment, personal growth or development)
(84). It is within this conflictual existence of false compromises, media demands and unequal power
relations that samba schools and blocos grow, often implying a “disfiguration,” or an undesirable and un-
conscious modification of their core values, which in the case of Afro-Brazilian cultural industries like
samba schools and blocos, may also imply a degree of de-africanization. In his classic study, Os Africanos
no Brasil (1932), Nina Rodrigues elucidates how in Bahian newspapers such as the Diário de Notícia
(1896) and the Diário da Bahia (1896), among other local newspapers, afrodescendants and their religious
and cultural practices were heavily monitored, criminalized and demonized by the police and the media.
According to Rodrigues, in Africa the religious cults constitute a true religion of the State in whose name
 87

(1999), the founder of the bloco de afoxé, Durval Marques da Silva, more commonly

known as “Vavá Madeira,” channels his resentment of the fact that the bloco has evolved

into a “clube internacional” [international club]. Although Vavá Madeira does not

expound on his idea, this type of criticism is common among intellectuals like Lopes who

link the phenomena of disfiguration and de-africanization to the modernization of Afro-

Brazilian musical styles such as samba and afoxé.80 Instead of voicing concern with

the kings govern. Hence, the cults find themselves guaranteed by government and costums. In Bahia,
Brazil, the state that has the highest afrodescendant population, cults are considered practices of witchcraft,
without protection of law, are condemned by the dominant region, and are often times treated with disdain
by the wealthier classes, that despite everything, fear them (353, 54, 55). Similar to Lopes, Rodrigues
alludes to the phenomenon of “de-africanization” of Bahian culture, which stipulates, among many ideas,
the refusal of the State, and nowadays, the media, to sanction Afro-Bahian culture, and especially, religion,
on a constant basis. The anthropologist Antonio Risério explains that since the mid-1970s, the Bahian
carnival has gone through a process of “re-africanization,” becoming most evident in 1980 with new afoxés
and blocos carnavalescos, inaugurated by Ilê Ayê. After 1981 it became increasingly more common for
many of the Afro-Brazilian carnival entities to employ African names, primarily from Iorubá: Ilê Ayê,
Araketu, Olorum, Babá Mi, Malê Debalê, Obá Dudu Agoiyê, Olodum, Rumpylé, Tenda do Olorum. It is
important to note that instead of examining the “de-africanization” and criminalization of Afro-Bahian
religion and culture as seen in Jorge Amado’s novel Tenda dos Milagres (1969), Risério deliberately
chooses to discourse on the “reafricanization” in Bahian culture, citing Nina Rodrigues’ descriptions of the
carnival entities around the turn of the twentieth century such as A Embaixada Africana, Filhos da África,
A Chegada Africana, and Pândegos da África. Risério observes uncritically that whether in the times of the
Pândegos da África or Filhos de Gandhi there are moments of “retraction” that seem to indicate the
disappearance of afoxés, but that can just be a moment of “flux” and “reflux,” part of the natural breathing
of worldly things (Carnaval…17). Moreover, Risério contends that it is not true to say that after carnival
everything goes back to what it was, as if nothing had happened. Since he asserts that Salvador is an “inter-
ethnic space,” where the white ruling political and economic class has a “superficial and repressive
tolerance” that does not totally eliminate “exchanges,” he overlooks the undeniable racial and economic
divide among Bahians that indicate, on the contrary, that the unequal socio-economic and racial order does
in fact “go back to what it was” after carnival (Carnaval…18,19, 20). It is also intriguing that arguably
Bahia’s most popular singer, Ivete Sangalo, is more phenotypically white than anything else.

80
The Brazilian popular music performer, Beth Carvalho, composed and sings a samba entitled “Visual”
[Visual] (1978), which criticizes the modernization of Rio’s carnival and the exclusion of sambistas, “E o
sambista / Que mal ganha pra viver / Até mesmo o desfile / Lhe tiraram o prazer de ver” [And the sambista
/ Who earns poorly to live / Even in the parade / They took away from him the pleasure to see] (De pé…).
Similarly, Cristina Tramonte observes that in Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina state in southern
Brazil, négritude is an essential component of the samba schools: “Ter negritude, possuir indivíduos da raça
negra em seus quadros passa a ser precondição para a aceitação da escola. É frequente um dirigente branco
justificar sua “autenticidade” afirmando sua “alma de crioulo” [Having négritude, possessing individuals of
black race in their groups comes to be a precondition to the acceptance of a school. Often times, a white
director justifies his “authenticity” by affirming his “black soul”] (139). Historically speaking, the potential
absence of blacks in Rio de Janeiro’s samba schools is much more tension-filled than in Florianópolis,
given the role that Afro-Brazilian institutions such as terreiros have played in the creation of samba in Rio
de Janeiro since the fin de siècle. The casas gegê-nagôs of João Alabá and Cipriano Abedé and the blocos
carnavalescos of Afro-Brazilian women like Tia Fé, Tia Tomásia, Tia Ciata, Tia Verdiana, Tia Amélia de
 88

regard to the present and future of the cultural traditions of the Bahia people, Gil

responds metaphorically, “é como um bebé que come, fica gordo” [it is like a baby that

eats and gets fat]. Gil acquiesces in the modernization process and its “descaracterização”

of the bloco as something that happens naturally, without addressing the losses and gains

that have occurred over the years.

Similarly, the (white) president of the samba school Imperatriz, Wagner Araújo,

who warns his employees in Adam Stepan’s film Samba! (2007) that “alguma rebeldia,

não pago vocês” [if you rebel, I will not pay you], manifests a position similar to that of

Gil. When Stepan asks Araújo to share his thoughts on the topic of “roots” in samba

music and culture, Araújo exclaims, “há pessoas que defendem a raíz, mas o

sambódromo não é de rua, é um megashow” [there are people who defend the roots, but

the sambódromo is not a street thing, it is a megashow]. Araujo further explains that “as

escolas de samba são de outrora” [samba schools are a thing of the past]. Ricardo Cravo

Albin also defended the modernization of Rio’s carnival with these words, “Eu acho que

é uma coisa mais simples. Não há por que você ficar estruturando teses severas e

copiosas sobre aquilo que é uma evolução natural” [I think that it is more simple. There is

no reason to put together severe and copious theses on that which is a natural evolution]

(Interview, 06/22/2009).81

Aragão, Tia Presciliana, among others, have contributed greatly to the cultural bedrock and historical
imaginary of Rio’s samba schools.
81
According to Cravo Albin, those who harbor reservations regarding the modernization of Rio’s carnival
are nostalgic of their past carnival experiences, “querem remeter a um processo pessoal de saudades. Eu
tenho também esse processo pessoal de coisas vividas num momento brilhante de juventude que não volta
mais. Não pode porque o tempo não anda para trás. Eles estão privilegiando o seu tempo de encantamento.
Acho que o tempo de encantamento tem que ser transgredido para o futuro” [They want to return to a
personal process of longing. I also have that personal process of lived experiences in a brilliant moment of
youth that does not come back. It cannot come back because time does not go backwards. Those who do
 89

Nevertheless, whether examining afoxé in Bahia or samba in Rio de Janeiro, Vavá

Madeira’s concerns point to a state of urgency. Lopes underscores the government’s

abuse of the term “evolution.” By abuse, Lopes means that the government gives a

progressive meaning to the world “evolution,” thus establishing a dominant code of

complacency in the way people think of the production and history of samba. Similarly,

sambistas are hard-pressed to defend their points of view given the close relationship

between the press and the state, with few exceptions like the newspaper O Radical. As

samba became more of a media spectacle, the press propagated the idea that “to exist is to

compete.”82 Thus, much like any other international sport (e.g. football, car racing), the

press advertised the popular culture of samba as a tourist attraction to enable government

profit (O samba… 62).

Nationalism and the Location of Black Soul in Candeia

Historically speaking, both Brazil and the United States have influenced each

other musically throughout the 20th century and until the present. Nevertheless, this

history has been fraught with antagonism. Ever since Carmen Miranda’s arrival in the

United States in 1939, several Brazilian musicians have become highly successful in the

U.S. market. Likewise, in Brazil, numerous American musicians have gained notoriety.

not accept the modernization of carnival are privileging their time of enchantment. I think that the time of
enchantment has to be transgressed to the future] (Interview, 06/22/2009).
82
Beginning in the mid-1950s, many new samba schools were founded each year. At the same time,
increasing numbers of white middle-class Cariocas began to frequent the samba schools as audience
members, but soon became participants who would take leadership. During the 1960s and ‘70s, samba
schools grew far removed from their original characteristics, coming to embody instead the main
prerogatives of Brazil’s modern capitalist society: commercialization, inflation, competition and
dependence. As Alison Raphael observes, “samba became less and less a black community affair, and more
and more a commodity to be bought and sold in the white-dominated marketplace” (125, 160).
 90

Aside from making a point to meet ex-Brazilian president Juscelino Kubitschek and

renown musicians such as Pixinguinha and Ataulfo Alves, the African-American jazz

trumpet player Louis Armstrong made an appearance in the gymnasium of Ibirapuera,

São Paulo in 1957, which was aired lived by the TV Record. Other prime examples of the

impact of American music in Brazil are the fan clubs like that of Frank Sinatra, the

African-American jazz musician Dizzie Gillespie’s visit to the samba school Portela, and

Wilson Simonal83 and Sarah Vaughan’s musical encounter in 1970, which aired on

Brazil’s long-extinct TV Tupi.

Given the reach of United States’ cultural hegemony, there has never been a

national debate concerning the threat or foreign contamination of American musical

genres. However, the same cannot be said of Brazil. Contestation over the influence of

American music in Brazil can be found in several Brazilian musical genres.84 The famous

choro musician Pixinguinha and the Oito Batutas were criticized after they returned from

Paris in 1923 for being “corrupted” by the influence of American jazz, and using

instruments such as saxophone and the trumpet. Take Carlos Lyra’s “Influência do Jazz”

83
When speaking of the Afro-Brazilian singer and showman, Wilson Simonal, Nelson Motta clarifies in
the documentary Simonal (2009) that “there were not any black romantic singers of rock and roll, not even
of calypso or tropical rhythms, just sambistas. Simonal was the first black Brazilian to sing rock and
chachachá. In fact, his first success was a chachachá” (Simonal). Likewise, Martinho da Vila adds that “Ele
[Simonal] sofreu muito preconceito racial porque era negro e na época era um dos artistas mais importantes
e bem pagos” [He, Simonal, suffered a lot of racial bigotry because he was black, while at the same time,
one of the most important and well-paid artists] (Ele é… 41).
84
The Brazilian theorist, Roberto Schwarz, examines with brilliance in his essay, “Nacional por
Substração” [National by Substraction], the dilemma that Brazilians and Hispanic Americans face
regarding their own national reality, which is built upon an historical feeling of inadequacy in comparison
to Europe and the United States, and the desire for progress and the ideological prestige that stems from the
cultural products of first world nations. The mistake committed, in Schwarz’s view, is that Hispanic
Americans and Brazilians tend to think that the copy is secondary or inferior to the original. Nevertheless,
as Schwarz clarifies, “a idéia de cópia discutida aqui opõe o nacional ao estrangeiro e o original ao imitado,
oposições que são irreais e não permitem ver a parte do estrangeiro no próprio, a parte do imitado no
original, e também a parte original no imitado” [the idea of the copy discussed here opposes the national to
the foreign and the original to the imitated, oppositions that are unreal and that do no allow one to see the
foreign part in it, the imitated part in the original, as well as the original part in the imitated] (48).
 91

(1963), which also singles out the problematic relationship with the slavish copying of

American music and its incorporation to Brazilian musical styles and not the

interpretation of American music. “Influência do Jazz,” in and of itself is bossa nova, and

as such, in terms of genre, is a mix of samba and jazz: “Pobre samba meu / Foi se

misturando se modernizando, e se perdeu / E o rebolado cadê?, não tem mais / Cadê o tal

gingado que mexe com a gente / Coitado do meu samba mudou de repente / Influência do

jazz” [My poor samba / Went mixing and modernizing itself and lost itself / And the hip

shake, where is it?, there is no more / Where is the gingado that encompasses us / My

poor samba changed all of the sudden / influence of jazz].

The denigration of American jazz music in Lyra’s “Influência do Jazz” (1963) is

characteristic of the political climate during João Goulart’s presidency, which began on

September 7, 1961 and ended when a military coup d’état deposed him on April 1, 1964.

To quote Schwarz, Lyra, like many left- and right-wing nationalists sought the “residual,”

which upon substraction, would render the “authentic substance” of Brazil (Schwarz 33).

This Brazilian preoccupation with “cultural and identity contamination and authenticity”

that thrives even today, in which the “valuing” of Brazilian music may often times also

signify the occlusion of foreign musical influences, confirms the built-in inequalities and

dissonances of the center-periphery relationship that defines both the United States and

Brazil. The drama of the United States and Brazil’s center-periphery relations would soon

come to a head with the “entrance” of Black Soul in Brazil.

In the late 1970s, Black Soul, a US-inspired cultural movement, began to export

its political and aesthetic symbols to Brazil. Images of black protest and empowerment in

the United States and the celebration of black power anthems like James Brown’s “Say it
 92

Loud, I‘m Black and I’m Proud” (1968) challenged Brazilians’ attitudes towards United

States racial politics as well as their own. Lena Fria’s article “Black Rio: O Orgulho

(Importado) de Ser Negro no Brasil)” [Black Rio: The (Imported) Pride of Being Black in

Brazil], which appeared in the Jornal do Brasil in July 1976, set the tone of how the

racial imaginary encoded in soul styles threatened venerated images and narratives of

Brazilian national identity. By the late 1970s, Black Soul was criticized by the Brazilian

military government, which sought to reinstate the ideology of racial democracy, and by

wealthier civilians who opposed the dictatorship yet believed that the fans of Black Soul

were espousing racial hatred and conflict. In addition, Black Soul was viewed as a

phenomenon that needed to be brought under control given its independence from white

elite definitions of both national “Brazilianess” and Afro-Brazilian cultural practice, as

well its resistance to appropriations by white elites (Hanchard 114). Marilena Chauí

explains that in nacional-popular cultural projects, cultures like those of Afro-Brazilians

lose their relationship to their time, history, and the desire of conscious progress, as well

as the act of revelation to themselves and to others. What is gained, however, is a cultural

identity composed of fragments of representations pieced together by a language of

interest that produces a “synthesis,” regulated and unifying, which classifies “difference,”

“enigmas,” “distortion” and “novelty” as major inconveniences. In sum, cultural

differences are pulverized in service of the fiction of universal equality (8, 9).85 With this

85
The images of protest, violence, racial affirmation, as well as debates on racism, racial politics, and civil
rights for Afro-Americans, would stifle the Brazilian ruling political classes’ imaginary of “Brazilian
culture.” Muniz Sodré explains, “a entidade “cultura brasileira” surge, assim, no quadro da ideologia
teórica do “caráter brasileiro” (com seus supostos traços de cordialidade, improvisação, tendência à
miscigenação, alegria), espécie de contrapartida sócio-cultural do nacionalismo político. Por mais que tenha
buscado uma fundamentação científica (na sociologia ou na antropologia), a dita “cultura brasileira” é na
prática o resultado ideológico direto de um pretenso monopólio oficial de idéias, materializado em
instituições estatais e civis. Estas idéias constituem uma adaptação do ideário burguês-europeu ao território
nacional, com vistas à produção de uma homogeneidade de sentido que responda, imaginariamente, às
 93

in mind, Black Soul was subject to heavy criticism and repression, an aspect scantly

addressed by Vianna (1998).

As a reformed branch of Brazil’s long existing “secret” or “political” police that

had investigated black organizations like the Frente Negra [Black Front] in the early

1930s and the Teatro Experimental do Negro [Black Experimental Theatre] in the 1940s

and ‘50s, the Departamento Geral de Investigações Especiais (DGIE) [General

Department of Special Investigations] political intelligence wing carried out

investigations into the soul phenomenon as early as April 1975 (Alberto 8). Also of

urgency was the issue of “authenticity,” which left many Brazilians thinking that Black

Soul undermined Brazil’s musical heritage of Afro-Brazilian music. This is particularly

true regarding musical genres like samba, which was born out of the African Diaspora in

Brazil. Several prominent sambistas and escolas de samba [samba schools] opposed

Black Soul on the perceived basis of its invasion of their turf and their own shrinking

islands of cultural relevance. As Michael George Hanchard points out, this was an ironic

stance on the part of the more conservative samba schools, in light of the fact that it was

commonplace for police to enter samba schools during this period and make

indiscriminate arrests of up to two hundred young black males at one time, in the middle

of the dance floor (114). Contrary to Hanchard, the reluctance to celebrate Black Soul

was not a simplistic divide between so-called “conservative” and non-conservative samba

demandas globais de poder, até agora centralizado em torno de certos estratos das classes dirigentes” [The
entity “Brazilian culture” emerges like so in the picture of theoretical ideology of the “Brazilian character”
(with its alleged traits of cordiality, improvisation, tendency to miscegenation, happiness), a kind of socio-
cultural exchange of political nationalism. As much as one has searched for a scientific basis (in sociology
and anthropology), so-called “Brazilian culture” is in practice a direct ideological result of an alleged
official monopoly of ideas, materialized in state and civil institutions. These ideas constitute an adaptation
of a European bourgeoisie framework of ideas to the national territory, with the intention of the production
of homogeneity in the sense that responds, imaginarily, to the global demands of power, until now
centralized around certain strata of the ruling classes] (Reinventando... 90).
 94

schools, which he conveniently fails to mention. Candeia, for example, pitted himself

against Black Soul, and at the same time was a representative of both Portela and

Quilombo, two samba schools traditionally known for their engagement, albeit

inconsistent, with racial politics.86

86
Although my dissertation examines racial politics in samba and not in the Movimento Negro [Black
Movement], I agree with Luiza Bairros, who recognizes Hanchard’s lack of “contextualização histórica”
[historic contextualization] regarding the Movimento Negro in Brazil. As Bairros observes “o material das
entrevistas [do Hanchard] não aprofunda nem o tema do culturalismo, nem outras questões políticas
importantes para o estabelecimento de recortes analíticos reveladores da diversidade existente no
movimento negro” [the material of Hanchard’s interviews does not get deep into the topic of culturalism,
nor other important political questions to establish analytical snippets that reveal the existing diversity in
the black movement] (177, 179). Nevertheless, I disagree with Bairros’ positive valorization of Paul
Gilroy’s statement, which is that, “não é cultura que une os povos que são, em parte, de origem africana,
agora espalhados em todo o mundo, mas uma identidade de paixões. Compartilhamos o ódio pela alienação
que nos foi imposta por europeus durante o processo de colonização e império e estamos ligados mais por
um sofrimento comum do que pela nossa pigmentação” [it is not culture that unites people, but an identity
of passions. We share the hate of alienation that was imposed on us by Europeans during a process of
colonization and empire and we are more connected by a common suffering than by our pigmentation]
(186). Any human being can feel alienated in a political or economic system, regardless of their race,
sexual orientation, gender or religion. Nevertheless, the fact that European colonizers were/are white and
enslaved blacks, de facto, means that alienation has racial dimensions that are specific to the pigmentation
of afrodescendants and their codification in modern capitalist society. How can one think that in Apartheid
South Africa, Europe, or in the Americas, alienation was/is not also racial? Likewise, one must speak of
black alienation. Furthermore, when cultural agents such as music are used to convey “black experiences,”
such agents may also function as modes of identification for other afrodescendants around the globe, which
does not exclude the appreciation or even identification of people of other ethnicities with “black
experiences.”
 95

Photo 2.1 Candeia. Source: Funarte.

 96

Photo 2.2 “Ala dos impossíveis.” Candeia, Waldir and Darci. Source: Funarte.
 97

Photo 2.3 Edgar, Osmar, Casquinha and Candeia on TV Tupi. Source: Funarte.
 98

Photo 2.4 Candeia. Source: Funarte.

 99

In agreement with Martinho da Vila, “Dia de Graça” (1970) is perhaps the only

composition by Candeia that focuses on Afro-Brazilians. In many of his compositions,

Candeia engages samba as Brazilian national culture. Comprised of six stanzas, “Sou

Mais o Samba” [I Prefer Samba] (1977) exalts Brazilian national identity while at the

same time it opposes artistic internationalism:

Eu não sou africano, eu não

Nem norte-americano!
Ao som da viola e pandeiro
Sou mais o samba brasileiro!

Menino tome juízo

Escute o que vou lhe dizer
O Brasil é um grande samba
Que espera por você
Podes crer, podes crer!

À juventude de hoje
Dou meu conselho de vez:
Quem não sabe o be-a-bá
Não pode cantar inglês
Aprenda o Português!

Este som que vem de fora

Não me apavora nem rock nem rumba
Pra acabar com o tal de soul
Basta um ponto de macumba!
Eu não sou africano!

O samba é nossa alegria

De muita harmonia ao som do pandeiro
Quem presta à roda de samba
Não fica imitando estrangeiro.
Somos brasileiros!

Calma, calma, minha gente

Pra que tanto bambambam
Pois os blacks de hoje em dia
São os sambistas de amanhã
 100

Eu não sou africano!87 (4 grandes…).

In the first stanza, Candeia declares with pride, not his Afro-Brazilian identity, but

his Brazilian national identity. In contrast to his other sambas like “Rio de Janeiro II

(Catoni / Candeia)” and “Lamento de Uma Raça (Candeia / Waldir 59),”88 which treat the

question of pride and national identity with little or no comparisons to other countries,

“Sou Mais o Samba” goes the extra distance vis-à-vis the negation of extra-national

identifications. The first verses, “Eu não sou africano, eu não / nem norte-americano,”

raise issues that nuance Candeia’s political imaginary regarding international musical

exchanges and ethnic and national discourses. Moreover, the rejection of North American

and especially African identity gives reason to reevaluate the affirmation of blackness in

87
“I am not African, not me / nor North-American! / To the sound of the guitar and the pandeiro / I prefer
Brazilian samba! / Boy use your head / Listen to what I am going to say to you / Brazil is a great samba /
That is waiting for you / Be reasonable, be reasonable! / The youth of today / I give my counsel right away
/ Whoever does not know “o be-a-bá” / Cannot sing in English / Learn Portuguese! / This sound that comes
from beyond / Nor Rock neither Rumba frighten me / To put and end to that soul thing / A chant of
Macumba will do it! / I am not African! / Samba is our joy / Of much harmony to the sound of the pandeiro
/ Those who can handle the roda de samba / Do not imitate foreigners / We are Brazilians! / Relax, Relax,
everybody / Why so much bambambam / The blacks of today / Are the sambistas of tommorrow / I am not
African!
88
“Rio de Janeiro II” (Catoni / Candeia), “Rio de Janeiro / Cidade de sonho / Minha terra natal / Quando
amanhece o sol resplandece / Veja as estrelas infinitas ao anil / No estrangeiro não existe capital / Que
compare sem igual / Mas o meu Brasil... / Rio de Janeiro / Cidade de sonho / Minha terra natal” [Rio de
Janeiro / City of dreams / My homeland / When it awakens the sun shines / Look at the infinite stars in the
blue / Abroad there is no capital / That can compare / But my Brazil... / Rio de Janeiro / City of dreams /
My homeland] (Candeia... 210). “Lamento de Uma Raça” (Candeia / Waldir 59), “Samba é o lamento de
uma raça / De cabrochas que com graça / Gingando com galhardia / Quem não se sente feliz / Ao ouvir a
melodia / Do meu país? / Seu ritmo é fenomenal / Seu canto é cheio de riqueza / Samba é uma obra divinal
/ Jóia de rara beleza / No cenário musical / Oh! Senhor, dai-me inspiração / Para compor sambas em
proporção / Tento olvidar com bateria o mal / Apelo aos sambistas em geral / Pra lutarem com fervor / Em
defesa do samba nacional / Viva o samba ô ô / Viva o samba ô ô / Raíz / Do meu país” [Samba is the cry of
a race / Of brown-skinned women who with grace / Dance with spirit / Who does not feel happy / Upon
hearing a melody / Of my country? / Her rhythm is phenomenal / Her song is full of wealth / Samba is a
divine work / Gem of rare beauty / In the music scene / Oh! Father, give me inspiration / To compose
sambas in proportion / I try to forget badness with the drums / I appeal to all sambistas / To fight with
fervor / In defense of national samba / Long live samba / Long live samba / Root / Of my country]
(Candeia... 192).
 101

“Dia de Graça.”89 In the first verse of “Sou Mais o Samba,” the lyrical voice declares,

“Eu não sou africano, eu não.” The “eu não,” makes the rejection of African identity

stronger than that of the North American one due to the repetition of the word “não.”

Likewise, the verse “Ao som da viola e pandeiro / Sou mais o samba brasileiro!,”

reinforces the pride of Brazilian national identity. The second stanza reveals concern with

samba potentially losing its significance to other non-stated musical genres, “Menino

tome juízo / Escute o que vou lhe dizer / O Brasil é um grande samba / Que espera por

você / Podes crer, podes crer!” The third stanza continues in this vein while adding other

dimensions. As if in a musical dictatorship of a sambista, the lyrical voice prohibits that

one sing in English, and calls Brazilians not to sing in Portuguese, but to learn it, “À

juventude de hoje / Dou meu conselho de vez / Quem não sabe o be-a-bá / Não pode

cantar inglês / Aprenda o Português!” The urgency to have Brazilians learn Portuguese

imbues the lyrics with a paternalist ring.

In the fourth stanza, the undesirable external cultural referents are specified, “Este

som que vem de fora / Não me apavora nem rock nem rumba / Pra acabar com o tal de

soul / Basta um ponto de macumba! / Eu não sou africano!”90 Aside from American rock

music, Cuban rumba is also classified as a threat to Brazilian cultural identity. Like Exú

89
In Márcia Watzl’s documentary É Candeia (2010), Jairo Candeia explains that his father, Antônio
Candeia Filho, “ouvia música americana, mas que a música dele era diferente, era Nat King Cole, uma
música mais elitizada. Ele gostava também da música “Rocket Man” de Elton John. Quando eu chegava em
casa, estava ele cantando “Rocket Man” [He listented to American music, but his music was different, it
was Nat King Cole, a more elite music. He also liked Elton John’s song “Rocket Man.” When I came home
one day he was singing “Rocket Man.”
90
When asked about the interest of young Brazilians in foreign music, Candeia explains that, “realmente
isto é um problema muito sério, mas eu acho que os mais responsáveis são exatamente os órgãos de
comunicação que não transmitem no mesmo grau de intensidade as informações relaciondas com a nossa
cultura. Então não há quase que uma opção ou oportunidade de escolha. Nós somos levados a fazer aquilo
que a marketing de mercado de consumidor nos impõe” [This really is a very serious problem, but I think
that those who are most responsible are the media companies that do not give the same level of attention to
our own culture. Therefore, there is almost no option or opportunity for choice. We are inclined to do what
the marketing of the consumer market imposes on us] (Eu Sou Povo!).
 102

in Macunaíma, who is invoked to harm Venceslau Pietro Pietra, Macumba is alluded to

as a weapon to terminate soul. Since macumba is of African origin, it is understandable

that the lyrical voice would conclude the stanza with the verse, “Eu não sou africano.” In

the fifth stanza, the lyrical voice admonishes Brazilians not to imitate foreigners, “O

samba é nossa alegria / De muita harmonia ao som do pandeiro / Quem presta à roda de

samba / Não fica imitando estrangeiro / Somos brasileiros!” In the last stanza, the lyrical

voice refers to the fleeting nature of soul and the permanence of samba, “Calma, calma,

minha gente / Pra que tanto bambambam / Pois os blacks de hoje em dia / São os

sambistas de amanhã / Eu não sou africano!” The last verse, “Eu não sou africano,” arises

once again to remind the reader and Candeia himself that despite his physical appearance,

the lyrical voice is not African. In 1977, Candeia’s reservations and discontent with the

effects of Black Soul in Brazilian society would be mirrored in the discourses of one of

Brazil’s most prominent articulators of identity politics, Gilberto Freyre.

As Black Soul made its presence known in Brazil, Gilberto Freyre avidly

criticized the potential dangers that the importation of American cultural and political

symbols vis-à-vis Black Soul posited to the hegemonic discourses of the Brazilian status

quo as well as the confidence boost it lent to Afro-Brazilians as a potential master key to

political mobilization. In 1977, Freyre warned Brazilians in an article published in the

Diário de Pernambuco entitled “Attention Brazilians” that Brazil should not let itself fall

to the “militant Marxism of hatred” of the jealous United States, given that Brazil is as a

“fraternally brown nation” where “sambas are almost all happy and fraternal.” In his

conservative status quo idealizations, Freyre added that “there is no “Black Brazilian,”

separate from the national Brazilian community. There exist Brazilians of Black—
 103

African origin, some of which suffer discrimination, not of a racial character, but of class

(Hanchard 115, 127). As Muniz Sodré keenly observes, when Freyre refers to Brazilian

culture, he establishes a hierarchy in which the Iberian elements stand out above the

African and Indigenous ones: “no entanto, nesse caldeamento étnico, o que realmente

sobressai como “cultura” é a matriz ibérica que, temperada pelas contribuições negras e

indígenas, redundaria num “luso-tropicalismo” brasileiro [Nevertheless, in that ethnic

melting pot, what really stands out as “culture” is the Iberian matrix that, seasoned with

black and indigenous contributions, would result in a Brazilian “luso-tropicalism”(O

terreiro... 163).91

Freyre assumes the classical Brazilian position that is shared by many

contemporary intellectuals, which stipulates that racial discrimination is not a Brazilian

problem, but a foreign one.92 As discussed above, for thinkers like Freyre, Brazilian

91
The hierarchization of Iberian elements and the disdain of black ones in Brazilian culture can be
witnessed in the newspaper article “Ainda Desta Vez o Folklore” (1977) [Even This Time Folklore]. In this
journalistic piece, Lena Frias examines the significance of the project entitled, “cultura negra no Rio”
[Black Culture in Rio], which was developed under the sponsorship of the Municipal Secretary of Tourism
of Riotur and Funarte. Following the coordinator and folklorist, Raul da Mota Lody, the objective of the
project was to “conduzir o público a uma conscientização das nossas raízes” [bring the audience to an
awareness of our roots]. Frias explains that for Lody, the project is not a party, but rather the fruit of
research that he undertook through the Funarte, that presents systematic information along with the intent
of unleashing a reaction of assimilation and projection of “those values,” provoking an awareness of “that
culture.” In turn, Frias opposes herself to the project, arguing that it does not add anything that people
already know, nor does it clarify possible misunderstandings. As such, the project works well as
entertainment but not culturally, hence unlikely of achieving its goals. Frias’ aversion to “cultura negra no
Rio” is more a question of self-confrontation with her own ideas on Brazilian identity politics and the
triumph of brasilidade and less a matter of her quest in defending a possible folklorization of Rio’s black
culture. As Frias puts it, “mantendo os traços trazidos da África mas da múltipla e mestiça cultura
brasileira. Uma cultura que se desenvolve, felizmente, com força e carater próprios a despeito de qualquer
preciosismo de raíz e apesar das curiosas posturas de negritude senghoriana assumidas mais ou menos
recentemente por uma faixa de negros do rio” [maintaining the characteristics that were brought from
Africa, but of the numerous and mixed Brazilian culture. A culture that develops, fortunately, with its own
uniqueness and force despite any exaggeration of roots or curious positions of senghorian negritude that
have been assumed recently by some blacks in Rio” (9).
92
António Sergio Alfredo Guimarães clarifies that “since Gilberto Freyre, most Brazilians think that race is
a foreign invention, itself a sign of racism, that does not exist for the Brazilian people. That said, what
many Brazilians do admit to is prejudice, meaning mistaken individual perceptions, which [may or may
not] be corrected in the course of continuing social relations” (158).
 104

identity is national and unified, intolerant of ethnic discourses. Ultimately, Freyre was

right in stating that “Black Brazilians” did not exist at the time; however, his position

seems to have overshadowed that racial categories are political constructions and, thus

are subject to change. It might be reasonable to consider that Freyre may have been

fearful that as Brazilian blacks became politically empowered, they would “revolt” or

gain control over the representation of themselves and their objectives.93

One must wonder why Candeia advocates the plight of Afro-Brazilians as second-

class citizens in “Dia de Graça” and intermittently in Escola de Samba: Árvore que

Esqueceu a Raíz (1978), but not that of American or African blacks. Why elaborate such

a strong disconnect between Brazil and Africa when the origins of samba stem from

Africa and in large part from Bantu culture? In May of 1977, the same year he composed

“Sou Mais o Samba,” Candeia remarked in the following in interview with the magazine

José: Literatura, Crítica & Arte:

Candeia: Eu não procuro espelhar nada que se relacione com o negro

americano, que não me interessa. Eu recorro à cultura africana, à cultura
mãe, básica. Assim mesmo, essa sofreu um processo de violentação. Eu
considero o negro brasileiro o maior herdeiro cultural africano. O negro
americano já está por fora de tudo, já sofreu uma lavagem cerebral total, já
não está ligado às suas origens.

[Candeia: I do not intend to imitate anything that is related to American

blacks, which does not interest me. I return to African culture, the mother
culture, basic. As such, African culture suffered a process of violence. I

93
The ruling classes’ fear of revolt has been studied in other countries that have large black populations,
such as Cuba. As Aline Helg states, “because it then represented the most serious menace to Cuban social
structure, the Partido Independiente de Color elicited the government’s most effective strategy to keep
Afro-Cubans ‘in their places.’” In 1910, rumors of a black conspiracy, artificially substantiated by the mass
arrest and trial of independientes, were spread in order to prompt Congress to pass a proposal drafted by
supporters of Liberal president José Miguel Gómez banning the party on the grounds that it was racist. As a
result, the Partido Independiente de Color, was outlawed; the Cuban government thereby verified that, if
necessary, it could successfully use racism to mobilize whites against blacks who threatened the social
status quo” (162).
 105

consider black Brazilians to be the greatest cultural heirs of Africa.

American blacks are completely left out, they suffered a total
brainwashing, and because of this they are no longer connected to their
origins].

Cecília Jucá: Contribuiu muito pouco nas diversas formas de expressão

cultural. Não na música, mas em outras formas de expressão como a
culinária; não houve miscigenação, na sociedade americana.

[Cecília Jucá: Contributed very little to the diverse forms of cultural

expression. Not in music, but in other forms of expression like the culinary
arts; there was no mixture, in American society] (4).94

In “Sou Mais o Samba,” Candeia is adamant about his rejection of African

identity, yet in his interview with José magazine, he lauds Africa not only as his source of

inspiration, but also points out that Brazil is the greatest African heir in the Americas.95

Concurrently, and as witnessed in “Sou Mais o Samba,” Candeia continues to manifest

not only a formidable prejudice against the United States, but also a commonly

94
Similarly, Demétrio Magnoli asserts that “no Brasil, sob o signo da ideologia da mestiçagem e do
‘branqueamento,’ a polaridade brancos/negros deu lugar à construção de identidades intermediárias,
fluidas, que a linguagem censitária agrupa no rótulo “pardos.” O contraste com os Estados Unidos é
marcante. Lá, não há meios-tons: ou se é branco ou se é negro” [In Brazil, under the sign of mixture and
“whitening,” the white/black polarity gave way to the construction of fluid intermediate identities that the
census language labels as “pardos” (mulattos). The contrast with the United States is striking. In the United
States, there are not any middle tones: one is white or black] (A Folha, 12/01/2005). It cannot be
overestimated just how often and how many people, aside from Jucá and Magnoli, often misinterpret the
institutionalization of the white/black racial binary in the United States as an absence of racial
miscegenation. Before the white/black binary came into existence in the United States, there had existed the
category of mulattos, indicating the diversity of racial mixture. Thomas Skidmore clarifies that “no slave
population in the Americas failed to produce a large mulatto population. It was not the fact of
miscegenation but the recognition or non-recognition of the mixed bloods as a separate group that made the
difference” (Black into White 70).
95
In the documentary, Eu Sou Povo! (2009), an interviewer asks Candeia sometime in the 1970s, “você
acha que o negro brasileiro, adotando modelos musicais estrangeiros, está procurando uma identificação e
unidade racial?” [Candeia, do you think that Afro-Brazilians, adopting foreign musical models, are seeking
racial identification and unity?]. Candeia’s answer to this question was “eu acho que só o fato de ele estar
ali procurando um modelo musical estrangeiro jamais encontrará uma unidade racial porque os nossos
problemas nada têm a ver com os problemas que nos são trazidos de lá fora. Nós temos que encontrar
nossas soluções dentro de nossos princípios, dentro de nossa cultura, dentro de nossa maneira de ser, e não
imitarmos ou importarmos as coisas que estão vindo de fora” [I think that just the mere fact of someone
looking around for a foreign musical model means that such a person will never find racial unity because
our problems have nothing to do with the problems that are brought to us from other countries. We have to
find our solutions within our principles, within our culture, within our modus vivendi, and not imitate or
import things that come from other countries.
 106

misguided understanding of United States history, which considers American blacks to be

completely uprooted from their origins. In the interview, Cecília Jucá, like Candeia,

repeats the idea that there has been no racial mixture in the United States. Over the past

few years, the Brazilian anthropologist Antonio Risério has propagated the same

misinterpretation of United States racial history by stating that in the U.S. “as culturas

africanas foram destroçadas, varridas do mapa” [African cultures were destroyed, swept

off the map] (Encontros… 116). Risério warns social scientists of the so-called mistake

to transfer the United States’ historical reality to Brazil. Nevertheless, Risério is also

guilty of “forcing trans-historical realities” from Brazil to the United States. The United

States forfeits its africaneity only if one were to subject the U.S. to Risério’s

categorizations of what he thinks African origins are. Following Risério, African origins

are non-existent in the United States because there are not any orixás, practices and

symbolic systems of African origin, and there are too many United States blacks

spending time “hugging the bible” (Encontros… 116). In this quote, Risério implies that

American blacks are more “whitened” than Brazilian blacks due to their adoration of the

bible. Nevertheless, Risério’s position loses sight of the extensive historical debates

regarding the branqueamento [whitening] of Afro-Brazilians.96 In addition, Risério

96
Thomas Skidmore explains that the theory of “whitening” came to be accepted by most of the Brazilian
elite during the years between 1889 and 1914. The thesis was based on the assumption of white superiority,
and that through time miscegenation could forge a healthy mixed population growing steadily whiter, both
culturally and physically, resulting in the disappearance of blacks and their gradual absorption into the
white race (Black into White 65, 68). Jerry Dávila remarks that cast in Freudian language, blackness was
primitive, prelogical, and childlike. More broadly, Brazilian white elites linked blackness to unhealthiness,
laziness, and criminality. Racial mixture, therefore, symbolized a historical process and was envisioned as a
path from blackness to whiteness and from the past to the future. In the 1930s, white Brazilians found some
comfort in the celebration of racial mixture because they considered it to be an inevitable step in the
nation’s evolution. As whiteness encapsulated the desired virtues of health, culture, science, and modernity,
educators ranging from federal Minister of Education and Health Gustavo Capanema to child psychologist
Manoel Lourenço Filho, composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, history textbook author Jonathas Serrano, and
anthropologist Arthur Ramos all explicitly embraced this vision of race for Brazil’s future. Around the turn
of the twentieth century, Brazilian elites followed the vogue of racial determinism in Europe and upheld the
 107

ignores the fact that African Americans have been and are much more politically engaged

with African affairs than Afro-Brazilians and Brazilians in general.97

The bambas98 Martinho da Vila and Dona Ivone Lara constitute the two ends of

the pan-Africanist debate on the connections between Afro-Brazilian cultural practices

and black Africa. On July 7, 2010, while eating strogonofe de frango, and playing sambas

with Dona Ivone Lara, I presented the following observation to her, which was originally

formulated by the son of a famous samba musician:

o único cuidado que eu tomo ao ler intelectuais negros falando sobre o

negro no Brasil (o Candeia é diferente) é que muitas vezes eles se afastam
excessivamente do universo do negro pobre e com baixa escolaridade e
acabam criando ideias fantasiosas sobre o que poderia ser o negro

scientific racist belief that whites were superior and that those of black and mixed ancestry were
degenerate. By the second decade of the 20th century, these elites looked for ways to counter the perceived
backwardness of having a mostly non-white population. They considered degeneracy as something
acquired—and therefore a remediable condition. Blackness still was negative, but individuals could liberate
themselves from the social category of blackness through improvement of their health, level of education
and culture, or their social class. Conversely, whites could degenerate through other avenues such as their
exposure to poverty, vices, and disease. In other words, whiteness could be increased through money,
education, celebrity status, and other forms of social ascension (Diploma… 6).
97
The Ghanaian theorist and specialist in race relations in the Americas, Anani Dzidzienyo, addresses this
topic with honesty and clarity: “inevitably, comparison with the United States must be addressed. Because
of linguistic, political, and religious considerations, there has been a strong linkage between continental
African affairs and Afro-American political and religious developments. Not only did Kwame Nkrumah,
Nnamdi Azikiwe, and other early African nationalists study in black American colleges, but also the United
States has always provided a focus of interest for contemporary Africa. Even if this interest has not always
been of a uniformly positive kind, it has been indisputably active in a way that has no counterpart in
contemporary Brazil. Marcus Garvey did not set foot in Africa, although his movement was widely known
there. Malcolm X went to Africa, W. E.B. Du Bois died there, and a whole host of Afro-Americans, both
well-known and obscure, have been to Africa and have kept up with Africa in the United States through the
presence of African diplomats, students, businessmen, and others. But not even this great contact has
resulted in any clear American, or specifically Afro-American, policies on the part of independent African
countries, individually or collectively. Awareness of this situation might help our understanding of the
Brazilian equivalent. Unlike Brazil, however, the United States has had a number of Black ambassadors
and other diplomatic personnel not only in Africa but throughout the world, and the Afro-American
component is officially recognized as relevant, even if not always critical or acted upon, in foreign policy.
The nature of U.S. race relations, and the changes that have occurred over the last two decades or so, can
account for the difference with Brazil in the matter of the African connection”(The African…145).
98
Signifying “courageous” in past usage, the term “bamba” is commonly used in Brazil to denominate a
sambista who is a virtuoso. “Bamba” originates from the word mbamba of Quimbundo, language of the
Angolan ethnic group Ambundos or Bundos, which means “preeminent” (Enciclopédia... 95).
 108

brasileiro. Muitos deles acabam se aproximando muito da cultura africana

e se afastando da cultura brasileira. O que pensa em relação a isto?

[The only caution I take upon reading black intellectuals talking about
blacks in Brazil (Candeia is different), is that many times they remove
themselves excessively from the universe of poorly educated and destitute
blacks and end up creating outlandish ideas about what black Brazilians
could be. Many of them end up approximating themselves to African
culture and distancing themselves from Brazilian culture. What do you
think about this?] (Anonymous Interview, 03/12/2009).

No less valid than da Vila’s position, Ivone Lara recognizes her black origin, but

finds no sound reason why she as an Afro-Brazilian should have to compare herself or

her culture to Africa. In our interview, Ivone Lara responded warmly that, “tanto que

quando eles falam em África, falam em Mama África. Por que você deve chamar a África

assim de mamãe?” [so much so that when they talk about Africa, they speak of Mama

Africa. Why should you call Africa mom?]. Then she continued, “não devemos pensar na

África quando pensamos no samba. Absolutamente, porque no fundo, seguindo a minha

raça, são todos de cor. Mas, eu nunca fui na África. Eu não nasci na África. Por que é que

vou ficar idolatrando a África?” [We should not think about Africa when we think about

samba. Absolutely, because ultimately, concerning my race, we are all of color. However,

I never went to Africa. I was not born in Africa. Why should I idolize Africa?]. After her

response, I interjected, “alguns sambistas disseram, não interessa dizer quem são, que é

como uma África aqui [some sambistas said, it does not matter who they are, that it is

like an Africa aqui]. Dona Ivone retorted, “Ah que isso! Não tem nada a ver. A minha

origem é negra” [Ah, no way! Not at all. My origin is black]. As one decodes Ivone

Lara’s words, she, much like Candeia, values samba mainly as a hallmark of Brazilian

national culture. Nevertheless, it may be worth asking to what extent the nationalization
 109

of samba and cultural identity deincentivizes the initiatives of Brazilian activists to

promote and deepen institutional exchanges with West African countries.

Martinho da Vila, on the other hand, argues that (West) African and Brazilian

culture are not only related, but inseparable. Here is Martinho’s response to the same

question:

Eu não concordo com ele muito (risos). Nem pouco, não concordo com
nada porque a cultura africana é a cultura brasileira (sorrisão). É
basicamente. A cultura africana influenciou completamente na cultura
brasileira. Elas não estão distantes não. Não é possível alguém entender
de umas sem entender da outra porque elas estão juntas. Quando você
estuda uma está estudando a outra. Se você estuda o samba, está estudando
a origem do samba, a questão da África. O Brasil é uma África. É porque,
às vezes, ele pensa que um intelectual assim... sei lá, Nei Lopes, por
exemplo, ele se especializa na coisa negra, na coisa africana; mas é
importante isso porque essa africanidade que sempre esteve por aqui ela
nunca foi falada, e má conhecida.

[I do not agree with him that much (laugther). Not even a little, I do not
agree with him at all because African culture is Brazilian culture
(gleaming smile). Quite simply. African culture completely influenced
Brazilian culture. They are not at all distant from each other. It is not
possible for you to understand one without the other because they are
together. When you study one, you are studying the other. If you study
samba, you are studying the origin of samba, the question of Africa. Brazil
is an Africa. It is because, sometimes, one thinks that an intellectual…
like, Nei Lopes, for example, he specializes in the black thing, in the
African thing; but that is important because that africaneity that was
always here was never talked about, it is poorly known] (Interview,
06/18/2010).

Candeia’s musical and intellectual production symbolize a crossroads in Brazilian

ethnic and nationalist discourses in the 1970s. At the heart of this impasse is Candeia’s

treatment of samba as national patrimony and his inconsistent position regarding both the

“authenticity” in Afro-Brazilians’ appropriation of Black Soul and the appropriation of

samba by the Carioca upper and middle classes.

 110

In conclusion, although the lyrical voice in Candeia’s “Dia de Graça” (1970)

manifests an awareness of the inferior socio-economic status of Afro-Brazilians to others,

it “suspends reality” by overlooking the uneven power and race relations that are the

bedrock of Rio’s carnival industry. Aníbal Machado’s “A Morte da Porta-Estandarte”

(1931), on the other hand, presents a more realistic perspective of the Afro-Brazilian

condition than Candeia’s “Dia de Graça,” in which Rio’s carnival accentuates the racial

chasm between Afro-Brazilians and their white co-nationals as permanent. In this sense,

Machado’s short story stains the validity of Da Matta’s theorization of “carnival” as an

event capable of transforming the daily hierarchies of life into a “magical equality,” albeit

on a temporary basis. In Afro- Brazilian literature, I have shown that Oswaldo de

Camargo’s short stories “Negrícia” and “Esperando o Embaixador” (1972) probe the

topic of Brazilian race relations on a deeper level by counterposing racial and national

identity as well as the role of Pan-Africanism in revealing potential socio-historical

commonalities among afrodescendants. Through Quilombo and Black Soul, I illustrated

another facet of Candeia’s persona, which is his overriding penchant for nationalist

discourses and his paternalist and contradictory stance regarding Brazil’s relationship to

Africa. Dona Ivone Lara and Martinho da Vila’s interventions have proven fruitful to this

discussion, as they evince the diverging points of view that Afro-Brazilians have

concerning Pan-Africanism. Aside from providing a background of Afro-Brazilian

militancy in the late 1970s, in Chapter 3, I analyze the theoretical texts and sambas of Nei

Lopes to underscore both his engagement with racial discourses in Brazilian society and

in Quilombo, as well as his treatment of Afro-Brazilians in a broader diasporic context in

the early 1980s.

 111

CHAPTER 3
Café without Leite: Samba and Racial History in Nei Lopes
1978-1983

In America,
Negroes are segregated.
In South America,
Negroes are whipped in the streets,
and Negro strikers are cut down by machine-guns.
In West Africa, the Negro is an animal.

Frantz Fanon Black Skin, White Masks (1967)

The “Other Voices” in Quilombo

Born on May 9, 1942 in Irajá, Rio de Janeiro, Nei Braz Lopes is an accomplished

ethnographer, samba composer, lexicographer, historian of Afro-Brazilian studies, and

filho-de-santo.99 Since 1981, Lopes has published approximately thirty books in the most

varied genres such as essay, poetry, short story, paradidactic, novels, and reference books

(e.g. dictionaries and encyclopedias), in addition to other group publications. As a

musician, Lopes has composed, from 1972 to the present, five solo records and two with

Wilson Moreira, along with several re-editions, compilations and participations in the

work of other recording artists.

99
Filho-de-santo is a generic designation for the initiated in the Afro-Brazilian religions of candomblé and
umbanda (Enciclopédia… 277).
 112

In the area of musical composition, Lopes and his musical partner, Wilson

Moreira, wrote samba classics in the 1970s such as “Senhora Liberdade,” recorded by

Zezé Motta; “Goiabada Cascão,” recorded by Beth Carvalho in 1978; “Morrendo de

Saudade” in 1981; “Gostoso Veneno,” recorded by Alcione in 1979; “Coisa da Antiga”

and “Mulata do Balaio,” interpreted by Clara Nunes; and “Coité e Cuia,” recorded by the

group Batacotô, whose name was given by Nei Lopes himself. Currently, Lopes is an

active samba musician who collaborates with other famous bambas and writes profusely

about the African diaspora in the Americas.

In the first section of this chapter, I will examine the sambas-enredo “Ao Povo

em Forma de Arte” (1978) Wilson Moreira / Nei Lopes and “Noventa Anos de Abolição”

(1979) Wilson Moreira / Nei lopes. “Ao Povo em Forma de Arte” (1978) draws upon the

richness of black culture and science from the African past to present-day Brazil as well

as the impact of the hegemonic prioritization of Western civilization over Africana in

historical representation. Similarly, “Noventa Anos de Abolição” (1979) zooms in on the

heroic figure of Zumbi of Palmares to critique the politics of memory regarding Afro-

Brazilian history, and also promotes a sense of community and activism among Afro-

Brazilians in present-day society. Both sambas-enredo illustrate that beyond Candeia,

there were other sambistas in the Grêmio Recreativo de Arte Negra Escola de Samba

Quilombo who made a concerted effort to link samba to Afro-Brazilian issues. The

second section focuses on Afro-Brazilian militancy vis-à-vis political and cultural

organizations in the late 1970s, as well as Afro-Brazilian literature to underscore the

extensiveness of black discourses in Brazilian society. In turn, the third section explores

the samba-enredo “A Epopéia de Zumbi” [Epic poem of Zumbi] and the jongo “Jongo do
 113

Irmão Café” [Jongo of my Dark-Skinned Brother], both from the record Negro Mesmo

(1983). Among the many ideas developed, “A Epopéia de Zumbi” makes salient

reference to November 20 as a point of reflection on the significance of the National Day

of Black Consciousness. Lastly, “Jongo do Irmão Café,” presents a black ethnic discourse

in which an Afro-Brazilian lyrical voice engages another afrodescendant in the context of

a shared African identity. This samba is analyzed to dispel two dominant and seemingly

uncontested ideas in research on Afro-Brazilian music: that self-affirmations of racial

identity in Brazilian cultural production and music are ambiguous, and that a unified

African diaspora is or has been improbable due to “differences” in terms of ethnohistoric

experiences of Afro-American communities in the Western hemisphere.

As discussed in Chapter 2, Candeia tended to regard samba as a hallmark of

Brazilian national culture and not as a mainly Afro-Brazilian creation. His reaction to

Black Soul provides insights to both his preference for a unified Brazilian national

identity and also his fleeting engagement with black ethnic discourses. Within the

Grêmio Recreativo de Arte Negra Escola de Samba Quilombo, there were several

sambas-enredo that dealt with Brazilian racial history. Some of those sambas-enredo are:

“Apoteose das Mãos” (1977) by Mariozinho de Acari / Zeca Melodia / Gael; “Dia de

Graça”(1980) by Sobral / Feliciano; “Solano Trindade, O Poeta do Povo” (1981) by Maia

/ Neguinho Jóia / Serginho / Dominguinho; “Zumbi dos Palmares” (1982) by Bispo; “A

Revolta da Chibata”(1983) by Sila do Reco-Reco / Tibúrcio; “Xaxá de Ajudá e A Rainha

Mina do Maranhão” (1984) by Neguinho Jóia / Feliciano Pereira / Henrique; “Luís

Gama, Doutor Carapinha, Poeta da Liberdade” (1985) by Maia, Ciranda, Clarisso; and

“Cinco Séculos de Resistência Afro-Brasileira” (1986) by Maia / Ciranda / Clarisso. In

 114

the late 1970s, Nei Lopes, in collaboration with Wilson Moreira, composed two well-

known sambas-enredo for the Quilombo, “Ao Povo em Forma de Arte” (1978) and

“Noventa Anos de Abolição” (1979).

“Ao Povo em Forma de Arte” (1978) is a samba comprised of four stanzas in

which the lyrical voice underscores the greatness of black scientific and cultural

production from Africa throughout the New World, emphasizing the struggles of Afro-

Brazilians as part of a pan-Africanist legacy:100

Quilombo
Pesquisou suas raízes
E os momentos felizes
De uma raça singular
E veio
Pra mostrar esta pesquisa
Na ocasião precisa
Em forma de arte popular

Há mais
De quarenta mil anos atrás
A arte negra já resplandecia
Mais tarde a Etiópia milenar
Sua cultura até o Egito estendia
Daí o legendário mundo grego
A todo ‘negro’ de etíope chamou
Depois vieram reinos suntuosos
De nível cultural superior
Que hoje são lembranças de um passado
Que a força da ambição exterminou

Em toda cultura nacional

Na arte e até mesmo na ciência
O modo africano de viver
100
As stated in the article, “Juntos Preservam a Cultura Negra” [Together they Preserve Black Culture], “A
maior preocupação de Nei e Wilson é preservar a “memória cultural do negro e amenizar os abusos
cometidos contra o samba. Principalmente a internacionalização do ritmo, que Nei considera muito
negativa porque “é uma coisa de fora para dentro” [The greatest concern for Nei and Wilson is to preserve
“the cultural memory of blacks and lessen the committed abuses against samba. Principally the
internationalization of the rhythms, which Nei considers to be very negative because “it is something that
comes from the outside to the inside] (Última hora, 07/01/1980).
 115

Exerceu grande influência

E o negro brasileiro
Apesar de tempos infelizes
Lutou, viveu, morreu e se integrou
Sem abandonar suas raízes

Por isto Quilombo desfila

Devolvendo em seu estandarte
A história de suas origens
Ao povo em forma de arte101 (A arte negra...).

The first two verses in the first stanza, “Quilombo / Pesquisou suas raízes,” attest

to the critical nature of Quilombo’s inquiry while also making a clear reference to blacks

with the verse, “De uma raça singular.” The second stanza illustrates the glory and

antiquity of black art and its extensiveness in Africa, “Há mais / De quarenta mil anos

atrás / A arte negra já resplandecia / Mais tarde a Etiópia milenar / Sua cultura até o Egito

estendia.” The stanza then takes a turn to explain that despite existing “reinos suntuosos /

de nível cultural superior” [sumptuous kingdoms of superior cultural level], they are

memories of a past that ambition has exterminated: “Que hoje são lembranças de um

passado / Que a força da ambição exterminou.” On July 31, 2008, the well-known

Brazilian newspaper O Globo published the article, “Afro-Descendente, com Orgulho!”

[Afrodescendant, with Pride!] in which Nei Lopes displays similar arguments to what is

encountered in “Ao Povo em Forma de Arte” (1978):

101
Quilombo / Researched its roots / And the happy moments / Of a singular race / And came / To show
this research / In the precise occasion / In the form of popular art / More / Than forty thousand years ago /
black art flourished /Later the memorable Ethiopia / Her culture extended to Egypt / From there the
legendary Greek world / That every “black” of Ethiopia was called / Afterwards sumptuous kingdoms came
/ Of a superior cultural level / That today are memories of a past / That the force of ambition exterminated /
In all national cultures / In art and even in science / The African way of life / Had a great influence / And
the Afro-Brazilian / Despite unhappy times / Fought, lived, died and integrated himself / Without
abandoning his roots / This is why Quilombo marches / Returning to its banner / The history of its origins /
To the people in the form of art.
 116

Quem se dispuser a conhecer um pouco dessa tragédia saberá que a

mesma Humanidade que, hoje, justificadamente, se extasia diante de um
Michelangelo, também há de se tocar com a beleza naturalista dos bronzes
de Ifé e Benin, obras de autores africanos cujos nomes, infelizmente a
História não registrou—talvez como recurso para atribuir a extrema beleza
dessas obras a artistas europeus, como já se tentou fazer sem sucesso.

[Whoever was disposed to become a little familiar with that tragedy will
know that the same Humanity that justifiably reveled itself before a
Michelangelo, also has to feel moved by the naturalist beauty of the
bronzes of Ifé and Benim, works by African authors whose names,
unfortunately History never registered—perhaps as a resource to attribute
the overpowering beauty of those works to European artists, as one has
already attempted to do without luck] (O Globo… 7).

Whether through samba or journalism, Lopes conveys the idea that the grandeur

of African history has not gained the recognition it deserves, as the dominant political

class has forged a reality in which the concept of “culture” is inextricably linked to its

own image and position in society. Muniz Sodré elucidates this problematic with greater

depth in his book O Terreiro e a Cidade [The Terreiro and the City] (1988):

Na verdade, o simbolismo negro é antitético àquilo que o Ocidente chama

de “cultura.” Mas hoje esta palavra tem circulação obrigatória. Por isso,
empregamos a expressão “cultura negra,” sempre entendendo “cultura”
como o modo pelo qual um agrupamento humano relaciona-se com o seu
real (isto é, a sua singularidade ou aquilo que lhe possibilita não se
comparar a nenhum outro e, portanto, lhe outorga identidade) e não como
um botim de significações universais, a exemplo do bolo acumulado do
capital.

[In truth, black symbolism is antithetical to that which the West calls
“culture.” However, today this word has obligatory circulation. For this
reason, we use the expression “black culture,” always understanding
“culture” as a mode through which a human group relates itself with its
reality (that is, its singularity or that which makes it possible to not
compare itself to any other, and therefore, which grants identity to oneself)
and not like a boot of universal meanings, as exemplified by the
accumulated cake of capital] (156).
 117

Representations of black culture in the arts, whether in Brazil, Cuba or elsewhere,

often times have proven more beneficial socio-economically for affluent whites than for

afrodescendants. From 1923-1928, the Cuban minoristas commodified “Afro-cubaness”

as a means both to increase their economic capital and to exert political authority over

Afro-Cubans.102 Cultural theorists such as Robin Moore (Nationalizing Blackness: Afro-

Cubanismo and Artistic Revolution in Havana, (1920-1940), 1997), Alison Raphael

(Samba and Social Control: Popular Culture and Racial Democracy in Rio de Janeiro,

1980), Muniz Sodré, (Claros e Escuros: Identidade, Povo, e Mídia no Brasil, 1999) and

Nei Lopes (O Samba na Realidade: A Utopia da Ascensão Social do Sambista, 1981),

underscore the dominant political and economic classes’ cooptation and commodification

of black culture. Within this context, one must take into consideration how Eurocentrism

factors into one’s avoidance of registering black history.103

This particular concern is voiced in the samba “Ao Povo em Forma de Arte”

(1978) and in the O Globo article, “Afro-Descendente, com Orgulho!” [Afrodescendant,

with Pride!] (2008). The Haitian theoretician Michel-Rolph Trouillot has written

102
In the chapter “The Minorista Vanguard: Modernism and Afrocubanismo,” Robin Moore explains that
the minoristas, the “white” Cuban political class (founders; Alejo Carpentier and Amadeo Roldán) mixed
“afrocubanism” with European styles such as cubism. As a terminology interchangeable with
vanguardismo, minorismo emerged principally in la Havana between the years 1923-28. The minoristas
often posed themselves against so-called “Yankee imperialism” as a means to legitimize their content as
“authentically Cuban.” Nevertheless, many minoristas, like Eduardo Abela, elaborated their “Afro-Cuban
music” abroad, with foreign artists who had no knowledge of Cuba (194, 201). In general, white minoristas
created and commodified “Afro-Cubaness.”
103
The African-American scholar Molefi Kente Asanti deems Eurocentric critique an inefficient avenue to
reveal the many intricacies of black protest discourse. According to Asanti, “Eurocentric theory such a
phenomenology, hermeneutics, and structuralism, for example—cannot be applied, whole cloth, to African
themes and subjects. Based as they are on Eurocentric philosophy, they fail to come to terms with
fundamental cultural differences” (159). Similarly, the literary theorist, Edward W. Said, affirms that “the
persistent disparity in power between the West and non-West must be taken into account if we are
accurately to understand cultural forms like that of the novel, of ethnographic and historical discourse,
certain kinds of poetry and opera, where allusions to structures based on this disparity abound” (191).
 118

extensively on this phenomenon, referring to it as “silencing history.” In his book,

Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995), Trouillot delineates how

the (sub)-conscious internalization of Eurocentric thought has led historians to exclude

Africana from textual representation even when her role has been of equal relevance to

the topic of study as non-Africana socio-historical manifestations.104 Case in point, on

November 26, 2009, in the newspaper O Globo, the interview “A Morte de Neguinho do

Samba foi Ignorada” was published with the subtitle “Segundo Caetano, A Imprensa

Americana Valoriza os Produtos do País; a Brasileira, Não” [The Death of Neguinho do

Samba was Ignored. “Following Caetano [Veloso], American Journalism Values

Products of the Country; Brazil, No”]. In this article, Veloso observes that the most

important Brazilian press of the axis Rio-São Paulo did not publish an obituary for the

founder of Olodum and Samba-Reggae, Neguinho do Samba, whereas the New York

Times gave a tremendous obituary with copious details regarding Neguinho’s life. Veloso

argues that aside from the Brazilian press not publishing information on Neguinho, they

ignored him. In effect, Veloso states further that someone of Neguinho’s importance

deserves more attention and notoriety, especially upon taking into consideration

Neguinho’s musical collaboration with Paul Simon in New York and Michael Jackson

and Spike Lee in the Pelourinho district of Salvador, Bahia (11/26/2009).105

104
Trouilllot provides the following example: “The Penguin Dictionary of Modern History, a mass
circulation pocket encyclopedia that covers the period from 1789 to 1945, has neither Saint-Domingue nor
Haiti in its entries. Likewise, historian Eric Hobsbawm, one of the best analysts of this era, managed to
write a book entitled The Age of Revolutions, 1789-1843, in which the Haitian Revolution scarcely
appears” (99).

105
What should be in question here is the relationship between the predominantly white Brazilian media
and black cultural and musical manifestations. The American press valuing national products more than the
Brazilians press is not the core issue. To be more specific, cultural products of blacks in the United States,
especially in the domain of music, share dominant hegemonic positions as its white musical genre
counterparts. That is to say, Brazilian samba music is forceful in its popularity on an international and
 119

In the third stanza of “Ao Povo em Forma de Arte,” the lyrical voice clarifies that

not only in Brazil, but in all countries where blacks were enslaved, their art, science and

way of life have shaped national culture, “Na arte e até mesmo na ciência / O modo

africano de viver / Exerceu grande influência.” Yet, it is key to notice the transition of

this lyrical voice from a pan-Africanist discourse to a Brazilian national discourse within

which Afro-Brazilians are included. By stating that, “E o negro brasileiro / Apesar de

tempos infelizes / Lutou, viveu, morreu e se integrou / Sem abandonar suas raízes [Afro-

Brazilians fought, lived, and died and integrated themselves without abandoning their

roots], Lopes combats the dominant perspective of the Brazilian media in which the light-

skinned Brazilian ruling class grants freedom to Afro-Brazilians out of kindness.106 In the

fourth and final stanza, the lyrical voice reiterates that the goal of Quilombo is to bring

back the history of their origins to Brazilians in the form of art, “Por isto Quilombo

desfila / Devolvendo em seu estandarte / A história de suas origens / Ao povo em forma

de arte.”

national level, however it still has not been absorbed totally into the aesthetic spaces of the ruling political
and economic class in its own national borders, as American jazz music has been in the United States.
Although Nei Lopes explains in 1981 that, whereas oriental cultural forms (jiu-jitsu, judo, karate,
macrobiotics, and the messianic church, etc.) entered Brazil already industrialized, samba continues to be
stigmatized as the cultural product of economically poor black Brazilians, he clarified in an interview in
2010, that some of the Brazilian elites, those of university formation and patrons of spaces of ‘high
culture’, have embraced samba. At least a record label connected to a large national economic group
already produces CDs of samba de raíz [roots samba], while simultaneously, the production of
documentaries on sambistas increases. Modern bookstores, those with “cafés” and “cigar shops,” always
have bookshelves associated with certain sambistas who are not on the market. In this sense, samba, in its
bossa nova form, comes to be appropriated by the Brazilian elites just as jazz has been in the United States.
However, it is important to know that there exists an underground culture of samba that resists this outside
the samba schools, in the pagodes on suburban corners, and in family gatherings, etc. (O Samba na
Realidade… 73; Interview with Nei Lopes, 08/18/2010).
106
For a more detailed treatment of this topic, consult Joel Zito Araujo’s documentary A Negação do
Brasil: O Negro na Telenovela Brasileira (Senac, 2000).
 120

Cosme Elias outlines the ethnomusicological significance of this song in the

history of samba as “uma forma de busca de identidade no sentido de resgatar o samba-

enredo “legítimo” [a form of search for identity in the sense of rescuing the “legitimate”

samba-enredo]. The idea here is that, after 1970, the “legitimate” samba-enredo

experienced profound and undesirable transformations due to “o tempo cronometrado dos

desfiles e o excessivo número de participantes, os sambas-enredo dos dias atuais possuem

um andamento muito acelerado, rimas e letras fáceis” [the measured time of the

processions and the excessive number of participants, the sambas-enredo of the present

have a very accelerated tempo, easy rhymes and lyrics] (208). As true as this may be,

Elias does not underscore the role of Brazil’s military government in that transformation.

Not coincidentally, it was in the year of the World Cup (1970) that General Emilio

Garrastazú Médici, who served as the 28th president of Brazil from 1969 to 1974, chose

to use football and samba as vehicles to transmit nationalist euphoria and sentiment. In

1970, there appeared a more political samba, which, following Peter Flynn, “linked the

old familiar rhythms with themes directly inspired by a regime eager to blend samba

melodies and football triumphs in a vigorous campaign for popular support” (327). The

new government-inspired samba could be witnessed in songs like Ninguém Segura Mais

o Brasil [No One Will Hold Back Brazil Any Longer] and Miguel Gustavo’s Pra Frente

Brasil [Forward Brazil], whose foot-tapping and swinging frevo107 style beat was adopted

as virtually the theme song of the regime. In addition, Pra Frente Brasil was played by

107
Frevo is an acrobatic dance from Pernambuco state in northeastern Brazil. Performed to the sounds of
military bands in the streets of Old Recife, frevo’s origin seems to be connected to capoeira movements.
Upon observing a dance with masks to the sounds of drums and whistles in the Ivory Coast, Alberto da
Costa e Silva (2003) hypothesized that the rhythm and dance of frevo might have their origin in Western
Africa, and more specifically, in the Senufo people (Enciclopédia... 284).
 121

army bands at presidential reviews and official occasions, and repeated on radio and

television (Flynn 327).

In 1979, Lopes composed, from an Afro-Brazilian perspective, “Noventa Anos de

Abolição,” a two-stanza samba in which the lyrical voice discourses on the memory and

historical meanings of the abolition of slavery in Brazil:

Hoje a festa é nossa

Não temos muito para oferecer
Mas os atabaques vão dobrando
Com toda a alegria de viver.
Festa no Quilombo—
Noventa anos de Abolição—
Todo mundo unido pelo amor
Não importa a cor
Vale o coração.
Nossa festa hoje é homenagem
À luta contra as injustiças raciais
Que vem de séculos passados
E chega até os dias atuais.

Reverenciamos a memória
Desses bravos que fizeram nossa história:
Zumbi, Licutan e Alumá
Zundu, Luís Sanin e Dandará.
E os quilombolas de hoje em dia
‘São candeia’que nos alumia
E hoje nesta festa
Noventa anos de Abolição
Quilombo vem mostrar que a igualdade
O negro vai moldar com a própria mão
E em luta pelo seu lugar ao sol
Não é só bom de samba e futebol108 (A arte negra...).

108
Today the celebration is ours / We do not have much to offer / But the atabaques are pounding / With all
the happiness of living / Celebration in the Quilombo—/ Ninety years of Abolition—/ Everybody united by
love / Color does not matter / The heart does / Our celebration today is homage / To the fight against racial
injustices / That come from past centuries / And reach the present / We revere the memory / Of those brave
ones who made our history: / Zumbi, Licutan and Alumiá / Zundu, Luís Sanin and Dandará / And the
quilombolas of today / ‘Are candeia’ that illuminates us / And today in this celebration / Ninety years of
Abolition / Quilombo comes to show that equality / Blacks have to mold with their own hands / And in the
struggle for their place in the sun / They are not just good in samba and football (soccer).
 122

In celebration of the ninety years since the abolition of slavery in Brazil (1888-

1978) the lyrical voice takes a moment to express both its sense of community among

Afro-Brazilians as well as its sense of pride and humility to be a participant and heir to a

history that, despite its past and present struggles, calls for a positive attitude, “Hoje a

festa é nossa / Não temos muito para oferecer / Mas os atabaques vão dobrando / Com

toda a alegria de viver. / Festa no Quilombo—/ Noventa anos de Abolição—.” Likewise,

the lyrical voice proposes an integrationalist stance with Brazilians of other ethnicities

where, “Todo mundo unido pelo amor / Não importa a cor / Vale o coração.” [All are

united by love / Color does not matter / The heart does]. Nevertheless, although the

lyrical voice appeases the social and racial discord by stating that color does not matter,

this does not mean that treatment of Afro-Brazilians is on par with that of lighter-skinned

Brazilians. In other words, the lyrical voice invites everyone to attend the celebration, yet

clarifies that, “Nossa festa hoje é homenagem / À luta contra as injustiças raciais / Que

vem de séculos passados / E chega até os dias atuais [Our celebration is in homage / To

the struggle against racial injustices / That come from past centuries / And arrives to the

present]. The ninety-year celebration of the abolition of slavery serves to recognize the

continuous struggle of Afro-Brazilians in a society in which they are an ethnic majority,

yet have much less representation in positions of power than do light-skinned

Brazilians.109 For this reason it is imperative in the area of samba to deconstruct Cristiana

Tramonte’s use of the concept “black cultural hegemony.” Knowing that the skills that

Afro-Brazilians learn in the samba schools are artistic trades, how can one talk about

109
As Kim Butler observes, “although the word abolition implies an end, in historical terms it is best
understood as a transition” (210).
 123

“black cultural hegemony” when Afro-Brazilians are hardly present in the non-artistic or

non-sportive sectors? (e.g. upper- and middle-level management positions in the

government and private agencies).110 In an interview on August 7, 2009, the sambista

Elton Medeiros passionately remarked on the topic of Afro-Brazilians in the media:

110
As the cultural and political writer and translator Carlos Alberto Medeiros notes in the documentary
Abolição [Abolition] (1988): “A partir dessa luta [pelos direitos civis dos negros americanos] a gente vai
começar a perceber uma série de questionamentos colocados com relação à própria questão do negro no
Brasil. Ou seja, se os Estados Unidos é que era o país racista, é que era o país em que os negros eram vistos
como cidadãos de segunda classe, e se lá nos Estados Unidos os negros começam a acender, agalgar
posições a ponto de hoje eles terem, por ejemplo, acerca de trezentos prefeitos, entre os quais, os prefeitos
das cidades mais importantes, é necessário que a gente faça alguma reflexão para ver onde é que estão os
negros no Brasil que não chegaram nem à metade desse tipo de conquista” [Through the Afro-Americans’
fight for civil rights, we will begin to perceive a series of questions raised in relation to the very question of
blacks in Brazil. In other words, if the United States was that racist country, if it was the country where
blacks were seen as second-class citizens, and if there in the United States blacks began to shine and
acquire positions to the extent that today they have, for example, approximately three hundred mayors,
among whom, are mayors of the most important cities, it is necessary that we reflect to see where Brazilian
blacks are who have not accomplished even half of what Afro-Americans have] (Abolição). Or, as the
Ghanian political scientist and specialist in Brazilian race relations Anani Dzidzienyo puts it, “suffice it to
say that official recognition of the Afro-American factor by the U.S. has led to the entry of blacks at levels
unimaginable in Brazil” (The African... 138). For these reasons, I disagree with Stuart Hall, who argues that
it is “essentialist” to use the binary “or” of “constant contestation” in black politics, for the aim of “the
struggle” is to replace this “or” with the potentiality or possibility of the coupler “and.” With the use of
“and,” one can be both black and British. Hall also contends that “the moment the signifier ‘black’ is torn
from its historical, cultural, and political embedding and lodged in a biologically constituted racial
category, we valorize, by inversion, the very ground of the racism we are trying to deconstruct” (111). Why
should Afro-Brazilians celebrate the “and,” when they have been dominated by the hegemonic “or” of a
unified Brazilian national identity that perpetuates the fiction that the historical conditions of all Brazilians
have been and are equal? In addition, with the increase of Afro-Brazilians in government, academic, and
professional sectors, they are more enabled to contribute to the shape and content of the “black” signifier,
which historically has been sculpted by the narratives and media of a privileged and predominantly light-
skinned political and economic ruling class. The affirmation of an Afro-Brazilian identity or of a black
Brazilian identity does not, by any means, signify the “essentialization of identity,” or the triumph of
“homogeneity” over “diversity.” On the contrary, it recognizes that an “and” can truly be taken seriously
only when the Afro-Brazilian majority achieves representation in all sectors of society. That said, the use of
the “or,” which does not exclude the “and”—for its ultimate political vehicle is integration into the rest of
society—actually re-historicizes black identity, basing itself on a largely political, not biological, racial
discourse that intersects with the socio-economic and historical condition of most Afro-Brazilians. As such,
the Afro-Brazilian revindication of the “or” should not be simplified as a retrograde biological position that
will exacerbate racism, which has abounded in Brazil from the colonial era to the present.
 124

Quantos negros estão fazendo propaganda de sabonete e perfume?

Quantos apresentadores negros existem? Quantos atores negros nas
novelas? Liga a televisão e veja. Quantos locutores, noticiaristas, e
quantos modelos negros existem no mundo? Quantas miss negras
existiram até agora?

[How many blacks are making soap and perfume commercials? How
many black television presenters exist? How many black actors are there
in the soap operas? Turn on the television and watch. How many talk
show hosts and newscasters and how many black models exist in the
world? How many “black misses” have there been until now?] (Interview,
08/07/2009).

In agreement with Medeiros, even today there is still a glaring absence of Afro-

Brazilians in the Brazilian media. This observation may facilitate an appreciation of the

prioritization of black identity discourses from Candeia’s “Dia de Graça” (1970), “Todas

as raças / Já foram escravas também” [All races / Already were slaves as well], to Lopes’

“Noventa Anos de Abolição” (1979), “Nossa festa hoje é homenagem / À luta contra as

injustiças raciais / Que vem de séculos passados / E chega até os dias atuais” [Our

celebration today is homage / To the struggle against racial injustices / That come from

past centuries / And reach the present], and beyond.

In the second stanza of “Noventa Anos de Abolição” (1979), the lyrical voice

appeals to the restoration of the memory of Afro-Brazilian historical figures,

“Reverenciamos a memória / Desses bravos que fizeram nossa história: / Zumbi, Licutan

e Alumá / Zundu, Luís Sanin e Dandará.” [We revere the memory / Of those brave ones

who made our history: / Zumbi, Licutan and Alumá / Zundu, Luís Sanin and Dandará].

As in the first stanza, the lyrical voice makes a point to link the past to the present. In this

case, the lyrical voice refers to the existence of the quilombolas, or slave descendants,

who live in communities throughout Brazil, “E os quilombolas de hoje em dia / ‘São

 125

candeia’que nos alumia / E hoje nesta festa / Noventa anos de Abolição” [And the

quilombolas of today / ‘Are candeia’ that illuminates us / And today in this celebration /

Ninety years of Abolition]. Note the play on words with the use of the word, “candeia.”

On the one hand, “candeia” refers to the sambista and founder of Quilombo, Antônio

Candeia Filho. On the other hand, a candeia is a candle, which in the context of this

samba, is a source of light or inspiration. In the last four verses, the lyrical voice stresses

that Afro-Brazilians not only have to struggle for equality as a people, but should also

determine the meaning of equality itself, “Quilombo vem mostrar que a igualdade / O

negro vai moldar com a própria mão / E em luta pelo seu lugar ao sol” [Quilombo comes

to show that equality / Blacks have to mold with their own hands / And in the struggle for

their place in the sun]. Lastly, the lyrical voice addresses the underrepresentation of Afro-

Brazilians in professions other than music and sports, with the verse, “Não é só bom de

samba e futebol” [They are not just good in samba and football]. Nei Lopes is a prime

example of this idea; samba composition and performance are just one of several of

Lopes’ areas of competence, alongside his career as a writer and lawyer.

Afro-Brazilian Literature in the Late 1970s

The 1970s were a time of increasing black militancy and self-awareness. Aside

from O Grêmio Recreativo de Arte Negra Escola de Samba Quilombo, this period saw

the founding of Porto Alegre’s Senghor Institute, the Black Consciousness and Unity

Group, and the dance troupe Olorum Baba Mim, all of them inspired by the United States

black power movement and wave of independence movements in the Portuguese colonies

of Africa. In Bahia, black cultural and political resistance to white hegemonic

 126

machinations surfaced through afoxé (songs/rhythms derived from candomblé ritual) and

groups like Ilê Aiyê (founded in 1974) and Olodum (founded in 1979). As Robert Stam

notes, “it was also during the decade of the 1970s that blacks came into their own within

Brazilian Cinema, the culmination of a slow “fade to Afro.” (257-58). This period

witnessed both a rise in Afro-Brazilian themes in cinema and an increase in the number

of active Afro Brazilian directors (e.g. Waldyr Onofre, Antônio Sampaio, Odilon Lopes)

as well as of Continental Africans in Brazil (e.g. the Nigerian, Ola Balogun). 1978,

specifically, was a year marked by civil rights demands for Afro-Brazilians and national

unrest and protest against the military dictatorship. Institutional reflections of the social

turmoil and political vicissitudes in Brazilian society were enacted in organizations such

as the MNUCDR (Movimento Negro Unificado Contra a Discriminação Racial) [Unified

Black Movement against Racial Discrimination]; FECONZU [Festival Comunitário

Negro Zumbi—Black Zumbi Community Festival]; and Grupo Palmares [Palmares

Group] from Porto Alegre which had demanded that November 20 be designated as

Black National Day rather than May 13, which is the official date of commemoration of

abolition (Afolabi 55). Likewise, witness the exponential growth of the Afro-Brazilian

press: Menelick (1915), A Rua (1916), O Xauter (1916), O Alfinete (1918), O

Bandeirante (1919), A Liberdade (1919), A Sentinela (1920), Kosmos (1922), O Getulino

(1923), O Clarim (rebaptized as O Clarim d'Alvorada; 1924), Elite (1924), Auriverde

(1928), O Patrocínio (1928), O Progresso (1928), A Chibata (1932), A Voz da Raça

(1933), Árvore das Palavras (1974-76), Jornego (1978-82), Cadernos Negros (1978),

Raça and Negro 100% (1995), as well as the many websites that have appeared in more

recent years such as Geledés Instituto da Mulher Negra, Jornal Ìrohìn, Casa das Áfricas,
 127

AfroPress (Agência de Informação Multiétnica), not to mention blogs such as Nei

Lopes’s meu lote, among others.

As discussed in Chapter 2, racial discourses centered on Afro-Brazilian

consciousness became particularly visible around the same time in samba lyrics such as

Antônio Candeia Filho’s well-known partido alto, “Dia de Graça”(1970) and in Afro-

Brazilian literature as in such short stories as Oswaldo de Camargo’s “Negrícia” and

“Esperando o Embaixador” (1972). In the late 1970s, the quantity and political and

aesthetic diversity of male and female voices in the area of Afro-Brazilian literature grew

exponentially, coinciding with Nei Lopes and Wilson Moreira’s racially engagé sambas-

enredo “Ao Povo em Forma de Arte” (1978) and “Noventa Anos de Abolição” (1979).

This intensified representation of Afro-Brazilian thought in civic and political

organizations permeated the intellectual life of Afro-sambistas and Afro-Brazilian writers

alike. In effect, Afro-Brazilian literature and samba lyrics have manifested a similar

historical progression in their content regarding the development of racial themes. As

Jane M. McDivitt explains in her article “Contemporary Afro-Brazilian Protest Poetry”

(1980), the history of Afro-Brazilian poetry can be viewed as a progression from the

silenced racial angst of Domingos Caldas Barbosa’s “Lereno Melancólico” [Melancholy

Lereno] in the eighteenth century and to the bold affirmation of Solano Trindade’s “Sou

Negro” [I Am Black] in the mid-twentieth century and the assertiveness of Abelardo

Rodrigues’ “Operação” [Operation] and “Ser Negro” [Being Black] in the late 1970s.

This observation by no means excludes the many other important Afro-Brazilian writers

such as Machado de Assis, Lima Barreto, Cruz e Sousa, or Lino Guedes, among others.

There exists, following McDivitt, an evolution from “anguish to affirmation” in the

 128

history of Afro-Brazilian poetry (Contemporary… 6). As examined in Chapter 1, racial

themes appeared in samba lyrics before the calling to an Afro-Brazilian racial

consciousness in Candeia in the early 1970s, and shortly after in the work of Nei Lopes,

Luiz Carlos da Vila, Martinho da Vila, and to a lesser extent Paulinho da Viola, though

these early expressions lacked a sense of black empowerment, and were characterized

instead primarily by prejudice or racist messages. Although, as early as 1958, Trindade’s

“Sou Negro” [I Am Black] represents the first direct and positive affirmation of black

racial identity in Afro-Brazilian poetry, this was not a common happening at the time. In

agreement with McDivitt, it was not until the 1970s that affirmations of black identity in

Afro-Brazilian literature, poetry and narrative would intensify. The same observation

applies to the domain of samba lyrics.

In 1978, there emerged in São Paulo, Quilombhoje, a group of Afro-Brazilian

writers engaged with Afro-Brazilian culture and politics. Quilombhoje was also

responsible for the Afro-Brazilian literary journal born in 1978, Cadernos Negros [Black

Notebooks]. Niyi Afolabi provides a vivid description of the writers and their origins, as

well as their literary styles and political objectives:

These young and bohemian writers primarily from São Paulo, together
with other regional writers from all over Brazil, have one common goal:
the commitment to establish a literary tradition as in continuity with the
great Afro-Brazilian literary tradition while addressing current social
issues that face the Afro-Brazilian community. The works produced since
1978 have ranged in thematic and stylistic concerns from an ideological
resistance to racism to the recuperation of black cultural heritage that was
denigrated due to slavery, to revalorization of cultural values with homage
paid to African religions through Candomblé rites, issues of family values
and hetero/homo-sexual relationships and a dialogue between tradition and
modernity (52-53).
 129

Some of the most outstanding writers of the Quilombhoje group are Jamu Minka,

Cuti, Sônia Fatima da Conceição, Isabel Hirata, Oswaldo de Camargo, Solano Trindade,

and Eduardo de Oliveira. Most of these communicated some form of racial politics

through their writings, despite aesthetic differences. The movement has been relatively

successful in creating a debate over racial issues, and even in advocating special policies

for black social advancement. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to think of

Quilombhoje as a unified group of writers with the same set of literary objectives. Aside

from the many aesthetic and political divergences among the writers, women such as

Miriam Alves and Esmeralda Ribeiro deemed Quilombhoje sexist, and thus, motivated

other women writers to elaborate a female racialized perspective. Even outside

Quilombhoje, it was not uncommon for Brazilian modernists to classify Afro-Brazilian

culture as simply “Brazilian” in order to mask social and racial relations, much in the

same way that many samba musicians hailed samba as the cornerstone of Brazilian

national identity. For example, in the foundational modernist novel Macunaíma, Exú aids

Macunaíma in ousting Venceslau Pietro Petra, yet Macunaíma, and not the Afro-

Brazilian deity Exú, is the “hero” of the novel. As Emanuelle K. F. Oliveira notes, the

modernists were closer to white Europeans than to Brazilian blacks (116).

In 1979, the same year that the amnesty law was promulgated in Brazil, the Afro-

Brazilian writer, Oswaldo de Camargo, published the novel A Descoberta do Frio [The

Discovery of Cold] (1979), which centers itself on the Afro-Brazilian condition. One of

the main contentions presented in the novel is the urgency for Afro-Brazilians to

familiarize themselves with the intellectual production of Afro-Brazilians. In his preface

 130

to A Descoberta do Frio, Clóvis Moura111 details the historical failure of Afro-Brazilians

to prioritize black identity:

Indaga-se, há muito tempo, por que no Brasil não há uma literatura negra,
a exemplo dos Estados Unidos. E mais: perguntamos por que os escritores
mulatos brasileiros, ao invés de se integrarem numa ideologia negra,
procurarem e procurarem branquear-se, passar para o outro lado,
refletindo isso na temática e no conteúdo das suas obras. Questionar isso,
sem se fazer uma análise mais aprofundada do problema, seria cair no
academicismo. Não podemos negar, porém, que o colonizador, no Brasil,
estabeleceu um sistema classificatório racial que leva a que aqueles que
são um pouco mais afastados das suas matrizes africanas procurem
destacar esse fato, conseguindo, através de mecanismos sociais muitas
vezes inconscientes, mas atuantes, situar-se cada vez mais abertamente, ao
lado do contigente branco. Esse ideal de branqueamento levou a que a
maioria dos escritores que poderiam ter dado uma contribuição no sentido
de se projetar uma literatura negra no Brasil se postasse em uma posição
oposta. Os negros que fizeram literatura no Brasil, a fim de não se
marginalizarem intelectualmente, obedeceram (ou tiveram de) aos padrões
estéticos brancos, à temática branca, situando-se em uma posição de
dobradiças amortecedoras de uma consciência étnica—e de classe—do
negro brasileiro.

[One asks, for a long time now, why there is no black literature in Brazil,
as in the United States. Even more: We ask why the Brazilian mulatto
writers, instead of integrating themselves in a black ideology, sought and
seek to whiten themselves, going to the other side, reflecting this in the
themes and content of their works. To question that without taking on a
more profound analysis of the problem would be to surrender oneself to
academicism. We cannot deny, however, that the colonizer in Brazil
established a racial classificatory system that leads those who are a bit
more distanced from their African matrixes to seek to underscore that fact,
enabling by use of social mechanisms often times unconscious, yet in
operation, to situate themselves, more and more openly, on the side of the
white contingent. That whitening ideal made it so that the majority of the
writers who could have made a contribution in the sense of projecting a
black literature in Brazil posited themselves in an opposing position. The
blacks who made literature in Brazil, with the finality of not marginalizing
themselves intellectually, obeyed (or had to obey) the white aesthetic
patterns, white themes, situating themselves in a position of debilitating an

111
Other recommended readings from this author are O Negro, De Bom Escravo a Mau Cidadão? (1977)
and Sociologia do Negro Brasileiro (1988).
 131

ethnic consciousness—and of class—of Brazilian blacks. (A descoberta...

9-10)

Although A Descoberta do Frio situates itself within a black aesthetic, Moura’s

insight regarding the debilitation of a black ethnic consciousness in Brazilian politics and

literature should not be overlooked.

A Descoberta do Frio focuses on the malungo112 group and its members Zé

Antunes, Oruca, Laudino, Batista, Romario, Aristides, Souza, Carol and their aesthetic

revolution. Throughout the novel, the malungo group is counterposed with other groups

due to their commitment to an Afro-Brazilian aesthetic. The plot revolves around a search

for the missing, Josué Estevão, who is afflicted by an indefinable “frio” [cold drift] that

does not kill him, but renders him unable to converse. Josué is crioulo [mulatto], and,

following the narrative, the cold drift only affects crioulos and negros [mulattoes and

blacks], not whites. As the character Laudino advises, “digam que tem nego andando

esquisito, perguntem se isso é o frio.” [say that there is a black man walking strangely,

and ask if it is the cold] (A descoberta… 22). Ultimately, the characters want to take

Josué to the hospital, however, due to his disappearance, nobody discovers his

whereabouts. All in all, the cold front represents the singularity of black identity in

Brazilian society, which is inextricably linked to the concept of territory. Here, I refer to

four classifications of territory: public territory, which comprises streets, squares, buses,

and theatres; home or private territory, or the so-called “lair” or even a particular space at

work; international territory, the areas of restricted access to legitimized persons such as,

for example, students enrolled in a university; and the territory of the body, the personal

112
Malungo is the name that African slaves used to designate their friends who experienced misfortune in
the slave ship (Enciclopédia... 412).
 132

space, namely the body itself and its adjacent space which is an invisible delimitation of

the space that accompanies the individual, being able to expand or contract itself in

agreement with the situation, and characterized, therefore, by flexibility (O Terreiro...

37). As Muniz Sodré points out, “a idéia de território coloca de fato a questão da

identidade, por referir-se à demarcação de um espaço na diferença com outros. Conhecer

a exclusividade ou a pertinência das ações relativas a um determinado grupo implica

também localizá-lo territorialmente [the idea of territory certainly introduces the question

of identity, by referring itself to the demarcation of one space in its difference with

others. To know the exclusivity or the pertinence of the actions related to a specific group

also implies to localize it territorially] (O terreiro... 23).

From within this territoriality there emerges what Sodré calls “a semiotics of

monstrosity,” which, for the subjectivized conscience, “o “afro” é um homem que a

consciência eurocêntrica não consegue sentir como plenamente humano; é, como o

monstro, não um desconhecido, mas um conhecido que finalmente não se consegue

perceber como idêntico à idéia universal de humano [the “afro” is a man that Eurocentric

conscience does not manage to feel as fully human; it is, like a monster, not an unknown,

but a known being that one does not manage to perceive as identical to the universal idea

of human] (O terreiro…160). In this light, in Brazil, one finds citizens of varying classes

which may be viewed in three tiers: those who are more citizens, those who are less

citizens, and those who still are not citizens (Santos 24). Although Milton Santos does not

link race to citizenship in this example, the common Afro-Brazilian, with few exceptions

in sports, music, and entertainment, would find him or herself in the category of “less or

non-citizen.”
 133

Negro Mesmo and Black Affirmation in the Early 1980s

Following the boom of black activism during the 1970s, Nei Lopes continued his

mission as one of the most prolific and respected thinkers of black identity politics both

inside and outside samba music and culture. In 1983, Lopes, along with his musical

companion and close friend Wilson Moreira, composed the album Negro Mesmo [Truly

Black], a landmark record, whose sambas in some way, shape, or form, divulge concepts

of black identity. In this section, I will analyze the samba-enredo “A Epopéia de Zumbi”

[Epic Poem of Zumbi] and the jongo “Jongo do Irmão Café” [Jongo of my Dark-Skinned

Brother], both from the record Negro Mesmo (1983).

“A Epopéia de Zumbi” is a two-stanza samba-enredo in which the lyrical voice

revisits Palmares, the first free state in Brazil where African slaves nurtured their own

culture in resistance to the soldiers and militias sponsored by local landowners and

mercenaries:113

E de repente
Era um, eram dez, eram milhares
Sob as asas azuis da liberdade
Nascia o Estado de Palmares
Mas não tardou
E a opressão tentou calar não conseguiu
O brado da vida contra a morte
No primeiro Estado livre do Brasil
Forjando ferro de Ogum

113
Nei Lopes explains that Palmares was “[uma] confederação de quilombos formada na capitania de
Pernambuco, entre o cabo Santo Agostinho e o rio São Francisco. Em fins do século XVI, escravos de um
grande engenho da capitania de Pernambuco, depois de uma rebelião sangrenta, refugiam-se na serra da
Barriga, na região conhecida como Palmares, hoje pertencente ao estado de Alagoas” [A confederation of
maroon communities built in the municipality of Pernambuco, between cape Santo Agostinho and the river
São Francisco. Around the end of the sixteenth century, slaves of a big plantation in the municipality of
Pernambuco, after a bloody rebellion, took refuge in the mountains of Barriga, in the region known as
Palmares, which today belongs to the states of Alagoas] (Enciclopédia... 510). For more information on
Palmares consult Décio Freita’s Palmares: La Guerrilla Negra (1971) and Palmares: A Guerra dos
Escravos (1973); Raymond Kent’s “Palmares, An African State in Brazil” (1965); and Edison Carneiro’s O
Quilombo dos Palmares, 1630-1695 (1947).
 134

Plantando cana e amendoim

Dançando seus batucajes
Pilando milho e aipim
Fazendo lindos samburás
Amando e vivendo enfim
Durante cem anos ou mais
Palmares viveu assim
E a luta prosseguia
Contra a ignorância, a ambição
Até que surgiu Zumbi
Nosso Deus, nosso herói, nosso irmão
Ciente de que nenhum negro ia ser rei
Enquanto houvesse uma senzala
Ao invés de receber a liberdade
Zumbi preferiu conquistá-la
E depois de mais três anos de guerra
O punhal da traição varou Zumbi
Foi a vinte de novembro
Data pra lembrar e refletir
E hoje trezentos anos depois
Um brado forte e varonil
Ainda vem de Pernambuco e Alagoas
E se espalha pelo céu desse Brasil

Folga negro de Angola

Que ele não vem cá
Se ele vier Quilombola pau há de levar (Negro Mesmo).114

In the beginning of the first stanza of this samba-enredo, the lyrical voice calls

attention to the birth of the first free Brazilian state, Palmares, and primarily the

thousands of Afro-Brazilians who lived there, while at the same time addresses the

114
All of a sudden / There was one, ten, thousands / Under the blue wings of liberty / The state of Palmares
was being born / But it did not take long / And oppression tried to quiet it but it did not achieve that / The
exclamation of life against death / In the first free state in Brazil / Casting steel of Ogum / Planting cane
and peanuts / Dancing their batucajes / Mashing corn and aipim / Making beautiful samburás / Loving and
living to no end / During one hundred years or more / Palmares lived as such / And the struggle went on /
Against ignorance, and ambition / Until Zumbi surged / Our God, our hero, our brother / Aware that no
black was going to be a king / As long as there were senzalas / Instead of receiving liberty / Zumbi
preferred to conquer it / And after more than three years of war / The fist of treason swept Zumbi / It was
November 20 / A date to remember and reflect upon / And today three hundred years afterwards / A strong
and potent exclamation / Still comes from Pernambuco and Alagoas / And spreads through the sky of that
Brazil / Rest black man of Angola / That he does not come here / If he becomes a runaway slave he will get
a whipping.
 135

oppressive nature of the status quo: “Era um, eram dez, eram milhares / Sob as asas azuis

da liberdade / Nascia o Estado de Palmares / Mas não tardou / E a opressão tentou calar

não conseguiu / O brado da vida contra a morte / No primeiro Estado livre do Brasil.”

Thereafter, the lyrical voice elaborates images of what life was like in Palmares by

reviving some of the daily activities of the inhabitants. The first reference is to Ogum, the

Yoruban orixá of steel, who is considered the patron of all of those who use instruments

made out of metal. In certain traditional stories, Ogum is a superior divinity, having

participated in the Creation myth as the originator of minerals and mountains. Aside from

Oxum, there is an array of images that speak to the peace of mind, spirit and nutrition of

the inhabitants of Palmares, which they enjoyed for more than a century. Those images

are in sync with the types of food that they cultivated, the centrality of music and dance

as life expression, and of love as the common thread uniting all of those aspects,

“Plantando cana e amendoim,” “Dançando seus batucajes,” “Fazendo lindos samburás”

and “Amando e vivendo enfim.” Suddenly, Zumbi appears: the living god, hero, and

brother of the black community.

In this samba-enredo, Zumbi is introduced as a courageous political visionary

who knew that liberty could only be conquered and not handed down to blacks from the

white colonists. Nevertheless, the lyrical voice points out that Zumbi was ousted by one

of his fellow black men: “E depois de mais três anos de guerra / O punhal da traição

varou Zumbi.” Zumbi’s heroic death on November 20 was selected as the National Day

of Black Consciousness in Brazil.115 This national day may be the most significant of all,

115
Recognized for his militant support of black Brazilian culture in Porto Alegre, the Afro-Gaúcho poet,
researcher, and professor Oliveira Silveira (1941-2009) was one of the founders of the Grupo Palmares
[Palmares Group] (1971) and creator of the National Day of Black Consciousness. In 1971, Silveira
proposed a date that would commemorate the coming to consciousness of the black community and its
 136

for it prompts Brazilians to reflect upon Afro-Brazilian history and politics both in the

past and, more importantly, in the present: “Foi a vinte de novembro / Data pra lembrar e

refletir.” In the last stanza, the lyrical voice urges Angolan blacks, many of whom were

enslaved in Brazil, to rest far away from the lands of slavery, like Brazil, because once

they become runaway slaves, they will have to face the whip: “Folga negro de Angola /

Que ele não vem cá / Se ele vier Quilombola pau há de levar.”

value and contribution to Brazil. November 20, first celebrated in 1971, was selected for it’s representing
the possible date of the death of Zumbi dos Palmares, which occurred in 1695. The idea of a National Day
of Black Consciousness influenced other social movements against racial discrimination, so much so that
by the end of the 1970s, the date appeared as a national proposal of the Movimento Negro Unificado
[United Black Movement]. Since then, the cultural and political significance of November 20 has fueled the
creation of forums, debates, and cultural events centered around black culture throughout Brazil (Geledés,
11/11/2011).
 137

3.1 Nei Lopes (front center), Nelson Cavaquinho (front left) and Jair do Cavaco (center left) in
celebration of the birthday of Dona Eurydice in the house of Nei Lopes’ family (Irajá, near The
Quilombo) on May 26, 1975. Source: Nei Lopes.
 138

3.2 A Arte Negra of Wilson Moreira and Nei Lopes. Rádio JB, 1979. Source: Nei Lopes.
 139

3.3 Nei Lopes during the recording session of the album Negro Mesmo. Studio Rancho, Rio de
Janeiro, 1983. Source: Nei Lopes.
 140

3.4. Nei Lopes during the recording session of the album Negro Mesmo. Studio Rancho, Rio de
Janeiro, 1983. Source: Nei Lopes.
 141

In the four-stanza jongo, “Jongo do Irmão Café,” the lyrical voice invokes all

blacks in recognition of a shared history of oppression since their enslavement from

Africa to Brazil. Moreover, the lyrical voice establishes a connection among blacks

through Afro-Brazilian cultural practices, language and religion, and creates an

awareness of both the hardships that Afro-Brazilians face in Brazilian society, as well as

their fortitude and significant contribution to Brazilian national culture:

Auê, meu irmão café!

Auê, meu irmão café!
Mesmo usados, moídos, pilados,
vendidos, trocados, estamos de pé:
Olha nós aí, meu irmão café!

Meu passado é africano

Teu passado também é.
Nossa cor é tão escura
Quanto chão de massapé.
Amargando igual mistura
De cachaça com fernet
Desde o tempo que ainda havia
Cadeirinha e landolé
Fomos nós que demos duro
Pro país ficar de pé!

Auê, meu irmão café!

Auê, meu irmão café!
Mesmo usados, moídos, pilados,
vendidos, trocados, estamos de pé:
Olha nós aí, meu irmão café!

Você, quente, queima a língua

Queima o corpo e queima o pé
Adoçado, tem delícias
De chamego e cafuné
Requentado, cria caso,
Faz zoeira e faz banzé
E também é de mesinha
De gurufa e candomblé
 142

É por essas semelhanças

Que eu te chamo "Irmão Café"116 (Negro Mesmo).

In the first stanza, the lyrical voice refers to Afro-Brazilians as brothers, detailing

the historical, political, and social forces that have shaped their existence in Brazilian

society.117 Underscored are the many abuses against Afro-Brazilians, and their resilience

as a people. Instead of relegating them to a hybrid ethnic or national identity, the lyrical

voice opts to highlight Africa as the central point of reference for Afro-Brazilians. In so

doing, the darkness of Afro-Brazilians’ skin is emphasized and compared to a floor of

massapé, taking advantage here, whenever possible, of words of African and not

European origin. The lyrical voice formulates Afro-Brazilian racial identity as black and

African. This is so not due to a belief in the non-existence of mulatos or of racial mixture,

116
Hello, my café brother! / Hello, my café brother! / even used, ground, mashed, sold, exchanged, we
stand: / Look at us there, my café brother! / My past is African / Your past is as well. / Our color is so dark
/ Like a floor of massapé / Embittering such mixture / Of cachaça with fernet / Since the time that there still
was / Little chair and car / It was us who had hard times /For the country to get on its feet! / Hello, my café
brother! / Hello, my café brother! / even used, ground, mashed, sold, exchanged, we stand: / Look at us
there, my café brother! / You, hot, burn your tongue / Burn your body and burn your foot / Sweetened, you
have wonders / Of affection and head rub / Burnt, you make a stink / You have a good time / And you are
also of the little table / Of urufa and candomblé / it is for this similarity / that I call you “café brother.”
117
The newspaper article, “Ney Lopes, Negro Mesmo” touches upon Lopes’ intent to return to the roots of
samba in response to the marginalization of Afro-Brazilian music and culture from official Brazilian
discourse, as seen in the lack of the Brazilian media’s coverage of the death of the founder of Olodum and
Samba-Reggae, Neguinho do Samba, “Toda esta postura de Nei Lopes, na verdade, decorre dele ser um
mestiço tipicamente brasileiro, mulato bamba contrariado permanentemente com os rumos oficiais da nossa
cultura, que tem marginalizado e praticamente extinto diversas manifestações fundamentais do berço das
tradições nacionais—evidentemente, de fundo negro. Mas Nei, se tem a pele clareada pela miscigenação,
exercita em tempo integral um comportamento que não resta a menor dúvida: é negro, mesmo” [That
position of Nei Lopes, in truth, stems from his being a typical Brazilian mestiço, a mulato bamba
permanently contradicted by the official paths of our culture, that has marginalized and practically
extinguished diverse fundamental manifestations from the center of national traditions—evidently of black
roots. But Nei, if he has his skin lightened from miscegenation, displays in full time a behavior that does
not leave a minor doubt: he is black, really] (O Dia, 11/09/1983). Witness how Lopes is relentlessly
portrayed in official terms as a “mestiço tipicamente brasileiro” and a “mulato,” and is considered “negro”
only due to the title of his record. For this reason, there is a hint of a double entendre with the use of the
phrase “é negro, mesmo” [he is black, really]. Moreover, some of the musical styles presented on the record
“Negro Mesmo” such as jongo, xiba, calango, alujá, and coco have never been part of the “tradições
nacionais” of Brazil.
 143

but rather to the idea that both lighter- and darker-skinned Afro-Brazilians tend to be

racially discriminated against as a group. As Nei Lopes remarks:

O mestiço deve ter o direito de optar por aquela parte constitutiva que
considera mais importante. Só que o euro-africano, com toda a sua carga
fenotípica, e com toda a carga racista que tem contra si, optando pelo seu
lado europeu corre o risco de ser apenas ridículo.

[The mestiço should have the right to opt for that constitutive part that he
or she considers most important. Although the Euro-African, with all of
the importance in physical appearance and the heavy racism against him
or her, opting for the European side runs the risk of being just ridiculous]
(qtd. in Elias 123).118

Although the third stanza is a repetition of the first, the fourth and final stanza

fabricates playful and affectionate images of Afro-Brazilians, once again tying them

118
In a study conducted in Florianópolis, the capital of Santa Catarina state in southern Brazil, Octávio
Ianni affirms that Brazilian sayings, such as “Escapou de branco, negro é; Mulato: preto disfarçado; and pai
de cor, filho fica [Escaped from white, you are black; Mulatto: hidden black; and father of color, so is the
son], all illustrate how, for many phenotypically white Brazilians, all other Brazilians of mixed racial
identities whose skin color is more or less dark should be grouped as blacks (Raças e classes…135,136).
In this context, Carl N. Degler, coined the idea of the “mulatto escape hatch,” which describes how
mulattoes in Brazil historically have been and are discriminated against as blacks. According to Degler,
“although in Portuguese law a Negro was either a slave or a free man, in practice in Brazil the distinction
was apparently ignored when it suited the local whites. For example, despite the 1773 Crown order that
color would no longer be a disqualification for holding office, a few years later a governor of Bahia was
still forbidding mulattoes from practicing in the courts” (216, 217). An insightful example of the complex
interplay between racial appearance, self-perception, and individual politics can be found in an interview
with the sambista Elton Medeiros which was given by the Brazilian newspaper, O Estado de São Paulo, on
July 23, 2005. The journalist reports that, “Elton é uma encarnação perfeita da miscigenação brasileira. Já
fez o cálculo: “Sou 50% negro, 25% português e 25% índio.” Mas recomenda-se que não se toque no nome
de Gilberto Freyre perto dele. “Detesto esse cara,” corta o papo, sem precisar explicar as razões da ojeriza
[Elton is an incarnation of the perfect Brazilian mixture. He already made the calculation: “I am 50% black,
25% Portuguese and 25% Indian.” But it is recommended that nobody mentions the name Gilberto Freyre
near him. “I detest that guy,” severing the conversation, without giving reasons for his aversion]. Medeiros
is clearly divided. On the one hand, he recognizes himself as mixed, yet, at the same time, he has difficulty
accepting Freyre’s celebration of miscegenation. This case reminds us of Antônio Pereira Rebouças, who
was racially moreno and silenced his personal experiences with racial discrimination due to the success of
his social adaptation (Spitzer 121).
 144

together as a culturally and racially unified people, “Faz zoeira e faz banzé” and “É por

essas semelhanças / Que eu te chamo "Irmão Café".” 119

With the idea of a politicized Afro-Brazilian racial discourse in mind, it is

necessary to take a look at the late Gerard Béhague’s essay, “Bridging South America

and the United States in Black Music Research (2002).” In this essay, Béhague examines

the relationships in academic research concerning the historical connections of black

music in the Americas, noting, among many things, how the increase in field research

from Latin American, European, and North American scholars since the 1960s has

impacted the diversity of music on the Latin-American continent. This particular essay is

significant, for it is one of the few that explores the topic of Afro-music in a transnational

setting. Although Béhague was a highly distinguished and respected ethnomusicologist,

his ideas on the relationship between music and racial studies in the Americas are, at

times, inaccurate. For example, Béhague states:

The first thorny issue refers to the very difficult question of ethnic or
racial identity. Although there may indeed be some commonalities across
multiracial societies in the Americas, there are certain fundamental
differences, such as the concept of hypodescent (the one-drop rule) as the
main racial line of demarcation in the United States versus the more fluid
notion of miscegenation applied in very subtle ways throughout the Latin
continent. The main result of these differences is a much more pronounced
sense of ambiguity of self-racial identity in Latin America. The obvious
consequences of such ambiguity is the blurring boundaries and borders of
musical traditions, which has meant a much deeper integration (and
sometimes even appropriation) of Afro-American musics in Latin-
American contexts (8).

119
Despite the strong nationalist stance in Nei Lopes and João Nogueira’s 1986 pagode entitled “Eu Não
Falo Gringo” [I Don’t Speak Gringo], it remains unclear why an Afro-Brazilian militant such as Nei Lopes
approved the last polysemic verse, “Everybodymacacada” [Everybody Group of Monkeys / Slavish
Imitation] (João…).
 145

Béhague interprets United States and Latin American racial history solely on

official discourse. It needs to be clarified here that the concept of hypodescent in the

United States is a technical question of racial taxonomies which says little about the (non)

fluidity of the daily drama of race relations in American society. By the same token, not

only is it a presentation of official discourse, but also it is misleading to categorize Latin

American racial identity as “more fluid.” A solid counterpoint to the discourse on the

fluidity of Brazilian race relations can be found in the book Cabeça de Porco [Pig’s

Head] (2005). In collaboration with the ethnographic research of anthropologist Luiz

Eduardo Soares, the Afro-Brazilian writer and rapper, MV Bill, and Afro-Brazilian music

producer Celso Athayde conducted interviews and filmed the harsh lives of young

Brazilians in favelas over the course of fifteen years and in nine Brazilian states. Many of

the testimonies in Cabeça de Porco touch upon the reality of racial discrimination,

violence, and police corruption.

“Os Neguinhos do Buzão” [The Blacks on The Bus], centers on the experience of

two young black men on a bus in Rio de Janeiro. Through this testimony, Athayde shares

his experience as a victim of racism while denouncing the complicity of Brazilians in not

confronting racist acts. As Athayde states, “pelo que eu vi, eles não roubaram ninguém.

Até ali, só havia dois crimes, o de passar por baixo da roleta e o crime psicológico, por

nos aterrorizar com os olhos” [judging by what I saw, they did not rob anybody. Until

then, there had only been two crimes, one was hopping the turnstyle, and the

psychological crime for terrorizing us with their eyes] (75). Eventually the black men get

off the bus, and a white lady deems Athayde an accomplice due to the color of his skin,

“viu neguinho, os seus colegas quase me roubaram!” [You see man, your friends almost
 146

robbed me] (75).120 The white lady’s complaints attract the attention of two police

officers who interrogate Athayde and his white friend, with whom Athayde had boarded

the bus. The police ask Athayde’s friend if he is “with him,” when technically the friend

is “with Athayde,” given that Athayde paid for his friend’s bus ticket. Ultimately,

Athayde and his white friend are left alone by the police officers. Nevertheless, before

Athayde and his friend get off the bus, a white man exclaims, “aquilo era racismo, aquilo

era só porque era preto” [that was racism, that was only because he was black] (77), to

which Athayde responds, “E você, seu careca, filho-da-puta, por que não disse isso antes

do meu amigo branco me salvar?” [And you, you bald son of a bitch, how come you did

not say that before my white friend saved me?] (77).

Similar to “Os Neguinhos do Buzão,” “Dolorosa Realidade da Fantasia: Por que

As Expectativas Se Realizam?” [The Painful Reality of Fantasy: Why do Expectations

Fulfill Themselves?], depicts a woman, Dona Nilza, on an elevator ride with a young

black boy. During the ride, Dona Nilza experiences psychological trauma as a direct

result of her own racist biases and expectations towards the young black boy in the

elevator: “ela sentia o coração disparar e o chão fugir-lhe sob os pés, e isso não tinha a

ver com o movimento do elevador, que não parava em andar nenhum” [she felt her heart

gallop and the floor running from her feet, and that had nothing to do with the movement

of the elevator, that did not stop at any floor] (181). As the elevator stops, it becomes

clear that the Afro-Brazilian boy has no malign intention and shall make no attempt to

120
There is no accurate translation of the word “neguinho” from Brazilian Portuguese to American English.
In Argentina, for example, it is common for young people of European decent to call each other “negrito”
as a term of kinship. Brazil, on the other hand, is a country with a large population of afrodescendants,
therefore the intricacies of racial dynamics among people of varying shades of color cannot be denied.
“Neguinho” in this case, definitely has a racial connotation, especially given that a white man is shouting at
a black man, yet the term is not derogatory like “nigger,” and also does not have the same connotation as
“brother.” Similarly, what would an Afro-Argentine think if a white Argentine directed the work “negrito”
towards him?
 147

harm Dona Nilza: “depois de temer tanto a violência, seu medo a atraíra sobre si como

uma maldicão. No 19ª andar o elevador parou, o rapaz disse “Boa-Tarde” e saiu. Dona

Nilza custou a certificar-se de que não houvera nada. Nada tinha acontecido” [after so

much fear of violence, her fear came upon her like a malediction. On the 19th floor the

elevator came to a hault, and the boy said “Good Afternoon” and left. Dona Nilza had a

hard time believing that nothing had happened. Nothing had happened] (182).121 Both

“Os Neguinhos do Buzão” and “Dolorosa Realidade da Fantasia: Por que as Expectivas

Se Realizam?” are poignant accounts of racism. These testimonies are instructive for they

emphasize the racial antagonisms in Brazilian society over the exceptionalist and official

view that problems in Brazil are social or economic, but not racial.

In Brazil, over the past several decades there have been many examples of self-

affirmations of racial identity in various musical genres (e.g. samba, afro-reggae, axé

music, rap122) as well as in several racially oriented political organizations as noted

121
Jorge Aragão’s pagode entitled “Identidade” (2004) elaborates the topic of racial discrimination in
elevators in Brazil. Over the years, Afro-Brazilians have been expected by their own lighter-skinned co-
nationals to take the service elevator (serviço) instead of the regular one (social). As Aragão sings,
“Elevador é quase um templo / Exemplo pra minar teu sono / Sai desse compromisso / Não vai no de
serviço / Se o social tem dono, não vai” [The elevator is almost a temple / An example to mine your dream
/ Get out of that commitment / Do not get on the service elevator / If the social elevator has an owner, do
not get on] (Identidade).
122
Samba is a generic name for various Brazilian dances and the music that accompanies each of those
dances. Moreover, samba is a musical expression that constitutes the backbone of the dominant current of
Brazilian popular music. Conceived by cultural activist José Junior in 1993, Afro-Reggae originally began
as a newspaper of Afro-Brazilian culture distributed in Rio’s favelas, however the initiative quickly
transformed into a collective praxis which, even today, continues to engage Rio’s poor urban youth in the
creation of music and involvement with education as a constructive alternative to crime and gang life.
Musically speaking, the Grupo Cultural Afro-Reggae [Afro-Reggae Cultural Group] mixes diverse musical
genres such as, but not exclusively, soul, reggae, rap, and hip-hop. Axé music, on the other hand, refers to a
varied gamut of musical styles that appeared in the 1980s in Bahia, which entwines traditional rhythms like
samba-de-roda, afoxé and frevo with Caribbean rhythms played in the blocos Afro. A musical style in
which a text is read aloud rapidly and without melody on a rhythmic and harmonic base through electronic
instruments, rap was born in community parties in the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn, New York in 1975,
and has its roots in the dozens—verbal games practiced in the black ghettos (see Dirty Dozen) and in the
militant poetry of groups like the Last Poets. Since its marginal beginnings in São Paulo around 1988,
which is when the first vinyl records of the genre were produced, Brazilian rap has become extremely
 148

earlier.123 In the genre of samba, I have already identified in Candeia since the early

1970s, and especially in the music and texts of Lopes, a strong sense of black racial

identity, which for so many years has remained unexplored territory in academic research

due to the dominant belief that racial identity in Brazil is always “fluid” and “mixed.”

Take, for example, Béhague’s analysis of the reception of Black Soul in Rio de Janeiro’s

samba culture. As Béhague has it, “James Brown had a considerable impact on a number

of Brazilian samba composers of the 1970s who were quite active in the local adaptation

of African-American pop music trends” (7). Nevertheless, as shown earlier, Candeia

among other samba musicians and intellectuals were fervently against the adaptation of

Black Soul in Brazilian culture and society in the late 1970s, which underscores the

protocols of local, regional, and national identity discourses in countries such as Brazil

and how they may also react against notions of integration and ambiguity.

The idea that the appropriation stems from ambiguity and/or fluidity of identity is

questionable. A more plausible explanation concerning Afro-American music

appropriation in Latin America may be linked to the United States’ hegemony in terms of

music distribution in relationship to the rest of the Americas, especially before the

vibrant and popular throughout Brazil (Enciclopédia… 83, 559, 595). For more information on Brazilian
hip-hop consult Derek Pardue’s Ideologies of Marginality in Brazilian Hip Hop (2008).
123
The video, “Sandra de Sá ao vivo: música preta brasileira” [Sandra de Sá Live: Black Brazilian Music]
(2002), serves as a prime example of the common avoidance of racial self-affirmations by Brazilians. The
title led me to expect to see a strong commitment to black discourses, yet I discovered the contrary. In the
video, Sandrá da Sá sings the song “Sarará Crioulo” [Creole Mulato] whose lyrics are “você ri da minha
pele, mas todo brasileiro tem sangue crioulo” [You laugh at my skin, but all Brazilians have creole blood].
In effect, these lyrics attest to the fact that although a black woman recognizes that blackness exists,
ultimately she cancels out blackness by suggesting that all Brazilians share the same racial history. This
insight points to the great existential difficulty that many Afro-Brazilians face in assuming a relativized
black racial identity, and hence alternate socio-economic and political identities, in a “white” dominated
society that portrays itself, and other Brazilians when it is officially convenient, as “mixed.” It is also
curious to note that Sandrá de Sá “whitens” herself in the video, as she performs with dyed blond hair.
 149

worldwide Internet boom. For these reasons, I find problematic the notion that “one

should recognize that there can hardly be such a thing as a unified African diaspora

throughout the Western Hemisphere for the simple fact that the ethnohistorical

experiences of the Afro-American communities of the hemisphere differed widely”

(Bridging… 9). Béhague does not address one of the cardinal issues here: what

constitutes the differences of ethnohistorical experiences, and, furthermore, why are

transnational ethnohistorical experiences assumed to be exclusionary? Aside from his

failure to clarify what he means by “unified African diaspora,” Béhague’s very use of the

words “unified African diaspora” signify that the discussion is intended to incorporate all

dimensions of afro-historical interactivity in the world. With this in mind, the title of

Béhague’s essay, “Bridging South America and the United States in Black Music

Research” is made to seem ironic. For what kind of bridging is being proposed here? In

effect, Béhague prefers to overlook the parallels in black history and Afro-music in the

Americas in favor of advocating a national and regional exceptionalism.

As the lyrical voice cries out in “Jongo do Irmão Café,” “meu passado é africano /

Teu passado também é.” An Afro-Brazilian lyrical voice engages another afrodescendant,

not only affirming an African identity or heritage, but also alerting his interlocutor that he

too is part of that linkage. In his essay, “The African Connection and The Afro-Brazilian

Condition” (1985), Anani Dzidzienyo underscores the common ground in the

ethnohistoric condition among Afro-Brazilians and West Africans. In the beginning of his

essay, Dzidzienyo describes how, on the first day of Carnival in 1977, the ambassadors of

Ghana and Nigeria, dressed in their kente and agbada cloth, danced on Rio Branco

Avenue in Rio de Janeiro, accompanied by the group Afoxé Filhos de Gandhi. Both
 150

ambassadors “sang in Yoruba” and wore the same clothes as members of the afoxé.

Nevertheless, the Brazilian press confused the names and origin of the ambassadors.

Although Dzidzienyo recognizes that transnational Afro-Brazilian political organization

varies among Brazilian cities, the absence of Afro-Brazilians in professions other than

sports and music has proven a central factor in impeding transnational political outreach

among Afro-Brazilians and West Africans. One must not forget such telling historical

moments as the strong Portuguese economic lobby in Rio de Janeiro in 1969, that strove

to gain a cultural influence over Black Africa. Amilcar Alencastre highlighted the

dimensions of this lobby during the 1969 visit to Brazil of Portuguese Prime Minister

Marcelo Caetano (The African… 137). Nevertheless, the lack of information concerning

Afro-Brazilians and Continental Africans is mutual:

Why, one may well ask, does a country that strongly affirms its cultural
and historical linkages to Africa fail to include the living embodiments of
those links in the conduct of her relations with Africa? Brazil, in effect
ignores the significance of the racial connection, which we shall call the
“Africa Card.” Likewise, the conceptualization of Afro-Brazilians among
Africans, both officially and unofficially, has tended to be of the “frozen”
variant: a veneer of African religious, cultural, culinary, and folkloric
survivals totally removed from the contemporary socio-political and
economic realities of Brazil. Because of this serious lack of knowledge
and active interest in contemporary Afro-Brazilian affairs, there has not
emerged a national or collective Brazilian policy in post-colonial Africa
(The African… 140, 144).

These reflections suggest that the proactive recruitment of Afro-Brazilians in

middle and higher levels of government, academia, business, diplomacy and the military

may promote new interactions and dialogues concerning present issues and concerns that

affect both Afro-Brazilians and continental Africans. Whether recognized or not, there is

an obvious correlation between the absence of Afro-Brazilians in their society’s actions

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in the international sphere and their marginalization within Brazil life and society

(Dzidzienyo and Turner 208).

In the preceding, I have demonstrated, vis-à-vis the sambas-enredo “Ao Povo em

Forma de Arte” (1978) (Wilson Moreira / Nei Lopes) and “Noventa Anos de Abolição”

(1979) (Wilson Moreira / Nei lopes), the prioritization of Afro-Brazilian socio-political

issues in contemporary Brazilian society. Likewise, I have provided a critique of these

sambas-enredo in order to identify several other intellectual sources of the Grêmio

Recreativo de Arte Negra Escola de Samba Quilombo that manifested a more pronounced

commitment to black discourses than Candeia. As an ideological counterpart to Nei

Lopes’ contribution to Quilombo, I have also examined the pulsation of Afro-Brazilian

militancy in the late 1970s in its political, cultural, and literary dimensions to emphasize

the growth of black discourses in Brazilian society. Finally, I have analyzed the sambas

“A Epopéia de Zumbi” [Epic Poem of Zumbi] and “Jongo do Irmão Café” [Jongo of my

Dark-Skinned Brother] from the record Negro Mesmo (1983), not only as a marker for

debate of Afro-Brazilian history in present-day society, but also to point out the

reiteration of self-affirmations of racial identity as well as the emergence of transnational

ethnohistorical connections. The ensuing chapter maps the racial imaginary of the

Africa/Brazil connection in Martinho da Vila’s samba compositions from 1974 to 1988,

in addition to the role of the Kizomba project in Brazilian society during the year of the

centenary of the abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1988, whose mission was to promote

black art, culture and African artists in Brazil. Likewise, the chapter also examines the

crucial role that the concepts of mestiçagem [mixture] and black identity play within the

history of samba schools and in Rio’s carnival.

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CHAPTER 4
Africa/Brazil: Martinho da Vila and Kizomba
1974-1988

Martinho and Africa from 1974 to 1986

Born on February 12, 1938 in Duas Barras, Rio de Janeiro, Martinho José

Ferreira, more commonly know as Martinho da Vila, is an accomplished samba

composer, writer, and civil rights activist. Since 1986, da Vila has published eleven

books in genres such as the novel, autobiographical fiction, and children’s literature. As a

musician, da Vila has officially composed, since 1969, forty-two albums and five DVDs

in the genre of samba. Throughout his musical career, da Vila has collaborated with

musicians such as Warner Chappell, Irmãos Vitale, Leci Brandão, Caban, Leonilda do

Candeia, João Bosco, Beto Sem Braço, Candeia, João Donato, Paulo César Pinheiro, Luís

Carlos da Vila, João de Aquino, Nelson Rufino, Rildo Hora (his main song arranger),

Alceu Maia (his cavaco player), Claudio Jorge (his guitar player), Hermínio Bello de
 153

Carvalho, Rosinha de Valença, Tião, Gráuna, Zé Catimba, Pádua Correia, Paulinho da

Viola, João Nogueira, Murilão, among many others.124

In the first section of this chapter, I analyze the baiãos “Nego, Vem Cantar”

[Brother, Come Sing] (1974) and “Negros Odores” [Black Scents] (1983), as well as the

samba “Ê! Mana” [Hey! Sister] (1985), all of which connect the Afro-Brazilian condition

to Africa. In “Nego, Vem Cantar,” the lyrical voice critiques the contradictory social and

racial attitudes of Brazilians, in addition to inviting continental Africans to move to

Brazil, which also functions as a metaphor for the struggles of Afro-Brazilians. The

lyrical voice also manifests a critical stance on the effectiveness of samba as a means to

ameliorate the status of afrodescendants in Brazil. In “Negros Odores,” however, the

lyrical voice speaks from an unidentified location of his experiences on the African

continent. In this baião, the lyrical voice notes commonalities of song, colors, and “black

scents” in several African countries with which he identifies strongly. In contrast to

“Negros Odores,” which specifies African nations, the samba “Ê! Mana!,” conjoins

various African nations into one “sister African nation.” The lyrical voice in this samba

manifests solidarity with several prominent Afro-Brazilian women and figures such as

Anastáscia, given the historical and racial common ground that has codified the lives of

afrodescendants.

The second section of this chapter focuses on the centenary of the abolition of

slavery and on samba culture in Rio de Janeiro in 1988, with an analysis of the Kizomba,

whose mission was to promote events of black art and culture, aside from aiding artists

124
In new releases, da Vila has also paid homage to other illustrious Brazilians such as: “Noel Rosa,
Donga, João da Baiana, Ataulfo Alves, Wilson Batista, Monsueto, Candeia, Silas de Oliveira, Padeirinho,
Cabana, as well as composers of his time like Monarco, João Nogueira, Paulinho da Viola, Dona Ivone
Lara, Aluísio Machado, Nei Lopes, Wilson Moreira, among others” (Tradição… 73).
 154

and African personalities who planned to visit Brazil. Within this context, the section

examines three musical compositions from Martinho da Vila’s record Kizomba, Festa da

Raça [Kizomba, Feast of Race] (1988) which are the jongo “Axé pra Todo Mundo” [Axé

for All] (1988), the samba “Mistura da Raça” [Racial Mixture] (1988), and the samba-

enredo “Kizomba, Festa da Raça” [Kizomba, A Feast of Race] (1988), the last of which

granted the Grêmio Recreativo Escola de Samba Unidos de Vila Isabel their first victory

in Rio de Janeiro’s carnival. The samba-enredo “Kizomba, Festa da Raça” articulates

racial equality as a universal struggle, as seen in the Brazilian polity with historical

figures like Zumbi dos Palmares and in South Africa with Apartheid. In the jongo “Axé

pra Todo Mundo,” the lyrical voice affirms a black racial identity, yet desires strength

and happiness for Brazilians of all races and creeds. In contrast, the samba “Mistura da

Raça” portrays the awakening of a foreigner who declares Brazil his adopted nation for

its racial mixture, and extends his gratitude to the orixá, Xangô. Within this context, I

underscore how the unrelenting emphasis on mestiçagem [mixture] as the dominant

national paradigm for racial and cultural discourses masks the divergences in the

existential and socio-political realities among Afro-Brazilians and their lighter-skinned

co-nationals.

As seen in Chapter 3, Nei Lopes’ samba-enredo “A Epopéia de Zumbi” [Epic

Poem of Zumbi] and the jongo “Jongo do Irmão Café” [Jongo of my Dark-Skinned

Brother], from the record, Negro Mesmo [Truly Black] (1983), not only contextualize

Afro-Brazilian history in present day society, but also flesh out the topic of black racial

identity affirmations and probe the transnational ethnohistorical dimensions of

afrodescendants. A contemporary of Nei Lopes, Martinho da Vila made his national

 155

debut as a samba artist with the partido alto, “Menina Moça” in the Festival de Música

Popular Brasileira in 1967 [Brazilian Popular Music Festival], which was promoted by

the TV Record in São Paulo.125 Just two years later, in 1969, da Vila’s political concerns

became undeniably manifest with the song “O Pequeno Burguês” [The Small Bourgeois]

(a clear allusion to Bertolt Brecht’s play A Respectable Wedding), which drives home the

idea that those who are poor must satisfy themselves with the subpar private universities

given that the public ones mostly admit the youth of the upper and middle class. Ever

since the beginnings of his career, the perennial question of race and Brazilian national

identity, blacks, mestiços, and whites, has come to occupy, with increased visibility, a

significant portion of Martinho da Vila’s political imaginary.126

Although da Vila has developed, since the early 70s, a notably strong connection

to Africa in his music and politics, his link to Angola is profound. Since his first trip to

Africa in 1972, da Vila has been considered Brazil’s “cultural ambassador”127 to Angola,

125
Also in 1967, da Vila participated in the show Fina Flor do Samba in the Teatro Opinião, made his
debut in the samba school Unidos de Vila Isabel with the samba-enredo “Carnaval das Ilusões,” and upon
contract with the record label RCA, left the army after having served thirteen years.
126
João Baptista M. Vargens and André Conforte contend that the word “affirmation” best evaluates the
trajectory of Martinho da Vila’s lyrics, which explores “samba and all Brazilian rhythms, Brazilian culture
and Afro-Brazilian culture in its several manifestations, the painstaking and slow process of women’s
emancipation, and the gaining of a political consciousness. The political aspects of da Vila’s oeuvre are
either openly or subtly manifested in many of his songs, mostly in the period of the dictatorship, and often
insist upon the integration of peoples and cultures” (Tradição… 27). This chapter focuses specifically on da
Vila’s treatment of racial politics and the role of Africa in his imaginary.
127
Beginning in 1961 under president Jânio Quadros, and continued by his successor João Goulart (1961-
1964), the Foreign Service of the Brazilian government opened a first embassy in Accra, Ghana in 1961,
with embassies in Dakar, Senegal, and Lagos, Nigeria to follow a year later. As Brazil’s ambassador to
Ghana, Raymundo Souza Dantas was also the first Afro-Brazilian ever to hold such a position. Souza
Dantas’s appointment as ambassador sparked resistance among Brazilian diplomats and intellectuals, and
motivated the ambassador to reflect upon the relationship between being black and representing Brazil.
Aside from being ignored by Itamaraty and condemned in the press, Souza Dantas confronted racist
criticism over the decision to name him ambassador, which instilled in him a feeling of woe and isolation.
Moreover, Souza Dantas was expected to present Brazil’s race relations as harmonious. This public role,
however, contrasted with the discrimination to which he was subjected by Itamaraty, his critics in Brazil,
and even his subordinates (Dávila 43, 45). In the documentary Filosofia da Vida—O Pequeno Burguês
 156

and not without sound reason. It was not until 1986 that Angola inaugurated its first

embassy in Brasília. Before then, Angolan diplomacy in Brazil was carried out through

special missions and delegations. Aside from his longstanding commitment to the

advancement of civil rights in Brazil, da Vila is both a pioneer in transatlantic discourse

on Brazilian society and an indispensable variable concerning the post-colonial legacy

between Africa and Brazil. Such experiences have fueled da Vila’s rising interest in Pan-

Africanism and its relevance to discussions on Brazilian society, which is evidenced in

several of his sambas and will be the main focus throughout this chapter.

From the record Canta, Canta Minha Gente [Sing, Sing my People], “Nego, Vem

Cantar” [Brother, Come Sing] (1974) is an upbeat and merrily swinging modernized one-

stanza baião, in which the lyrical voice critiques the social and racial attitudes of

Brazilians and invites continental Africans, and metaphorically speaking Afro-Brazilians,

to move to Brazil and fight for socio-economic parity alongside their white counterparts:    

Nesta praia de sol tão intenso

Tanta gente a se bronzear
Onde há branco querendo ser preto
E mulato querendo esnobar
Eu olhando pra onda que vai
Penso logo nas praias de além-mar
De além-mar, de além mar
Vem, vem, vem
Nego

[Philosophy of Life—The Petty Bourgeois] (2009), the Brazilian cultural critic and writer Jaguar states that
“o trabalho que ele [Martinho] faz na África, o Itamaraty deveria conferir a ele o título de “embaixador
perpétuo.” O que ele fez por conta própria ninguém cobrou disso. O trabalho que ele fez talvez é a coisa
mais importante para a aproximação da África com o Brasil” [Itamaraty—Brazil’s diplomatic corps, should
confer to Martinho the title of “on-going ambassador” for the work that he does in Africa. Martinho acted
on his own without any imposed obligation. The work that he did is perhaps the most important in terms of
the approximation of Africa and Brazil].
 157

Vem pra minha terra

Ser igual a branco
Em qualquer cidade
Vem tentar um banco
De universidade
Vem, vem
Trabalhar nos campos
Ver os pirilampos
E tocar viola à beça
Vem, vem
Lutar pela vida
Sambar na avenida
Ah! Nego
Vem depressa
Nego, vem plantar
Vem cantar
Nego, vem plantar
Vem cantar
Vem, vem
Lutar pela vida
Sambar da avenida
Ah! Negos
Vem depressa (Canta...).128

The locus of the lyrical voice is a beach in tropical Brazil, where hoards of people

tan themselves in the sweltering heat. From the onset of the baião, the lyrical voice

makes a point to communicate his thoughts on race. On the beach, one can see whites

desiring to be dark-skinned, and mulatos acting snobbish, which mirrors the behavior of

the opulent white urbanites. In a wink, the ocean, or the “onda que vai” [the wave that

rolls], triggers the mind of the lyrical voice to ruminate over the beaches of Africa [além-

mar]. Contemplating Africa and Black Africans in particular instills joy in the lyrical

128
On this beach of intense sun / So many people are getting a tan / Where there are whites desiring to be
blacks / And mulattoes wanting to be snobs / I am looking at the waves that roll / I think immediately
about the beaches of Africa / Of Africa, of Africa / Come, come, come / Brother / Come to my country / Be
equal to whites/ In any city / Come apply for a position / In the university / Come, come / Work in the
fields / Watch the fireflies / And play a lot of guitar / Come, come / Fight for life/ Dance samba in the street
/Ah! Brother / Come quickly / Brother, come plant / Come sing / Brother, come plant / Come sing / Come,
come / Fight for life / Dance samba in the street / Ah! Brother / Come quickly.
 158

voice, so much so that the words “além-mar” are repeated in chorus, and sung with the

robust voices of woman singers on the record Canta, Canta, Minha Gente (1974).

Without delay, the lyrical voice beckons continental Africans to come to Brazil and live

as equals to whites in any Brazilian city, “Vem pra minha terra / Ser igual a branco / Em

qualquer cidade.” 129

At first, Africans are encouraged to attain positions in universities; yet, the

ostensibly serious tone of empowerment is quickly supplanted by an ironic one, which

calls Africans to repeat the limited historical trajectory that they have already faced as

slaves in Brazil: to work the land, see the fireflies, and play lots of guitar. Why, one

might ask, does the lyrical voice encourage Africans to move to Brazil, if Brazil is not a

racial democracy?130 How would Africans improve their lives, if at all, by moving to

Brazil? These reflections suggest that Africans function as a metaphor for the Afro-

Brazilian condition. Nevertheless, the fact that the lyrical voice resorts to irony and

indirect criticisms of Brazilian race relations provides a key insight into the general

129
In Kizombas, Andanças e Festanças (1989) [Kizombas, Wanderings and Feasts], da Vila comments on
the absence of Afro-Brazilians in the government: “É lamentável não termos governadores, prefeitos e
ministros negros, porque meu pensamento é colocar os negros atuantes em todas as atividades do país” [It
is lamentable that we do not have governors, mayors and black government officials, because my idea is to
place active Afro-Brazilians in all sectors of Brazilian society] (56). Nevertheless, upon being asked if
Brazilian society improved under the government of Luíz Ignácio da Silva, da Vila argued in the magazine
Fora de Série (2010) that electing Lula as president was a more significant conquest than electing a black
president in the United States: “fizemos uma revolução, como também nos Estados Unidos ao colocar um
negro na Presidência, só que a nossa foi tão grande ou maior: colocamos um operário nordestino na
Presidência [We had a revolution, as did the United States, upon putting a black man in the presidency, yet
ours was as big or greater: we put a northeastern blue-collar man in the presidency] (Paulinho…19, 20). Da
Vila’s response in the Fora de Série interview speaks to the power of one’s national identity, and how da
Vila’s own may, on occasion, trump his advocacy for the advancement of afrodescendants of other nations.
130
According to Florestan Fernandes, the practical utility of the “racial democracy” myth became manifest
in three areas: first, it generalized a Pharisaic state of spirit that allowed one to attribute the human dramas
of a racially mixed population to the incapacity or irresponsibility of blacks; second, it exempted “whites”
from any obligation, responsibility or moral solidarity of social reach and collective nature before the
sociopathic effects of the abolitionist dispossession and the progressive deterioration of the socio-economic
situation of blacks and mulattoes; and third, it revitalized a technique of focalizing and evaluating relations
between “blacks” and “whites” through the exteriorities or appearances of racial adjustments, forging a
“false consciousness” of the Brazilian racial reality (A Integração do Negro…198, 199).
 159

Brazilian aversion to discussing the topic of racial discrimination within their own

national sphere.131 Towards the end of the baião, samba music seems to be tagged as an

131
Thomas Skidmore notes with acuity that, in Brazil, the topic of race relations between Brazil and the
United States goes beyond academic discussions: “os fatos e as percepções do contraste nas relações raciais
entre as duas sociedades não são mero assunto acadêmico no Brasil. Atingem o coração da auto-imagem da
elite” [The facts and perceptions of the contrast in the race relations between the two societies are not a
mere academic topic in Brazil. They reach the heart of the self-image of the elite] (O Brasil Visto… 184).
In 1971, for example, the Brazilian newspaper Tribuna da Imprensa published the article “Brasil Nega
Preconceitos contra Pretos” [Brazil Denies Prejudice against Blacks], in which the Brazilian embassy in
Great Britain qualified as “injustas e superficiais” [unjust and superficial] the accusations of racial
discrimination made against Brazil that appeared in Dzidzienyo’s essay, “The Position of Blacks in
Brazilian Society” (Minority Rights Group, 1971). The paternalism towards blacks in this article can be
noted in the misspelling of both Dzidzienyo’s nationality (“ghaneano”) and his surname (“Dzidzienko”)
(Tribuna, 12/11/1971). The 1970 article “Embaixador Manda Carta à BBC Censurando Filme sobre Negros
no Brasil” [Ambassador Sends a Letter to the BBC Censoring Film about Blacks in Brazil], explains how
the Brazilian ambassador Sérgio Correia da Costa sent a letter to the director of the British Broadcasting
System lamenting that the documentary on Brazil exhibited by the BBC “tenha sido montado de tal
maneira que dá uma impressão completamente falsa das relações raciais no meu país” [was put together in
such a way as to give a completely false impression of race relations in my country]. Of the many far-
reaching statements, Correia da Costa adds that “compreendemos que esta harmonia interracial é o
resultado da boa vontade coletiva de muitos indivíduos, que trabalharam desde há várias gerações em um
clima propício à tolerância e ao respeito mútuo” [We understand that this interracial harmony is the result
of the collective good will of many individuals who worked over several generations in a climate that lends
itself to tolerance and mutual respect] (Jornal do Brasil, 08/18/1971). As Dzidzienyo himself points out, in
both newspaper articles, there is a clear defense of Brazilian racial exceptionalism. Furthermore, Brazil’s
relative intolerance to negative foreign criticism in comparison to countries such as the United States is
noticeable even in the contemporary popular media. It may be worth recalling how, in 2002, the Rio de
Janeiro tourist board found the season 13 Simpson’s episode “Blame it on Lisa” (2002) so offensive to the
Brazilian people that they threatened to sue the producers. Reminiscent of the Brazilian case regarding
foreign criticisms of their race relations, the famous French writer François-Marie Arouet, more commonly
known as Voltaire, was first imprisoned for authoring two satirical poems in 1717-8, which were directed
against the regent of France. After another imprisonment, Voltaire was obliged to go to England. Given his
hostility towards the French government, Voltaire “was in a mood, it may well be imagined, to admire and
extol the freedom of speech and liberty of person which he found in England, and to envy English writers
their political influence” (viii, x). While in England, Voltaire wrote the Lettres sur les Anglais (1733-4),
whose purpose “was not to utter the English, or praise England, but to decry and discredit French
institutions” (xx). In response to Voltaire, the Parlement de Paris [French parliament] promulgated a
decree against his Letters on June 10, 1734. In his fifth letter entitled, “Sur la religion anglicane” (on the
Anglican religion), Voltaire uses England as an example to critique the lack of religious freedom in France,
“Cependant, quoique chacun puisse ici server Dieu à sa mode, leur véritable religion, celle où l’on fait
fortune, est la secte des épiscopaux, appelée l’Église anglicane, ou l’Église par excellence” [However,
anyone may serve God in their own way, their true religion, the one they see fit, it is the Episcopal sect,
known as the Anglican church or the church of excellence] (17). In addition, Democracy in America
(1835), written by the young French nobleman and an astute political scientist, Alexis de Tocqueville, is
held by many Americans as one the most insightful and classic works on the meaning and functioning of
democracy in the United States and its potential usefulness in understanding how it might serve to supplant
the outworn aristocratic regime in Europe of the time. As De Tocqueville states, “The French, under the old
monarchy, held it for a maxim that the king could do no wrong; and if he did do wrong, the blame was
imputed to his advisers. This notion made obedience very easy; it enabled the subject to complain of the
law, without ceasing to love and honor the lawgiver. The Americans entertain the same opinion with
respect to the majority (113).
 160

inefficient avenue to demand political rights, as the chorus of women singers urges

Africans to fight for life, which means planting, singing and dancing samba. As da Vila

states in the Bahian newspaper A Tarde in 1991, “a gente não pode ser só para o lazer, só

para fazer samba, bloco afro, religião, abrir os terreiros para todas as pessoas serem obás”

[We cannot exist just for leisure, just to make samba, bloco afro, religion, to open the

terreiros so everybody can be obás132] (A Tarde, 05/05/1991).

Composed by Martinho da Vila and Rildo Hora, the modernized baião “Negros

Odores” [Black Scents] (1983) first appeared on the record Novas Palavras [New Words]

in 1983. Whereas the mind of the lyrical voice in “Nego, Vem Cantar (1974)” migrates

towards Africa from the beaches of Brazil, the lyrical voice in “Negros Odores” speaks of

personal experiences on the African continent from an unidentified place:

Um canto novo
Soa aos ouvidos
Faz a cabeça
Já está nas bocas
E não se deve
Prender um canto
Se esse canto é de fé
O forte canto vi em Angola
Em Moçambique
Em Cabo Verde
Na Tanzânia
Na Etiópia
Mesmas cores das Guinés

Lá no Zimbabwe
Congo
Em São Tomé e Benin
Negros odores e carmim

132
Obá is the strong feminine warrior orixá of the Yoruba. She is also considered the third and least loved
of the women of Xangô, appearing after Oiá, and later, Oxum (Enciclopédia… 485).
 161

Vibro, me encanto
Canto
E até já nem me espanto
Com os tambores e clarins (Novas…). 133

In the first stanza, the lyrical voice alludes to a “new song” [um canto novo],

which might represent his previous unfamiliarity or inexperience with continental Africa.

Aside from remarking on the ubiquity of this “new song” among the African peoples, the

lyrical voice recognizes the importance of Africans expressing their culture through song,

and the setbacks of repression in their history [prender um canto]. Thereafter, the lyrical

voice reflects on his past journey around the African continent, noting the universality of

the “strong song,” and the colors, that he encountered not only in Lusophone Africa

[Angola, Mozambique, São Tomé, Cape Verde] but also in Tanzania, Ethiopia and

Guinea, Zimbabwe, Congo, and Benin. Aside from the commonality among Africans in

their visual and musical qualities, the lyrical voice also underscores their olfactive ones,

referring to their “black scents,” with which he identifies. Upon processing his thoughts

regarding his African experience, the lyrical voice revels in his Pan-Africanist

identification and self-discovery. Direct contact with Africa and her people makes the

lyrical voice become enchanted, vibrate, and sing [vibro, me encanto, canto], also guiding

him to deflect his preconceived fears of cultural estrangement with African musical

culture and instruments [tambores and clarins].

133
A new song / Rings in the ears / Makes the head / It is already in the mouths / And one should not /
Repress the song / If that song is of faith / The strong song that I saw in Angola / In Mozambique / In Cape
Verde / In Tanzania / In Ethiopia/ The same colors of the Guineas / There in Zimbabwe / Congo / In São
Tomé and Benin / Black scents and carmine / I vibrate and enchant myself / I sing / And I do not even
frighten myself anymore / With the drums and bugles.
 162

Co-written by Martinho da Vila and Zé Katimba, “Ê! Mana” [Hey! Sister] (1985)

is a two-stanza samba inspired by Benedita da Silva.134 The lyrical voice seeks

communion with several prominent Afro-Brazilian women and figures and, at the same

time, narrates the tribulations they have endured and continue to endure, in Brazilian

society:

Ê mana, ê mana
Ê mana, ê mana
Ê mana, ê mana

Mana Zoé, Benedita

Irmã Bené, Silva mana
Maninha é rainha ginga
Da irmã nação africana
Calaram irmã Anastácia
Mana Mahim foi lutar
E a raça aqui vai ser forte
Se todo mundo irmanar
Mana do céu, chuva fina
Pra terra do lavrador
Manda da terra é o fruto
Manda do homem o amor
Irmã Namibia tá presa
Mas ainda vai se soltar
Ayoká é Janaína
Kianda, Iemanjá (Criações...).135

134
Benedita Souza da Silva Sampaio grew up in a favela in Rio de Janeiro, where she worked as a domestic
house cleaner and ex-personal carrier of flea markets. She later studied in the Serviço Social [Social
Service] and became alderwoman and federal deputy. In 1986, da Silva became the first Afro-Brazilian
woman to gain a seat in the National Congress. Likewise, in 1994, da Silva was elected senator with two
million votes, becoming the first Afro-Brazilian woman to hold such a rank; four years later, she was
elected vice-governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro. While in the government of the state of Rio de Janeiro
in 2002, da Silva became the first afrodescendant leader to attain such a position, and the first woman to
govern the state of Rio de Janeiro. Finally, in 2003, da Silva led the Secretaria de Assistência e Promoção
Social [Secretary of Assistance and Social Promotion], an organ that received the status of ministry in the
government of president Luiz Ignácio Lula da Silva. (Enciclopédia… 617).
135
Hey sister, hey sister / Hey sister, hey sister / Hey sister, hey sister / Sister Zoé, Benedita/ Sister Bené,
sister Silva / Little sister is the queen ginga / Of the sister African nation / They censured sister Anastácia /
Sister Mahim went to fight / And the race here will be strong / If everybody joins together / Sister of the
sky, light rain / For the land of the farmer / Who commands fruit from the land / Who commands love from
man / Sister Namibia is jailed / But she will break free / Ayoká and Janaína / Kianda, Iemanjá.
 163

In the beginning of the samba, the lyrical voice repeats the word “sister,” [ê

mana], thus underscoring the importance of women in his imaginary. Although it is not

entirely clear who Zoé, Benedita, Bené, Silva, and Maninha are, the lyrical voice suggests

that these women should not be viewed as specific individuals, but more broadly as

symbols of greatness. For example, Maninha is considered to be the “rainha ginga,” or

queen of the ginga, a bodily movement closely associated with the semi-balletic art form

of capoeira. In contrast to the baião “Negros Odores,” which lists the names of specific

African nations, “Ê! Mana,” refers to the land of these women as the “sister African

nation,” fusing various African nations into one. This solidarity, manifested in the lyrical

voice, is also reinforced by the historical vicissitudes that African women have suffered

over the past centuries. Sister Anástacia,136 who was silenced, is a reference to the saint

of popular devotion in Brazil, Anastácia. Mana Mahim, is yet another woman whose

identity remains unknown, but who is recognized as someone who has gone to fight

[Mana Mahin foi lutar]—quite possibly, and in sync with the rest of the samba—for her

freedom and that of other Africans.

The use of first names is not only indicative of the lyrical voice’s proximity to the

African women, but also a reminder of the absence of institutional formality and lack of

interest in terms of full name recognition of famous afrodescendants in comparison to

136
Following tradition, Anastácia was an Angolan princess who lived free in Abaeté, Bahia. Imprisoned
and tortured for allegedly lying about her civil condition, Anastácia seems to have been sold in Rio de
Janeiro, where she died. Despite Jacques Etienne Arago’s nineteenth century lithograph, which depicts a
muzzled Anastácia, the popular idealization of her in Brazil is a romantic one. This idealization is based on
an alleged love story that occurred in Anastácia’s life, which portrays her as a gorgeous black woman with
blue eyes. The commercial exploitation of her myth, the sect of “Anastácia the slave,” to whom countless
miracles are attributed, has grown significantly and mostly in Rio de Janeiro since the 1960s. For a more
detailed analysis on the topic consult John Burdick’s Blessed Anastácia: Women, Race, and Popular
Christianity in Brazil (1998).
 164

their European counterparts. Thereafter, the lyrical voice postulates that the race here will

be strong if everyone comes together, yet it is not clear where “here” is. In addition, the

lyrical voice invokes the female deities of the sky to make the soil fertile for farmers,

plentiful in fruit, and also to ask for men to be generous in love. Before the samba comes

to an end, the lyrical voice mentions that sister Namíbia is jailed, both physically and

existentially, but that she will free herself, once again pointing to the condition of

struggle that all of these women face in life. Lastly, the lyrical voice makes reference to

four women, the last of which, Iemanjá, is a famous orixá.137

Kizomba, and the Centenary of the Abolition of Slavery, 1988

For many political activists like Martinho da Vila, 1988 was a time to bring the

discussion on Afro-Brazilians and “black Africa” to the forefront of Brazilian politics. In

response to a request by UNESCO, which was carried out by the Arquivo Nacional

[National Archive], da Vila, along with several historians and researchers, became a

member of a national commission to develop the Guia Brasileiro da História da África

[The Brazilian Guide on the History of Africa]. The purpose of the guide was to provide

resources on the history of Africa, slavery, and blacks in present day Brazilian society (O

samba do negro… 2).138 In the same year, the Kizomba project came to play a vital role

137
Iemanjá is the feminine orixá of water who is revered in Brazil as the mother of all orixás. An orixá, in
the Yoruban tradition, is each one of the supernatural entities or natural forces that emanates from Olorum
or Olofim and that guides the consciousness of living beings and protects the common activities of the
community. At times representing divinized ancestors, orixás manifest themselves through what the saintly
people call “qualities” [qualidades]. For example, Oxum Pandá and Oxum Abalô are “qualities” of the
orixá Oxum. These specificities indicate a mythological passage of the orixá in which such characteristics
revealed themselves or make reference to a place where the orixá would have lived or have passed
(Enciclopédia... 335, 499).
138
In the documentary Abolição (1988), the Afro-Brazilian militant, Tereza Santos, remarks that “hoje a
mulher negra brasileira está exatamente na mesma situação que estava antes da chamada abolição da
 165

in the deployment of da Vila’s political imaginary. An African word that signifies an

encounter of identities, Kizomba is also a celebration of confraternization, which is the

name that da Vila gave to an organized group of people who were also concerned with

culture and the Afro-Brazilian condition. Da Vila also selected the name Kizomba to

baptize the Encontros Internacionais de Arte Negra [The International Encounters of

Black Art]. Some of the main collaborators of the Kizomba group were senator Benedita

da Silva, Antônio Pitanga, Milton Gonçalves, and Jorge Coutinho, among others.

The Kizomba project first took place in 1984 after the success of the musical

event “Canto Livre de Angola,” which occurred the year before.139 After that, the

Kizomba project was put on every two years, with the last performance in 1990. 1988

was also a landmark year, for it was when the Grêmio Recreativo Escola de Samba

Unidos de Vila Isabel won Rio’s carnival, with the samba-enredo “Kizomba, Festa da

escravidão. Hoje exatamente depois de cem anos da abolição, oitenta e três porcento das mulheres negras
neste país recebem menos que um salário mínimo. Esta é a liberdade que a mulher negra conhece. Qual é a
diferença? Onde é que está a liberdade?” [Today black Brazilian women are in the same situation they were
in before the so-called abolition of slavery. Today, exactly one hundred years after abolition, eighty-three
percent of black women in this country are paid less than minimum wage. This is the liberty that black
women know. What is the difference? Where is liberty?] (Abolição). In a similar vein, Abdias do
Nascimento asserts, “abolition of slavery brought few real benefits to Africans in Brazil. Now labeled free,
most were left to the streets without work, education, health care, housing, or land. Others stayed with
former masters on the latters’ imposed conditions. Black women were doubly victimized by this process, in
which they became at once the last on the social scales and the mainstay of their families and community”
(Africans… 90).

139
The “Canto Livre de Angola” brought Angolan music and top musicians like Elias Dia Kimuezo, to
Brazil, where they performed in the cities of Rio, São Paulo, and Salvador. The presentations were such a
success that they were included in the LP “Canto Livre de Angola,” which later appeared on CD through
ZFM Records and under the title “Angola Canta” [Angola Sings]. One of the most memorable
performances that occurred in the early 80s before the “Canto Livre de Angola” was the Kalunga project.
Put on by Martinho da Vila and directed by Fernando Faro, the Kalunga project took the Brazilian
musicians Dorival Caymmi, João Nogueira, Clara Nunes, Chico Buarque de Holanda, Miúcha, Djavan,
Dona Ivone Lara, among others, to perform in various regions in Angola. Likewise, in 1988, Martinho da
Vila and the concert maestro Leonardo Bruno developed a musical project entitled Concerto Negro [Black
Concert], which focuses on the participation of Afro-Brazilians in Brazilian música erudita [classical
music]. The Concerto Negro is an ongoing project, which has already been performed in Rio and Minas
Gerais (Martinho…).
 166

Raça,” for the first time. Nevertheless, in the documentary Filosofia da Vida—O

Pequeno Burguês [Philosophy of Life—The Petty Bourgeois] (2009), da Vila clarifies

that “era uma vitória não só da Vila Isabel, mas de todo o movimento negro” [it was not

only a victory for Vila Isabel, but for the whole black movement].140 Aside from the

political action of Martinho da Vila and the Movimento Negro [Black Movement], the

state also took an interest into the rising visibility of racial discourses. Although then

president José Sarney, whose term of office lasted from 1985 to 1990, capitalized on the

opportunity to emphasize the African component of Brazilian culture, “the general tone

of the celebration remained self-congratulatory about Brazil’s racial democracy, despite

the efforts of activists to use the occasion to highlight black issues of continued

discrimination and inequality” (A. Marx 261).

In general, the mission of the Kizomba project was to promote events of black art

and culture, aside from aiding artists and African personalities who intended to go to

Brazil. In the following passage, da Vila explains his motivation to raise awareness on the

Kizomba project, which counted with the participation of more than thirty nations:

É que senti que o povo brasileiro tem muita curiosidade e pouca

informação sobre a mãe África. Além de não ter muita informação sobre a
cultura negra na diáspora. Para se ter uma ideia, Angola, tão influente na

140
Mangueira’s 1988 samba enredo “100 Anos de Liberdade, Realidade ou Ilusão?” [100 Years of Liberty,
Reality or Illusion?], lost to Vila Isabel’s “Kizomba” by only one point, 112 to 111. Although 1988 marked
the centenary of the abolition of slavery in Brazil, not all of Rio’s samba schools prioritized Afro-Brazilian
history and culture in their sambas-enredo. On the contrary, in addition to Mangueira and Vila Isabel,
Beija-Flor’s samba-enredo “Sou Negro, do Egito à Liberdade” [I Am Black, from Egypt to Liberty], are
the only three schools out of the eighteen that participated in the “special group,” which developed
explicitly Afro-Brazilian themes. Salgueiro’s samba-enredo “Em Busca do Ouro” [In Search of Gold] and
Portela’s “Na Lenda Carioca, os Sonhos do Vice-Rei” [In the Carioca Legend, the Dreams of the Viceroy]
have scant references to black culture, whereas Tradição’s samba-enredo “O Melhor da Raça, o Melhor do
Carnaval” [The Best of Race, the Best of Carnival], touches upon blackness, yet with a celebratory stance
on racial mixture.
 167

formação cultural brasileira, só veio ao Brasil pela primeira vez, mostrar

publicamente a sua música e a sua dança, quando realizamos o Primeiro
Canto Livre, em janeiro de 1983. Além disso, até a realização da primeira
Kizomba, o Brasil estava praticamente à parte das manifestações anti-
apartheid. Aqui quase não se noticiava sobre o assunto. Então, em
novembro de 84, trouxemos pela primeira vez, com total responsabilidade
do grupo Kizomba, uma representação do Congresso Nacional Africano,
hoje transformado em partido político do Mandela.

[I felt that Brazilians have a lot of curiosity about and little information on
mother Africa. Not to mention not possessing much information on black
culture in the diaspora. To give an idea, Angola, so influential in the
Brazilian cultural formation, only came to Brazil for the first time to
present their music and dance publicly when we fulfilled the first “Free
Song” in January of 1983. Moreover, until the realization of the first
Kizomba, Brazil was quite removed from the anti-Apartheid protests. Here
almost nobody reported it on the news. Like so, in November of 84, we
brought for the first time, with complete responsibility of the Kizomba
group, a representation of the African National Congress, today
transformed into the political party of Mandela] (Da Vila 270).

Da Vila’s reflections point to an interesting set of questions. Why is there such a

general Brazilian interest in Africa and, at the same time, so little information on her

history? How is it possible that Brazil, the country with the second highest black

population after Nigeria, was so disconnected from anti-apartheid manifestations,141 and,

currently, from black diasporic culture? As I have suggested in the introduction and

Chapters 1 and 2 of this dissertation, the prioritization of national identity,

branqueamento [whitening], and racial miscegenation over blackness and racial parceling

might explain, at least in part, the relative disinterest in predominantly black countries

141
Somewhat akin to Mark Q. Sawyer’s position (2006: 181), that the inequities of subject positions
surrounding Afro-Cubans are theorized as a historical phase to be surpassed, Rajagopalan Radhakrishnan
adopts both an overly enthusiastic view, and a de-historicized position on the future dénouement of racial
politics, stating, “we are not yet in a historical situation where we can afford to say that race is not and has
not been a determinant of culture, for racism is still too much with us, abiding in many forms” (81).
 168

like Angola, and the fascination with countries and continents, like North America and

Europe, whose historical legacy exhibits fewer traces of African heritage than Brazil.

Although not all of the songs on the album Kizomba, Festa da Raça [Kizomba,

Feast of Race] (1988) were authored by Martinho da Vila, João Baptista M. Vargens and

André Conforté remark, “the act of selecting a certain song to interpret signifies that the

composer would like, at least in theory, to have been the author of that song” (Tradição…

72). Instead of arguing that Martinho da Vila “would have liked to have been the author

of these songs,” it is more reasonable to state that da Vila’s artistic and political

identification, and his participation in the songs on the Kizomba, Festa da Raça (1988)

album, is of such magnitude that he treats them as if they were a part of him.

Composed by Rodolpho de Souza, Jonas Rodrigues, and Luiz Carlos da Vila, the

four-stanza samba-enredo “Kizomba, Festa da Raça” [Kizomba, Feast of Race] (1988)

celebrates, on the one hand, the role that Zumbi has played in the fight for racial equality

and civil rights in Brazil, and on the other, deems the struggle against Apartheid in South

Africa as a socio-political issue totally relevant to the historical condition of Afro-

Brazilians and afrodescendants around the world: 142

Valeu Zumbi!
O grito forte dos Palmares
Que correu terras, céus e mares
Influenciando a Abolição
Zumbi valeu
Hoje a Vila é Kizomba
É batuque, canto e dança
142
The subjugation of afrodescendants to European colonialism around the globe has led Abdias do
Nascimento to remark, “to us, then, Negritude and Pan-Africanism are linked into one historical force that
represents African consciousness: from Zumbi and Benkos Bioho to Queen Nzinga and Ottobah Cuguano;
from Martin Delaney and Edward Wilmot Blyden to Garvey, DuBois, Nkrumah, Malcolm, and Lumumba;
from Cheikh Anta Diop to Karenga and Asante; from Agostinho Neto and Eduardo Mondlane to Ivan Van
Setima and Steve Biko” (Africans… 103).
 169

Jogo e Maracatu
Vem menininha pra dançar o Caxambu
Vem menininha pra dançar o Caxambu

Ô, ô nega mina
Anastácia não se deixou escravizar
Ô, ô Clementina
O pagode é o partido popular
Sacerdote ergue a taça
Convocando toda a massa
Nesse evento que com graça
Gente de todas as raças
Numa mesma emoção
Esta Kizomba é nossa constituição

Que magia
Reza ageum e Orixá
Tem a força da Cultura
Tem a arte e a bravura
E um bom jogo de cintura
Faz valer seus ideais
E a beleza pura dos seus rituais

Vem a Lua de Luanda

Para iluminar a rua
Nossa sede é nossa sede
De que o Apartheid se destrua
Valeu... Valeu Zumbi! (Festa da Raça... ).143

The samba-enredo begins by bestowing thanks upon Zumbi, the leader of

Palmares, and connecting his heroic actions to the 1888 realization of the abolition of

slavery in Brazil. From then on, the lyrical voice shifts from the past to the present,

stressing that Vila Isabel, Rio de Janeiro, the neighborhood of Martinho da Vila’s samba

143
Thanks Zumbi! / The strong yell of Palmares / That trodded the lands, skies and seas / Influencing
Abolition / Thanks Zumbi / Today the Vila is Kizomba / It is batuque, song and dance / Fun and Maracatu /
Come little girl to dance Caxambu / Come little girl to dance Caxambu / Oh, oh black mina woman /
Anastácia did not allow herself to be enslaved / Oh, oh Clementina / Pagode is the popular party / The
priest lifts the wine glass / Convocating the masses / In this event that with grace / People of all races / In
the same spirit / This Kizomba is our constitution / What magic / Pray ageum and Orixá / Has the power of
culture / Has art and ferociousness / And craftiness / Makes your ideals valuable / And the beauty pure of
your rituals / The moon of Luanda comes / To brighten the street / Our thirst is our thirst / Of Apartheid
being destroyed /Thanks... Thanks Zumbi!
 170

school, is now a Kizomba, or space to gather people of various walks of life to reflect

upon the Afro-Brazilian condition and its connection to African cultures. One of the first

primary foci of the lyrical voice is the diversion of the Kizomba such as the “batuque,”

the “song and dance,” and the special invitation to have little girls dance caxambu. In

turn, the lyrical voice then mentions the courage of Anastácia and Clementina de Jesus

(1901-1987), who is one of the most prominent female singers of samba of all time and

who collaborated with samba musicians like Alfredo da Rocha Viana Jr. (Pixinguinha)

and João Machado Guedes (João da Baiana), among many others.

Most commonly known as both a celebration and any samba that possesses a

language and themes of everyday life, pagode is also imbued in this samba with the

connotation of a political party. The notion of pagode as “a political party” highlights its

role as the dominant modality and space for Afro-Brazilian socio-political expression.

Samba music, therefore, functions as the main political apparatus through which the

Afro-Brazilian community at-large can express itself independently of the imposition of

official state discourses on Brazilian race relations. According to Muniz Sodré, “os

sambistas são os primeiros políticos negros, um agir coletivo ou ação política que visa

afirmar um grupo social na direção da potência e não do poder como a Realpolitik”

[Sambistas are the first black politicians, a collective movement or political action that

intends to affirm a social group from “below” and not from the state, or “above,” as

Realpolitik] (Interview, 05/25/2010). Given the relative absence of Afro-Brazilians in

high governmental and management positions, samba narratives might provide insights

into how official discourses on race relations can eventually become “pluralized” or

“multi-faceted” with the advancement of Afro-Brazilians in the rest of society.

 171

Rather abruptly, the images of music, dance, batuques, and the legendary female

afrodescendants are supplanted by that of a priest raising a wine glass, convocating the

masses and people of all races. This particular social context of Kizomba celebration and

the political freedom to address Afro-Brazilian issues in Afro-Brazilian terms, is

considered to be, not a national constitution, but “our constitution,” a defining element of

Afro-Brazilian political identity. As part of the ceremony, the lyrical voice alludes to the

role of Afro-Brazilian religion and the orixás, lauding the magic, the power of culture,

and the beauty of the rituals. As a gesture of closure, the samba reiterates the historical

links between the Kizomba in Vila Isabel and Luanda, Angola through the metaphor of

“the moonlight that comes to brighten the street.” This gentle yet lucid metaphor of

moonlight emphasizes how the Brazil/Angola connection might illuminate paths on

which afrodescendants may build a collective present and a future. In reference to

Apartheid in South Africa, the verse “our thirst is our thirst” underscores not only Afro-

Brazilian identity, but also Afro-identities throughout the world. Here, the lyrical voice

manifests solidarity with Zumbi and blacks in South Africa and around the world,

wishing to see Apartheid ousted, once and for all.

 172

Photo 4.1 Martinho da Vila and Gemeu in Vila Isabel. Date unknown. Source: ZFM.
 173

Photo 4.2 Martinho da Vila and Candeia at the release of the LP “Tendinha” in 1978. Source: ZFM.
 174

Photo 4.3 Martinho da Vila with Stephen Bocskay in da Vila’s home in Rio de Janeiro on June 18,
2010. Source: Stephen Bocskay.
 175

In the jongo “Axé pra Todo Mundo” [Axé for All] (1988), composed by Martinho

da Vila, the lyrical voice desires strength and happiness for all Brazilians:

Axé, axé, axé pra todo mundo, axé

Muito axé, muito axé
Muito axé pra todo mundo, axé
-Eu negro brasileiro
Desejo pra esse Brasil
De todas as raças
De todos os credos, Axé

Axé, paz
Axé, felicidade
Axé, energia positiva—força! (Festa da Raça…).144

From the onset of this two-stanza jongo, the Yoruban word, “axé” [power], is

repeated as a means to bless and empower Brazilians. After wishing “axé” for all

Brazilians, the lyrical voice defines his racial identity not as a white, mulato, pardo,

cafuzo, or mestiço, but specifically as a black Brazilian, “eu negro brasileiro.” Although

the lyrical voice affirms his black identity, this by no means implies that he is divisive,

incapable of respecting or celebrating other identities.145 On the contrary, the lyrical voice

continues to wish “axé” for Brazilians of all races [de todas as raças] and creeds [de todos

144
Power, power, power for all, power / Lots of power, lots of power / Lots of power for all, power / -Me,
black Brazilian / I desire for this Brazil / Of all races / Of all creeds, power / Power, peace / Power,
happiness / Power, positive energy—strength!
145
Here, I disagree with Vargens and Conforte, who argue that da Vila “always affirms his race as
miscigenada [mixed] and integrated with other ones” (82). As observed above, although it is true that da
Vila has a non-confrontational position concerning race relations, his racial imaginary is comprised of both
mixed and black identities. Likewise, in The Expediency of Culture: Uses of Culture in the Global Era
(2004), George Yúdice makes a rather hasty assessment of da Vila’s political imaginary, asserting that “for
Martinho, as for many other enthusiasts, samba is a cultural form emanating from “the people” that
permeates everything and everyone, blending into one national identity (“Go spread yourself throughout
the nation”) (112). On the contrary, in my dissertation, I have illustrated that Nei Lopes, Martinho da Vila,
and to a lesser degree, even Antônio Candeia Filho, have composed sambas that contest the national
identity paradigm with alternate racial and black cultural discourses.
 176

os credos]. In the final stanza, the lyrical voice’s good will for others is reinforced by the

words “peace,” “happiness,” “positive energy,” and “strength.”

“Mistura da Raça” [Racial Mixture] (1988) is a samba composed by Noca da

Portela and Roberto Serrão, in which the lyrical voice expresses to the orixá, Xangô,146

his gratitude to be Brazilian:

E aí levantei, sacudindo a poeira

Na terra do samba
Finquei bandeira
Cantei pro meu Santo Senhor da pedreira
Mostrando a mistura da raça brasileira

A você que me deu a mão

Agradeço de coração
A você que me fez sorrir
Eis aqui minha gratidão
Pra você que me faz feliz
Vai um samba de raíz
Que coloriu meu chão
A você que me fez sofrer
Ofereço meu perdão (Festa da Raça…).147

Although not entirely clear, the samba opens with a scene in which the alleged

masculine lyrical voice rises from the ground and brushes dust off of himself. Aside from

the uncertainty of the exact whereabouts of the lyrical voice, it is unknown to the reader

146
Xangô is a great and powerful Yoruban orixá, father of thunder and lightning. According to certain
traditional stories, Xangô is a superior divinity, having participated in the Creation as the controller of the
atmosphere. Xangô (Songo), son of Óranmían and grandson of Ogum, was born in the city of Oió, of which
he was king (alaafin). Deified after his death, as the orixá of thunder, Xangô throws stones of lightning
from heaven to earth, destroying or enflaming the homes of those who offend him. His lightning bolts
(edun ará) are stones that people collect to place in their receptacles as symbols that represent the presence
of the orixá. (Enciclopédia… 687).
147
And then I got up, brushing off the dust / In the land of samba / I planted my flag / I sang to my saintly
lord of the quarry (Xangô) / Showing the mixture of the Brazilian race / To you who gave me a hand / My
most heartfelt thanks / To you who made me smile / Here is my gratitude / For you who makes me happy /
Here goes a “roots samba” / That colored my floor / To you who made me suffer / I offer my pardon
 177

why he was lying on the ground. In a flash, the lyrical voice clarifies that he is in the land

of samba (Brazil), which is where he decides to forge his identity by spiking a flag. From

then on, the lyrical voice utters a song of prayer to the orixá, Xangô, to whom, he boasts

of the Brazilian racial mixture, without mentioning any other qualities of the Brazilian

nation. This moment in the samba illustrates the connection between samba and Brazilian

national and racial identity. Towards the end of the samba, the lyrical voice extends his

thanks [agradeço], his gratitude [gratidão], and even offers a “roots samba” [samba de

raíz], as a main gesture of appreciation. As examined thus far, it is crucial to note that da

Vila tends to craft, and rather uniquely, both black and mixed racial identity discourses

with cadences of social integration and self-reliance, and not of conflict. Since the 1960s,

racial mixture has appeared as a constant trope in several of da Vila’s sambas.148 In the

samba “Carioquice” [Cariocaness] (1994), the lyrical voice states “minha carioquice / não

sei se ela é branca ou preta / Tem uns trejeitos que é de africana / mas o seu jeito todo é

de ariana” [My cariocaness, I do not know if it is white or black. It has certain gestures

that are African, but its way of being is Aryan].

Nevertheless, the surreptitious aspects of the supervalorization of “racial

mixture” and the identitarian blanket concept of mestiçagem [mixture] and its

proliferation in Rio’s samba and carnival culture cannot be overlooked. In a 1981

interview with the alternative press magazine O Pasquim, the carnavalesco, Fernando

148
Some prime examples of racial miscegenation in da Vila’s lyrics are “Quatro Séculos de Modas e
Costumes” [Four Centuries of Styles and Costumes] (1969), “Brasil Mulato” [Mulatto Brazil] (1969), and
“Salve a Mulatada Brasileira” [Hail the Brazilian Mulattoes] (1975).
 178

Pamplona argues that samba schools are not black culture and that Afro-Brazilians only

began to intervene in Rio’s carnival after the 1940s: 149

Pamplona: Agora pergunto eu: o carnaval é negro?

Jaguar: A escola de samba é de negros.
Pamplona: Todo mundo precisa entender que o desfile de carnaval não
tem nada a ver com o samba.

Pamplona: [Now I ask: is carnival black?

Jaguar: Samba schools are of blacks.
Pamplona: Everyone must understand that the carnival procession has
nothing to do with samba]

Pamplona continues:

Escola de samba não é cultura negra, vem do rancho, que veio de Portugal
e nunca foi negro. Pelo contrário, os negros é que entraram no processo,
interferindo com sua capacidade extraordinária de criação. Jaguar, você
está confundindo o problema sociológico com o carnavalesco, e isso é
imperdoável. Como é que você pode negar que até 1940 e poucos nosso
carnaval era essencialmente europeu: pierrô-colombina-arlequim.

[Samba schools are not black culture, they come from the rancho, which
came from Portugal and never was black. On the contrary, blacks are the
ones who entered the process, interfering with their extraordinary capacity
of creation. Jaguar, you are confusing the sociological problem with the
carnavalesco one, and that is unforgivable. How can you deny that until a
little after 1940 carnival was essentially European: Pierrô-colombina-
arlequim] (Fernando… 9).

149
As Sérgio Cabral stated in an interview, “a escola de samba é uma invenção de negros, que foi
apropriada pelos brancos. Eu me lembro que o carnaval que eu trabalhei na televisão, quando terminou o
desfile, o coordenador Neto que estava lá me pediu uma mensagem final sobre o desfile que nós vimos.
Não é uma mensagem, é um apelo: brancos, devolvem as escolas de samba aos negros!” [Samba schools
are a creation of blacks that were appropriated by whites. I remember the carnival that I participated in on
television, and when the procession came to an end, the coordinator Neto, who was there, asked me to
deliver a final message on the procession that we saw. This is not a message, it is an appeal: white people,
return the samba schools to blacks!] (Interview, 07/13/2010).
 179

When Pamplona asks whether carnival is an Afro-Brazilian creation, Jaguar

retorts that samba schools indeed are. Likewise, instead of deconstructing Jaguar’s

position, Pamplona asserts that Rio’s carnival parade has nothing to do with samba.

Nevertheless, although not born together, and not exclusively tied to each other, samba,

carnival, and even samba schools, for that matter, have forged a close relationship with

one another for more than half a century. As examined in Chapter 2, in this same

interview, Pamplona contends that “Brazilians are proud” of their racial mixture given

that “ninety percent” of them are mestiços or racially mixed, and emphatically rejects the

idea that Brazil is (also) a nation of blacks (Fernando… 9). One might wonder why

Pamplona is so adamant about nullifying the concept of blackness, while at the same

time, assumes that Brazilians are proud of their racial heritage? How is it that so many

Brazilians, and especially individuals like Pamplona, might be proud of a mestiço racial

identity, if a segment of that identity is black? Even more importantly, as an advocate of

civil rights, why would Martinho da Vila exalt mestiçagem [mixture] like Pamplona

when the latter discards the concept of blackness? On this note, Muniz Sodré eloquently

underscores the ambiguity of the word mestiço in the Brazilian context, which generally

characterizes individuals as “second class,” yet may also possess other connotations

depending on the diversity of identitarian strategies (Claros… 196). All in all, despite

recurring penchants for the ideology of miscegenation and brasilidade [Brazilianess] in

samba’s intellectual production, the year of the centenary of the abolition of slavery and

Rio’s 1988 carnival unveil, with sobriety, the unequal power relations vested within

racial hierarchies that continue to reign in present day Brazilian society.

 180

In conclusion, in the first section of this chapter, I examined the baiãos “Nego,

Vem Cantar” [Brother, Come Sing] (1974) and “Negros Odores” [Black Scents] (1983),

as well as the samba “Ê! Mana” [Hey! Sister] (1985), to underscore the degree to which

Martinho da Vila bridges the Afro-Brazilian condition to continental Africa. Whereas, in

“Nego, Vem Cantar,” the lyrical voice begins by offering a superficial critique of the

social and racial attitudes of Brazilians from the beaches of Brazil, he continues to do so

in his advocacy for the integration of Africans into Brazilian society as a metaphor of

Afro-Brazilian struggles. The fact that the lyrical voice furnishes an indirect, rather than

overt, criticism of Brazilian race relations underscores the general Brazilian distaste of

engaging the topic of racial discrimination within national borders. Similarly, the lyrical

voice in “Negros Odores” points out how the commonalities of song, colors, and “black

scents” among African people also inform his own Afro-Brazilian identity. In addition,

the samba “Ê, Mana!” explores the interconnectivity of identity between the lyrical voice

and female afrodescendants, yet imagines one “sister African nation” as opposed to

several distinct ones.

In the second section, I focused on the Kizomba project as well as Martinho da

Vila’s record Kizomba, Festa da Raça [Kizomba, Feast of Race] (1988) to illustrate da

Vila’s efforts to construct transnational dialogues on black art and culture between Brazil

and Africa. In the samba-enredo “Kizomba, Festa da Raça” [Kizomba, A Feast of Race]

(1988), the lyrical voice suggests that South Africa’s Apartheid is no more global than

local concerning Brazil’s racial conundrum. In similar fashion, the lyrical voice in the

jongo “Axé pra Todo Mundo” [Axé for All] (1988) affirms a black racial identity, while

also respecting and wishing well for Brazilians of all races and creeds. The lyrical voice
 181

in the samba “Mistura da Raça” [Racial Mixture] (1988), in contrast, uses the centenary

of abolition in Brazil to extend his thanks to the orixá, Xangô, for the abundance of racial

mixture. On that note, the 1981 Pasquim interview was valuable to this discussion, for it

shows how the supervalorization of mestiçagem [mixture] as the dominant national

paradigm for racial and cultural discourses camouflages the ulterior existential, social,

and political differences among Afro-Brazilians and their lighter- skinned co-nationals.

That said, why should Afro-Brazilians celebrate a mestiço racial identity or a unified

Brazilian national identity when, unlike many light-skinned Brazilians, they still have not

gotten their “rightful share?”150

150
See Aline Helg’s Our Rightful Share: The Afro-Cuban Struggle for Equality, (1886-1912) (1995).
 182

Conclusion: Nationalizing a Blackness “Out of Focus”

In the introduction to this dissertation, I made a point of underscoring the idea that

the issue of who recommends and what is recommended is an ideologically tension-filled

act with potential societal repercussions. If Hermano Vianna’s O Mistério do Samba is

considered by some to be one of the “great books on samba,” one must inquire as to the

relationship between the author’s cultural and political identity and that of the readers. As

examined early in this dissertation, Vianna openly declares his predilection for Fernando

Ortiz’s theory of transculturación. This theory, like Gilberto Freyre’s concept of luso-

tropicalismo, serves as a lens through which Brazilian people are imagined

predominantly, and often times, exclusively, as a “mixed” people. The major pitfall here

is the unrelenting emphasis on a deliberately vague idea of “mixture.” This ethos sows

the seeds of a massive depoliticization that stymies the necessity to foster discussions on

racial politics, and thus, hinders the economic advancement and socio-political

integration of racial minorities into Brazilian society.

Returning to José Fonseca Dagoberto’s observation presented earlier in the

introduction, the trope of the “homem cordial” is yet another rhetorical tool that serves to

camouflage the strife that is rooted in individual and collective social relations in Brazil,

while at the same time, to preserve Brazilians’ self-image as prone to intermarriage with

people of all races, and hence, to eradicate any and all possibility of racism in Brazil. In

addition, Marxist theories have also made their mark and continue to do so in

contemporary social theory in critical studies on samba. As Carlos A. Hasenbalg (1979)

and Oliver C. Cox (1970) have noted respectively, Marxist perspectives underestimate

the question of race and racism. Not only in theory, but even more importantly, in
 183

practice, Marxist ideology has shown to be on the same side of the coin as

transculturación and luso-tropicalismo for its complicity in the diffusion of black

discourses. Aside from Brazil, Fidel Castro’s Cuba— a country whose ruling class

banned the Afro-Cuban political party, El Partido Independiente de Color, from

existence, and deemed societal problems as class based—deployed slogans such as “no

hay odio de razas porque no hay razas” [there is no racial hatred because there are no

races]. The seemingly “unique” overt racism of a racially polarized United States would

remain unparalleled in the rest of the Americas until the enactment of the Civil Rights

Act (1964). Nevertheless, according to Thomas Skidmore, despite variations in

colonization and slave systems; and contrasts in culture, religion, systems of value and

national character, studies demonstrate that racial inequality during the last four decades

has decreased in the United States and risen or remained at a stable level (depending on

the indicator) in Brazil (O Brasil Visto… 183).

It is against this theoretical backdrop that I decided to examine the life and work

of the sambista Carioca Zé Keti. Through song analysis and interviews with highly

respected samba practitioners and researchers like Martinho da Vila and Sérgio Cabral,

we concurred that, before Antônio Candeia Filho’s partido alto “Dia de Graça” in 1970,

references to race relations in samba music were, with very few exceptions, timid or

implicit, or when overtly stated, ironic, but still distant from advocating for collective

Afro-Brazilian empowerment. Candeia’s fellow sambista portalense Zé Keti was chosen

as a starting point in this dissertation, for he embodies the transition from the dominant

Marxist class ideology of left-wing intellectuals in the 1950s that later bifurcated into

salient racial discourses as evidenced in the sambas-enredo of Rio’s carnival in the

 184

1960s. Keti’s samba-exaltação, “A Voz do Morro” (1955) is a prime example of the

deracialization of the socio-economic predicament of sambistas and inhabitants at-large

in the morros of Rio de Janeiro in the 1950s. The lyrical voice desires to show his value

to “everyone” without underscoring his racial profile: “I want to show the world that I am

valuable;” at the same time, he asserts in contradictory fashion that everyone wants

samba, “we want samba,” and that samba is “that melody of a happy Brazil.” Similarly,

in Nelson Pereira dos Santos’ film Rio, Zona Norte (1957), which interprets the life of Zé

Keti, the racial quotient is eclipsed by a Marxist lens that harps on the “cordiality” of

Brazilian racism vis-à-vis socio-economic exploitation.

In the 1960s in the text of the Show Opinião (1964), Nara Leão makes vivid

critical allusions to Afro-Brazilians by singing, “Negro sem futuro” [Blackman without a

future]; yet her voice is diluted by that of the poet Ferreira Gullar, who explained to me in

an interview that Brazil’s problems were never racial, but cultural. It was Gullar who

noted that neither Zé Keti nor anybody else in 1960s Brazil even considered race a

pertinent factor in Brazilian society, for it was something imported from the United States

around 1980. Although not necessarily responsible for the authorship of the text of the

Show Opinião, Zé Keti’s lines attest to the disembodiment of the racial makeup of

Brazilian society, “It was the newspaper that said / that 99, that 99, that 99 percent of the

populous / does not go through the door of the university / that only one percent can be a

doctor / pity the poorman, the worker / pity the poorman, the worker” (Opinião, 38).

Although there were sparse examples of sambas-enredo that treated Afro-Brazilian issues

before the 1960s, Lei Áurea (Unidos da Tijuca, 1948) and Navio Negreiro (Salgueiro,

1957), the number of sambas-enredo that centered on Afro-Brazilian themes increased

 185

throughout the 60s, with roughly nine well-known ones. Nevertheless, Nei Lopes pointed

out in an interview that, as a leading samba school politician, the carnavalesco Nelson de

Andrade was a sagacious businessman whose primary concern was the victory of

carnival, and not so much Afro-Brazilian civil rights and militancy. Likewise, although

Pamplona tried to collaborate with the people of the morro, and convince Afro-Brazilians

to dress as Africans, he also assertively declared in a 1981 Pasquim interview with the

cultural critic and writer, Jaguar, that Brazil will never be a nation of blacks, and that

ninety percent of Brazilians are proud to be mestiços (Fernando… 9). This observation

casts doubt on the degree to which the shift towards Afro-Brazilian themes in the

sambas-enredo in Rio’s carnival in the 60’s signifies real political mobilization and

advancement for Afro-Brazilians around that time.

Antônio Candeia Filho, however, was cognizant of the social and aesthetic

ramifications that the modernization of samba music and Rio’s carnival had engendered

in the social fabric of Afro-Brazilian life and culture, and the self-interested economic

and political agendas that motivated numerous light-skinned Brazilians to participate in

the samba industry. The call to an Afro-Brazilian racial consciousness in Candeia’s

partido alto “Dia de Graça” (1970) is fruit of and a response to the intensification of

racial and cultural alienation in Brazilian society as seen in the “evolution” of the samba

industry. In “Dia de Graça,” Candeia satirizes the neutralization or democratization of

racial identities that ostensibly takes place during Rio’s carnival, and reminds us that,

although Afro-Brazilians may be “kings” during carnival, afterwards they return to their

reality, which are the shacks in the morros,“Yet after the illusion / Oh, black man goes

back to his humble shack.” It is for this reason that Candeia’s lyrical voice demands that
 186

Afro-Brazilians recognize themselves as blacks and not mestiços, for their economic

situation corresponds to their racial history as the descendants of former slaves, and that

they take action: “Black man, wakeup, it is time to wakeup / Do not deny race.”

Candeia’s position sheds light on the danger of the blanket concept of classifying all

Brazilians as mestiços, given the abysmal differences in historical circumstances between

Africans and Portuguese colonizers. The former were brought to Brazil on ships against

their will as chattel, signifying that Afro-Brazilians will reap few or no economic or

political benefits by employing a racial concept that makes it as if their historical

trajectory and place in Brazilian society has been or is equal to that of their lighter-

skinned co-nationals.

Aníbal Machado’s short-story “A Morte da Porta-Estandarte” (1931) goes a step

further than Candeia’s “Dia de Graça,” for it shows, on the contrary, how Rio’s carnival

accentuates the tremendous economic and racial hierarchies between Afro-Brazilians and

others. As the third person narrator comments in “A Morte da Porta-Estandarte,” “And

the black man is suffering. The happy people are enjoying themselves” (41). Machado’s

short story provides a brilliant counterpoint to Roberto da Matta’s theory of carnival,

which stipulates that carnival is an event capable of transforming the daily hierarchies of

life into a “magical equality.” Even more importantly, these critiques also question the

efficiency of the interpretations of anthropological theorists like Da Matta and Vianna in

critical studies on samba. It could be interesting to consider how academic disciplines,

such as political science and sociology, might enrich the critical body of knowledge on

samba. In other words, there is a methodological problem in need of attention: samba is a

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musical genre of primarily Bantu roots151 and black practitioners; yet it is dominated by

anthropologists whose theoretical jargon eschews racial discourses, and therefore, the

relativization and politicization of subject positions.

Likewise, Oswaldo de Camargo’s short stories “Negrícia” and “Esperando o

Embaixador” (1972) explore the topic of Brazilian race relations, yet with an even deeper

analysis than Candeia, for they counterpose national and racial identity and the role of

Pan-Africanism in revealing potential socio-historical commonalities among

afrodescendants. On this note, although the Grêmio Recreativo de Arte Negra Escola de

Samba Quilombo (1975) rearticulated some of the ideological foundations of samba

culture in Brazilian society in the 1970s, Candeia’s discourses opted for a culturalist /

nationalist imagery over an ethnic or racialist one. Candeia’s partido alto “Sou Mais o

Samba” (1977) demonstrates his celebration of Brazilian national identity, “We are

Brazilians!” and his lack of commitment to black Africa, “I am not African!” and “black

music” from the United States and Cuba such as soul and rumba. Although Martinho da

Vila diverges from the mainstream, Dona Ivone Lara, Antônio Candeia Filho, and even

Zé Keti’s complete absence from the topic, speaks to the “status” or “popularity” of Pan-

Africanist thought in Afro-Brazil, and Brazil in general.

Of all of the sambistas examined in this dissertation, Nei Lopes might not be

more of an activist than Martinho da Vila; but politically, he is the sambista most

dedicated to the politicization of Afro-Brazilians and to the denouncement of what Carl

N. Degler denominated the “mulatto escape hatch,” a racial category whose existence

151
After several transformations, samba hatched from the Angolan-Congolese batuque (rythym) that
possesses various names in distinct regions in Brazil, such as quimbête, sarambeque, sarambu, sorongo,
caxambu, and jongo, all of which evoke the Bantu origin. The Bantu peoples are the Congos, Cabindas,
Angolas, Macuas and Angicos (Ramos 223).
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diffuses the potentiality of social and political cohesion among Afro-Brazilians. Lopes’

and Wilson Moreira’s sambas-enredo “Ao Povo em Forma de Arte” (1978) and

“Noventa Anos de Abolição” (1979) are not only testimony of the prioritization of Afro-

Brazilian socio-political issues in the late 1970s, but also highlight the diversity of

thought and varying degrees of commitment to black racial discourses within the Grêmio

Recreativo de Arte Negra Escola de Samba Quilombo (1975). In the late ‘70s, outside the

world of samba, Afro-Brazilian militancy intensified in various cultural, political and

literary activities, emphasizing the expression of Afro-Brazilian identity and the

vindication of civil rights.

It was in the 1970s that the Porto Alegre’s Senghor Institute,152 the Black

Consciousness and Unity Group, and the dance troupe Olorum Baba Mim were founded.

In Bahia, black cultural and political resistance surfaced through afoxé music and groups

like Ilê Aiyê (1974) and Olodum (1979). In cinema, Afro-Brazilian themes flourished in

the works of Afro-Brazilian directors like Waldyr Onofre, Antônio Sampaio, Odilon

Lopes, and of Continental Africans, such as the Nigerian, Ola Balogun. 1978 was a

significant year in terms of civil rights for Afro-Brazilians. Landmark initiatives—like

the MNUCDR (Movimento Negro Unificado Contra a Discriminação Racial) [Unified

152
Born in the town of Yoal, Leopold Senghor (1906-2001) was a Senegalese poet and statesman who was
one of the leaders of the Négritude movement in Paris in the 1930s, and one of the most important voices of
African poetry in the French language. Senghor was also president of the Republic of Senegal, whose
independence he helped to proclaim in 1960, while staying in power through further elections until 1981.
As Jerry Dávila notes, “Senegalese policy toward Brazil began to take shape in 1963 when Léopold
Senghor named his nephew, Henri Senghor, as ambassador to Brazil. Henri Senghor mobilized political
support in Brazil for Portuguese decolonization and stimulated political consciousness and mobilization
among black Brazilians” (Dávila 119). Likewise, the Ghanian political scientist, Anani Dzidzienyo,
observes that, whether recognized or not, the arrival of African diplomats in Brazil has had a large impact
upon the framework of traditional Brazilian race relations and the positions of Afro-Brazilians therein as
evidenced in the realization of events like Henri Senghor’s speech at the 1971 Pontifical Catholic
University seminar on Afro-Brazilian Studies in Rio (The African... 135, 136).
 189

Black Movement against Racial Discrimination]; FECONZU (Festival Comunitário

Negro Zumbi) [Black Zumbi Community Festival]; and the Grupo Palmares [Palmares

Group] from Porto Alegre—came into being. The Afro-Brazilian press also witnessed

innovation with the birth of publications such as Árvore das Palavras (1974-76), Jornego

(1978-82), and Cadernos Negros (1978), to name a few. Throughout the 80’s, and until

the present, Lopes’ commitment to the intellectual mobilization of Afro-Brazilians has

continued, as examined in the samba-enredo “A Epopéia de Zumbi” [Epic Poem of

Zumbi], and the jongo “Jongo do Irmão Café” [Jongo of my Dark-Skinned Brother],

from the record, Negro Mesmo (1983). Aside from the treatment and questioning of Afro-

Brazilian history in present day society, these compositions chart a terrain in which black

racial identity can be thought in a transnational context.

Like Nei Lopes, Martinho da Vila develops the topic of Pan-Africanism from the

early 1970s until the present, though with greater visibility throughout his career than

Lopes. The baiãos “Nego, Vem Cantar” [Brother, Come Sing] (1974) and “Negros

Odores” [Black Scents] (1983), as well as the samba “Ê! Mana” [Hey! Sister] (1985), all

highlight da Vila’s initiatives to connect Afro-Brazil to continental Africa. Nevertheless,

da Vila’s Kizomba project is what perhaps best reflects his activism in Afro-Brazilian

politics and cultural outreach and his interaction with countries such as Angola. Aside

from writing books and songs about the Africa/Brazil connection, da Vila’s “Canto Livre

de Angola” brought Angolan musicians to Brazil; inversely, the Kalunga project took the

Brazilian musicians Dorival Caymmi, João Nogueira, Clara Nunes, Chico Buarque de

Holanda, Miúcha, Djavan, Dona Ivone Lara, among others, to perform in various regions

in Angola. Likewise, in 1988, along with the concert maestro Leonardo Bruno, da Vila
 190

developed the Concerto Negro [Black Concert], which focuses on the participation of

Afro-Brazilians in Brazilian música erudita [classical music], and continues to be an

ongoing project, with performances already staged in Rio and Minas Gerais. Despite the

realization of the Kizomba project and the “exchanges” among Brazilian and Angolan

musicians in Brazil and Angola, it remains unclear as to the real political significance and

future impact that these events have had and could have in fostering dialogue between

Brazil and other African nations. Of the aforementioned musicians, how many of them

have been and are truly interested or actively involved in promoting diplomatic, cultural,

and/or educational ties between Africa and Brazil?

Martinho da Vila is, in contrast, one of very few Brazilians who has taken the

initiative to link the retentions of Afro-Brazilian culture to the socio-political realities of

contemporary Africa, instead of merely celebrating a “frozen africanity” that merely

rehashes the specific historical, cultural, and religious aspects of Afro-Brazilian culture.

In this sense, da Vila represents more the United States paradigm, rather than that of

Brazil, concerning “africanity” or the manifestations of an African heritage.153 Currently,

how many Brazilians are invested in identifying and deepening the understanding of

local, regional, and national black culture manifestations in Brazilian society?

Likewise, might the commercial and political success of Da Vila’s album

Kizomba, Festa da Raça [Kizomba, Feast of Race] (1988), which won Rio’s 1988

carnival, be connected, not only to the quality of the music, but also to the fact that the

sambas on the album represent a diverse palette of Brazilian race relations in which both

racial mixture and black identity are celebrated? Would Kizomba have prospered in 1988

153
Dzidzienyo, “The African Connection and the Afro-Brazilian Condition,” 139.
 191

if it had hedged its politics exclusively on black identity, omitting a celebratory stance on

racial mixture? How might the contradictions of comparing South Africa’s Apartheid to

Brazilian society in the samba-enredo “Kizomba, Festa da Raça” [Kizomba, A Feast of

Race] (1988), and black identity affirmations in the jongo “Axé pra Todo Mundo” [Axé

for All] (1988) to the celebration of the exceptionalism of Brazilian racial mixture in

“Mistura da Raça” [Racial Mixture] (1988), aid us in understanding the present impasse

of Brazilian race relations? In addition, how might the inclusion of Afro-Brazilians into

the higher ranks of Brazilian society pave the way towards a more “organic” and

democratic approach regarding Brazilian race relations? Would an increased presence of

Afro-Brazilians in positions of power change the tone and direction of racial politics in

Brazil? How might the election of the current president of the United States, Barack

Obama, have affected Brazil’s racial imaginary? Which leaves the question: what does it

mean to be Afro-Brazilian in a nation that simultaneously “celebrates” its African

heritage and strives to whiten its image?

Reading about samba and her history, and interviewing illustrious samba

musicians and intellectuals has informed me profoundly about how Brazilians think about

race. The scant presence, until the early 1970s, of overt racial discourses in samba lyrics

suggests that racial problems have always been prevalent in Brazilian society; yet an

already marginalized Afro-Brazilian population had not amassed the fortitude that it takes

to challenge the dominant racial ideology of cordiality propagated by the Brazilian

media, people, and state. In 1988, the year of the centenary of abolition in Brazil, then

president José Sarney centered the African component of Brazilian culture as a means to

exalt Brazil’s racial democracy. During the same year, most of the samba schools in Rio
 192

de Janeiro did not even elaborate topics related to Afro-Brazilian history. It is worth

keeping in mind that, from the beginnings of samba in the first quarter of the 20th century

until the pinnacle of Zé Keti’s career in the 1960s, samba lyrics were generally devoid of

explicit remarks on Brazilian race relations. As Nei Lopes and Sérgio Cabral pointed out

in interviews, the occasional criticism of race relations was done—albeit, cordially so—

without an appellation for a collective empowerment of Afro-Brazilians. In the beginning

of the 1970s, Candeia mustered the courage to take a stance on the revindication of Afro-

Brazilian culture and values; however his efforts often fell prey to his national identity,

which also embodied the anti-Pan-Africanist status quo verbalizations of highly

influential and respected intellectuals like Gilberto Freyre around the time.

With this in mind, Nei Lopes and Martinho da Vila are the exception to the rule.

Both individuals manifest their local and national pride of Brazilianess in their music;

however, Lopes’ political imaginary problematizes the mulato category and the rhetorical

trope of the mestiço in Brazil. Da Vila, in contrast, conjoins both the mestiçagem

[mixture] and black identity paradigm at once. After having read exhaustively and

reflected daily on the topic of race relations in the Americas, conducted research in situ in

Rio de Janeiro, and interviewed several prominent Brazilian artists, writers, and

intellectuals of varying socio-economic classes and races, in addition to having travelled

extensively and lived throughout Brazil and beyond for over a decade, it seems quite

clear to me that the use of the mulato category and the supervalorization of mestiçagem

[mixture] as methods to nationalize and equalize the uneven racial history of Brazilians,

serve to perpetuate the marginalization of Afro-Brazilians and hinder the democratization

of minority discourses in current day Brazilian society. Finally, I would like to stress that
 193

Afro-Brazilians are ultimately the ones who have the supreme right, and responsibility, to

negotiate the terms of their integration and status in Brazilian society. Axé!
 194

Appendix: Reflections on Fieldwork Methodologies

In March 2008, while at the IX Brazilian Studies Association in New Orleans,

Louisiana, I participated in a panel on samba and delivered a paper entitled “Black over

White: The Afro-Carioca Sambista in the Sambas-Enredo of Paulinho da Viola.” During

and after my presentation, a lively debate was unleashed among the attendants, the

majority of whom were Brazilian scholars. Upon leaving the conference room, a young

Brazilian approached me after my talk, disagreeing with my views on the grounds that

they were not “scientific” enough. This young man failed to expand on the meaning of

science and empiricism in cultural studies. Nevertheless, as James Clifford asserts in the

essay “Introduction: Partial Truths,” “cultures are not scientific “objects” (assuming such

things exist, even in the natural sciences). Culture, and our views of “it,” are produced

historically, and are actively contested. There is no whole picture that can be “filled in,”

since the perception and filling of a gap leads to the awareness of other gaps” (18).

Historically speaking, literary texts have become considered by many to be

metaphoric and allegorical compositions of invention rather than observed facts. This is

so, in part, because certain qualities of science were repatriated to the category of

“literature.” So much so that in the nineteenth century, literature emerged as a bourgeois

institution closely allied with “culture” and “art” (Clifford 5). Nevertheless, “literary”

approaches have recently enjoyed some popularity in the human sciences. As a result,

writers have blurred the boundary that separates art from science, closing the gap

between those who defend the “rigorous” core of the discipline and the collapse of

standards of verification. In the midst of this tension, the field of ethnography has

interrogated the thresholds of the alleged boundaries of knowledge between science and
 195

culture (Clifford 3, 7, 25). Given that human experience cannot be separated from

prejudice, “meaning is not self-contained—simply “there” to be discovered; meaning

comes to realization only in and through the “happening” of understanding” (Bernstein

126). The diversity in the “happening” of understanding of Brazilian racial history clearly

became manifest in the interviews that I conducted while performing field research in Rio

de Janeiro in 2009-2010.

Aside from my archival research, the fieldwork component of my dissertation

anchors itself in the interviews that I conducted with twelve prominent researchers of

Brazilian culture, media, and popular music, poets, visual artists, film directors,

journalists, politicians, and musicians: Ricardo Cravo Albin, Marília T. Barboza da Silva,

Sérgio Cabral, Martinho da Vila, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Ferreira Gullar, Dona Ivone

Lara, Nei Lopes, Carlos Lyra, Elton Medeiros, Fernando Pamplona, and Muniz Sodré.

With regard to the selection process of the interviewees, I sought out those who are

prominent figures, in Brazil and beyond, of samba music and Afro-Brazilian history,

Brazilian cinema, Rio de Janeiro’s carnival, and popular culture projects like the Show

Opinião. Aside from his recognition as an outstanding sambista, Nei Lopes is considered

in academia and the Brazilian media as a leading researcher in the area of Afro-Brazilian

studies. In terms of critical literature on Brazilian popular music, both Ricardo Cravo

Albin and Marília T. Barbosa da Silva have written several important reference and/or

history books on samba. In Brazilian cinema, Nelson Pereira dos Santos is most certainly

one of most respected and important directors of all time. With regard to Rio’s carnival,

Fernando Pamplona, the artistic designer for carnival, is a central figure for among many

reasons, his role in the development of the carnavalesco. A respected samba composer,
 196

Sérgio Cabral has written several books on Afro-Brazilians culture, samba, and Rio’s

carnival over the past few decades. As practitioners of samba, both Martinho da Vila and

Dona Ivone Lara are legendary. To know samba is to know their musical, sentimental,

and political contributions to Brazilian culture. An established art critic, Ferreira Gullar is

perhaps the most highly regarded Brazilian poet alive today, and one of the main

protagonists of the Show Opinião. Likewise, as one the founders of bossa nova, Carlos

Lyra is very resourceful in terms of the history of Brazilian popular music and cultural

politics since the 1960s. Finally, as the former ex-president of the Biblioteca Nacional no

Rio de Janeiro [National Library of Rio de Janeiro] under Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s

government and the author of several foundational books on media ecology, cultural

theory, and black culture, Muniz Sodré is one of the most vibrant intellectuals out there.

Contacting the interviewees was not always easy. In fact, the overall experience

was an adventure. In some cases, academic colleagues provided me with e-mail addresses

and telephone numbers; often times, however, I had to track down interviewees through

my own efforts. For example, I rather unexpectedly established contact with Carlos Lyra

through a friend in my gym, and with Sérgio Cabral through my neighbor. On other

occasions, I made the acquaintance of Nelson Pereira dos Santos on my own, of Dona

Ivone Lara through her cavaquinista, and of Martinho da Vila as I walked into a

botequim. In general, interviews were arranged via e-mail or by telephone, which is when

I would introduce myself, provide background on my dissertation project, and explain the

reasons why that person was sought out as a potential contributor to the development of

my research topic.
 197

Before posing questions to the interviewees, I would kindly ask them if it would

be possible for me to record the discussion with a camcorder or audio recorder.

Fortunately, none of them manifested an aversion to being filmed or recorded. Instead of

jumping right into questions, I let conversation unfold naturally; we often covered an

unpredictable array of topics, from Japanese and Swedish musicians who play Brazilian

music to the francesas, or prostitutes, in the Lapa neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. As I

began to weave questions into the conversation, it became clear that not all interviewees

exhibited the same interest, knowledge, or politics concerning Brazilian race relations.

Although a few interviewees were asked some of the same questions, many times I did

not manage to pose the same number of questions due to time constraints. In almost all

cases, there were typically a few questions that were specifically tailored to the

interviewee’s area of expertise.

For example, Ferreira Gullar provided extensive information on the Show

Opinião and Zé Keti, and spoke at great length on the topic of capitalism and race in

Brazilian society, arguing that Afro-Brazilians are marginalized economically, but not

racially. Similarly, Carlos Lyra talked about his experiences with Zé Keti and his

involvement with the Centro Popular de Cultura (CPC) [Popular Center of Culture].

Nelson Pereira dos Santos also gave first-hand accounts of his interactions with Zé Keti,

and explained the history of Afro-Brazilians in Brazilian cinema and theatre. Whereas

Elton Medeiros highlighted the absence of Afro-Brazilians in the media and positions of

power, Muniz Sodré complimented this discussion with his keen insights on political

theory, urban space, and the African diaspora in Brazilian society. Fernando Pamplona,

Martinho da Vila, Ricardo Cravo Albin, Marília T. Barbosa da Silva, Sérgio Cabral,
 198

Dona Ivone Lara, and Nei Lopes all shared their ideas on racial politics in Brazil and the

Americas, the origins of samba, the modernization of Rio’s carnival, the rise in the

africanization of sambas-enredo in Rio’s samba schools in the 1960s and samba lyrics in

the 1970s, parallels between West African and Afro-Brazilian culture, and the history of

black issues in samba lyrics. Here are the questions I posed to the interviewees:154

1) The son of a famous sambista stated, “the only caution that I take upon
reading black intellectuals talking about blacks in Brazil (Candeia is
different) is that often times they remove themselves excessively from the
universe of economically and educationally disadvantaged blacks and end
up creating fantasies of what black Brazilian could be. Many of them
move closer to African culture and move away from Brazilian culture.”
What do you think about this? (Lopes, Pamplona, Ivone Lara, Da Vila)

2) In an interview with the FUNARTE in 1988, entitled “O Samba do

Negro Martinho nos 100 Anos” [The Samba of the Black Martinho in 100
Years], you stated that before travelling to Africa you expected your
experience to be very distinct from what you had lived in Rio de Janeiro;
however you encountered the contrary. Please explain. (Da Vila)

3) Does Africa play a role in your songs? If so, why and when did Africa
gain importance for you? What or who inspired you to give more attention
to Africa? (Lopes, Da Vila)

4) Aside from yourself, which other sambistas participate or have

participated in the Movimento Negro [Black Movement]? (Da Vila)

5) What are your thoughts on the professionalization of women in the

industry of samba? (Ivone Lara)

6) Our dear friend Martinho da Vila said to me that “racial questions were
always poetically present in samba lyrics.” Nevertheless, I think this is a
somewhat misleading statement. If we are to consider the evolution of the
intellectual history of black intellectuals in samba lyrics, and in general, in
Brazilian society during the XX century, we know that “Afro-Brazilian
consciousness” is a recent phenomenon, coming about since the 1960s
with the valorization of blacks in samba schools and with Nelson de
Andrade and Fernando Pamplona (Salgueiro, Quilombo dos Palmares,
1960), and in the Brazilian Academy with the inauguration of the Centro
de Estudos Afro-Orientais (CEAO, 1959) of the UFBA (University
154
Note that the interviewees’ surnames appear after the questions to which they responded.
 199

Federal da Bahia), and later, with the politicization of blacks in samba

lyrics in the 1970s. For example, when Zé Keti sings in “A Voz do Morro”
in the 1950s (1955), “quero mostrar ao mundo que tenho valor,” we can
only assume that the sambista is black. Nevertheless, when Candeia sings
“negro acorda, é hora de acordar” in “Dia de Graça” in 1970, and Paulinho
da Viola sings “o samba falava que nego tem é que brigar” em “Zumbido”
in 1979 (clearly there are many other examples), the racial question
becomes explicit. Sociologically speaking, these changes are important
because they lead us to emphasize not just social and class questions,
which characterize the historical tendency of Brazilian researchers, but
also those of ethnicity and race as well. What are your thoughts on this
matter? (Lopes, Pamplona)

7) Why did Fernando Pamplona and Nelson de Andrade make a point to

value black culture in sambas-enredo in the 1960s (Salgueiro, 1960,
Unidos da Tijuca 1961, Salgueiro, 1963, etc.), but not samba musicians,
like Zé Keti, in the same decade? That said, why did there emerge a
politicization of Afro-Brazilian consciousness in the samba lyrics of artists
like Candeia, Nei Lopes, Paulinho da Viola, Luiz Carlos da Vila, and
Martinho da Vila specifically in the 1970s and not before? (Lopes)

8) When did a “racialist consciousness” begin in samba and Brazilian

cultural politics? As far as the politicization of blacks is concerned,
Ferreira Gullar asserts, “it was due to the culture of the United States in
the 1980s. Brazil never had a racial problem, but a cultural one.” What is
your response to this? (Lopes, Barbosa, Pamplona, Da Vila)

9) Last winter, while in Rio, I watched the film Simonal: Não Sabe o Duro
que Eu Dei (2009). I really enjoyed this film for many reasons, among
which, the visibility of the disdain that some wealthy Brazilians feel
towards the success of Afro-Brazilians—that is to say, upon seeing Afro-
Brazilians enter the private space of the political and economic ruling
class. In this regard, two interviews come to mind: one on August 14,
2009, the day of Nadinho da Ilha’s death, where Nelson Sargento
comments that “talent does not render money,” and proceeds to mention
various bambas such as Ismael Silva, Silas de Oliveira, Nelson
Cavaquinho, Darci and Jurandir da Mangueira, Xangô, Preto Rico, Jair do
Cavaquinho, and Roberto Ribeiro, all sambistas who died in financial
misery; and another interview on November 26 in which Caetano Veloso
makes a point to underscore that the death of Neguinho do Samba (creator
of Olodum and Samba-Reggae), was announced in the New York Times
but not in the primary Brazilian newspapers. Nevertheless, I think it is
necessary to go a bit deeper into these observations, keeping in mind that
all of these musicians are Afro-Brazilians, and since the advent of radio in
Brazil in the years of Getúlio Vargas, the musicians who were generally
financially successful, even in the world of samba, an art of deep Bantu
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roots, were mostly all whites, such as Francsico Alves, Mário Reis, Aurora
Miranda, and Carmen Miranda. Even outside Brazil, the great musical
giants were almost all whites (Tom Jobim, João Gilberto, Sérgio Mendes,
Ary Barroso, etc.), and black musicians like Seu Jorge (Milton
Nascimento, Gilberto Gil, etc.), who are well known outside Brazil,
perform in the international circuit, yet are still far from becoming
Hollywood icons like Tom Jobim, for example. Perhaps you can comment
on these observations. (Lopes, Cabral, Sodré)

10) What do you think about Antônio Risério’s polemical statement that
asserts that “the white Brazilian is more black than American blacks.” As
you know, there is an whole intellectual tradition here in Brazil regarding
black cultures in the Americas. Generally, Brazilian researchers, even
important ones like Arthur Ramos, tend to argue that blacks in the United
States removed themselves from black cultures, moving closer towards
white culture (politically speaking, we discover the contrary—that blacks
in the United States established pan-Africanist connections with several
African nations much more than Brazil). Nevertheless, in my point of
view, many Brazilian cultural theoreticians and ethnographers make
arguments based on a political vision (often times poorly informed and
tendentious) rather than a more rigorous examination of the culture in
question (presenting arguments as proven facts). What do you think about
this? Do you not think that we should specify whether the approximation
or distancing of identity from continental Africa is cultural, political, etc.?
(Lopes, Barbosa)

11) Although there are racial quotas in some Brazilian universities and
there is an examination of Gilberto Freyre’s theories in several academic
disciplines, it seems that Freyre’s social-racial-sexual cosmovision
regarding Brazilians still holds in critical studies in the area of popular
music (see Vianna’s O Mistério do Samba). In my point of view, Joaze
Bernadino illustrates, with precision, the confusion and idealization of the
social encounter between white Brazilians and black sambistas, as well as
the sexual practices of the wealthy Brazilians with blacks and mulattoes of
lower socio-economic classes. What are your thoughts on this issue?
(Lopes, Sodré)

12) In the book, Samba: A Árvore que Esqueceu a Raíz (1978), Antônio
Candeia Filho and Isnard Araújo argue that the traditional elements of
samba (the passistas, porta-bandeiras, sambistas, and baianas), are on the
brink of extinction. With that extinction, the modernization of carnival
will triumph (actors, actresses, choreographers, visual artists, designers,
figurinistas, and personalities). What are some of the advantages or
disadvantages of the modernization of samba in socio-economic and racial
 201

terms in Brazilian society? Is it still worth discussing “roots” or

“authenticity” (the relative absence of the use of pandeiros, knives and
plates, or people who do not know how to dance samba), or are there more
grave consequences? Who exactly has benefited economically and
politically in this modernization process? (Lopes, Albin, Cabral, Barbosa,
Ivone Lara)

13) Why did you decide to create Afro-Brazilian themes in sambas-

enredo? Why was there a rupture or break with the themes of the times
until your intervention in samba schools? (Pamplona)

14) With the Afro-Brazilian themes, was your objective to politicize

blacks? For example, Martinho da Vila stated that in the 1970s, he wanted
to “have Zumbi reborn, not as phantasy, but as an historical fact”—that is,
to rescue an historical fact from the mythifying process of elite culture and
relocate it into its historical dimensions through politicization. Were you
also thinking along these lines, in terms of rescuing the historical and
political aspects of black culture? (Pamplona)

15) Did you have any involvement with the Grêmio Recreativo de Arte
Negra Escola de Samba Quilombo? (Pamplona)

16) Do you think that sambas-enredo—or more specifically, enredos like

Kizomba—can or should be used in the educational system to learn about
Brazilian history? Do you not think that, as a primary source of a social
experience of a human being or sambista and not a second hand academic
reflection, that the lyrics of music and sambas-enredo are perhaps more
efficient or relevant to learn about the problems of Brazilian society, and
that they can expose Brazilians to alternate socio-political imaginaries
aside from the well-known nationalistic ones like “Aquarela do Brasil,”
among many others? (Da Vila)

17) What is the role of black Brazilians in “the industry of samba?” Are
there few blacks who are owners of samba schools? If so, why? (Lopes,
Medeiros)

18) What will be the future of samba? Do you think there will be another
“Golden Age” of samba or are we already approaching the dénouement of
samba music and the figure of the sambista? (Da Vila)

19) In your experience as a musician in Brazil, is there parity between

white and black musicians in terms of the financial purses? Can you give
examples of social or racial discrimination in this context? (Da Vila)
 202

20) Which samba books would you recommend and why? (Lopes, Albin,
Cabral, Sodré, Barbosa, Da Vila, Medeiros)

21) Who are some of the most important sambistas in terms of the
treatment of black issues in twentieth-century Brazil? Likewise, when
does an Afro-Brazilian racial consciousness emerge in samba lyrics?
When, exactly, do both sambistas and intellectuals begin to take interest in
exploring questions of black identity in samba? (Lopes, Cabral, Sodré,
Barbosa, Lyra, Da Vila, Medeiros)

22) Why did jazz become patrimony of the wealthy in the United States
but not samba in Brazil? (Lopes, Cabral)

23) How long did the Show Opinião last? Why and how did it dissolve?
What kind of audience attended the shows? The attendants came
predominantly from which neighborhoods in Rio, São Paulo, etc.? What
were the political and aesthetic principals of the Show? (Gullar)

24) How was the Show Opinião received? Do you recall any polemical
reactions that came about because of it? (Albin)

25) Why is your football team Vasco da Gama? In the twentieth century
which sambistas were vascaínos? And how about now? (Cabral)

26) Was there samba avant la lettre before Donga’s “Pelo Telefone”
(1917)? (Cabral)

27) Some scholars have mentioned the musical interaction between Zé

Keti and Carlos Lyra (“Samba da Legalidade,” 1964). When do these
types of musical encounters between white and black musicians start to
take place concerning samba and sambistas de morro? Are these
encounters more or less frequent nowadays? Explain. (Cabral, Lopes,
Lyra)

28) How does one account for the presence of an Afro-Brazilian racial
consciousness in the sambas-enredo of the 1960s (Salgueiro, 1960,
Unidos da Tijuca 1961, Salgueiro, 1963, and so on), but not in the lyrics of
Zé Keti and other sambistas in the same decade? Why was there a
politicization of blacks in the lyrics of Nei Lopes, Candeia, Martinho da
 203

Vila, Luiz Carlos da Vila, Paulinho da Viola, among others, in the 1970s,
but not in the 1960s? (Cabral, Barbosa)

29) It is necessary to touch upon some of the theoretical aspects of your

intellectual formation. Here I refer to your repertoire of sociological
readings and experiences as an observer of censorship and social struggles
during your life in Brazil. Afro-Brazilian intellectuals like Abdias de
Nascimento and sociologists like Florestan Fernandes influenced your life
or work as a filmmaker? (Pereira dos Santos)

30) Besides his appearance and artistic collaboration in your films, Zé Keti
also was one of the protagonists of the Show Opinião. Not only in his
most famous songs, but also in the lesser-known ones that Keti composed
from the 1950s to the 1970s, he never seemed to manifest an “Afro-
Brazilian racial consciousness.” In an interview with Ferreira Gullar, he
explained that the racial question was never a part of the notion of protest
of the CPC and of the Show Opinião, and that questions of négritude
emerged much later in Brazil due to the influence of the United States. Do
you remember any moments or interviews when Zé Keti spoke of racial
issues? (Pereira dos Santos, Lyra)

31) We know that the cinema of directors—such as Alex Viany, Carlos

Ortiz, Rodolfo Nanni, and yourself Nelson—positioned itself against the
ideological paradigms of the Brazilian elites and the industry of the
Brazilian and world cinema of the times. A solid example of your
dissatisfaction with the type of cinema that was being made can be found
in Coronel Geraldo de Menezes Cortes’ reactions, who prohibited your
film Rio 40 Graus (1955). Within this context, what were the responses of
the media in Rio and in Brazil in terms of the importance that you gave to
Afro-Brazilians? Moreover, were there any criticisms from Afro-
Brazilians or the Afro-Brazilian press arguing that your perspectives
lacked “engagement” with the concerns of Afro-Brazilian intellectuals of
the time? (Pereira dos Santos)

32) The American academic, Bryan McCann, asserts that “the lyrics and
the arrangement of the soundtrack of the film [“A Voz do Morro”] are
samba-exaltação, however upon being heard within the film, Rio, 40
Graus (1955), and its mordacious criticism of the racial polarization in
Rio, the samba takes on a totally different meaning. McCann states that
you, Nelson, transform samba-exaltação into samba crítico (critical
samba). Do you agree with McCann’s interpretation? (Pereira dos Santos)

33) Why or how did Zé Keti become one of the main actors of the film
Rio, Zona Norte (1957)? Other sambistas—such as Cartola, for example—
 204

plays the role of a slave in Cacá Diegues’ Ganga Zumba (1963). Although
Cacá Diegues is another case, are there intentional aesthetic and political
linkages between Pereira dos Santos’ work, that of the cinema novistas,
and the life of black sambistas in Rio de Janeiro? (Pereira dos Santos,
Gullar)

34) How did you meet Zé Keti? Why did you compose mainly with Keti
and not with other sambistas? (Lyra)

Although I covered several topics in my meetings with interviewees, their

responses varied greatly. Moreover, despite the differentiation in question sets, most

interviewees expressed their position regarding race relations in Brazil and the Americas.

As examined early in this dissertation, Ferreira Gullar does not believe that racism or race

is a relevant factor in understanding the inferior socio-economic conditions of Afro-

Brazilians in Brazilian society. Gullar explains,

O cara é visto como inferior pela sociedade em geral, é inferior porque é

negro? Não. É inferior porque foi escravo, porque é pobre, porque era um
fodido. O cara botou aqui no jornal, só 3.5 porcento dos executivos
brasileiros são negros, claro, e quantos brancos pobres viraram executivos
no Brasil? Aí fica essa cota de negro. O maior escritor brasileiro de todos
os tempos chama-se Machado de Assis, mulato, filho de um português
com uma negra; um dos maiores poetas brasileiros, Cruz e Sousa, era
negro. No livro, Cor e Mobilidade Social em Florianópolis (1960),
Fernando Henrique Cardoso disse que lá, em Florianópolis, a razão da
desigualdade social não era econômica, era racista. Ele, Fernando
Henrique, é quem inventou ‘isso’; lamentável porque é uma pessoa
inteligente.

[The guy is seen as inferior by society in general, he is inferior because he

is black? No. He is inferior because he was a slave, because he is poor,
because he was screwed. Some guy wrote in the newspaper, only 3.5
percent of Brazilian executives are black, yes, and how many poor whites
became executives in Brazil? And then you have that black quota. The
greatest Brazilian writer of all time is called Machado de Assis, mulatto,
son of a Portuguese man with a black woman; one of the most outstanding
Brazilian poets, Cruz e Sousa, was black. In the book, Color and Social
 205

Mobility in Florianópolis (1960), Fernando Henrique Cardoso said that

there, in the city of Florianópolis in southern Brazil, the motive of social
inequality is not economic, but of racial character. He, Fernando Henrique,
is the one who invented the “racial quotient”; it is a shame because he is
an intelligent person. (Interview, 10/27/2009)

In response to Gullar’s affirmation that racialism was imported to Brazil from the

United States in 1980, Marília T. Barboza da Silva disagreed, stating, “não tem nada

disso. Foi muito antes” [Not at all. It was way before], and added that “essa coisa da Casa

Grande & Senzala muito amiguinho, tudo bom, mas quero ver o homem da Casa Grande

casar com a moça da senzala” [that whole talk about the Masters and the Slaves—

Gilberto Freyre’s classic 1930 study, where everybody is chummy, sure, but I want to see

the owner of the plantation marry with a woman from the slave quarters (Interview,

06/17/2010).155 In a similar vein, Sérgio Cabral noted, “O Brasil ainda é um país racista.

A classe média é racista. Na consciência coletiva sem dúvida existe racismo” [Brazil is

still a racist country. The middle class is racist. There is no doubt as to the existence of

racism in the collective consciousness] (Interview, 07/13/2010).

Given the diffuse social stigmatization and disproportionate economic

marginalization of pretos, pardos, and mulatos in comparison to their white co-nationals

in Brazilian society,156 intellectuals like Nei Lopes consider the term negro (black), and

155
Barboza’s observation is reminiscent of the Afro-Cuban intellectual Nicolás Guillen’s poem “La
Canción del Bongó” [The Song of the Bongó], which was originally published in the book of poems
Songoro Cosongo (1931). In this poem, the poetic voice recounts, “habrá quien me escupa en público, /
cuando a solas me besó…” [There may be someone who spits on me in public, / when he/she kissed me in
private] (Obra Poética…105).
156
Fernando Pamplona affirms, “No Brasil quem pretender fazer diferenciação étnica ou professional ou
socialmente ou culturalmente está perdido porque aqui mistura tudo. Foi o português o único colonizador
que absorveu a cultura local do colonizado. O português, além de casar com a negra, criou o produto
maravilhoso que é a mulata, deu nome e verdade ao produto da miscigenação. Isso é uma coisa rara mas
que aconteceu no Brasil. Acho esse regime de cota que está impondo uma loucura porque o Brasil nunca
precisou. O Abdias do Nascimento não precisou de cota para fazer o Teatro Experimental do Negro [Black
Experimental Theatre] (TEN). E o Machado de Assis, ele não precisou ser o patrão da Academia Brasileira
 206

not negromestiço157 (mixed black), or mestiço (mixed), a useful political concept for their

advancement. Lopes’ position stems from the absence and representation of pretos,

pardos, and mulatos, in soap operas, lucrative professions, private administration, the

high ranks of decision making, the spaces of prestige and formation of opinion, and in the

concentration pools of national revenue. Lopes states, “o que se vê nesses lugares e

situações é um Brasil que não corresponde à realidade de sua população, na qual mais de

60% são descendentes, próximos ou não, dos africanos aqui escravizados” [what one sees

in those places and situations is a Brazil that does not correspond to the reality of its

de Letras [The Brazilian Academy of Letters] porque era negro, ele não precisava de cota para isso, e foi o
maior escritor que o Brasil teve. Martin Luther King disse ‘meu sonho é que o homem amanhã não seja
classificado pela cor mas sim pelo seu conhecimento’. Ele repetia apenas o que o Brasil já vinha fazendo”
[Whoever attempts to make ethnic, professional, social, or cultural differentiation in Brazil is lost because
here everything is mixed. The Portuguese was the only colonizer who absorbed the local culture of the
colonized. The Portuguese, aside from marrying with black women, made the marvelous product which is
the mulata, and gave name and truth to the product of miscegenation. This is a rare thing that occurred in
Brazil. I think that this quota business that is being implemented is crazy because Brazil never needed it.
Abdias do Nascimento never needed quotas to make the Black Experimental Theatre. And Machado do
Assis, he never needed to be the patron of the Brazilian Academy of Letters because he was black, he did
not need quotas for that, and was the greatest writer that Brazil ever had. Martin Luther King said “my
dream is that tomorrow’s man is not classified by the color of his skin but by his knowledge.” King
repeated what Brazilians were already living] (Interview, 07/29/2010).
157
If, in comparison to their lighter-skinned co-nationals, mulattoes, pardos, and blacks exist at or near the
bottom of the socio-economic totem pole in any given society, and the ultimate goal is to empower them
politically, one must determine which and how many racial taxonomies best serve to advance in society.
Despite the multiracial reality of American society, the black/white racial binary, although not originally
intended to render such results, has enabled many afrodescendants in the United States to attain positions
unimaginable in Brazil. Somewhat ironically, Antonio Risério employs the “organic” Brazilian
terminological binary negromestiço [black mestiço] and brancomestiço [white mestiço]. Nevertheless, as
two sides of the same coin, these concepts are a false binary that ultimately reduce themselves to one idea:
that every single Brazilian is “mestiço.” That said, today’s Afro-Brazilians—mulatos, pardos, cafuzos,
negros and pretos alike—must wonder how this type of strategy could help, if at all, their politicization and
ascension in Brazilian society. In my view, the overriding concern should be which and how many
categories may provide favorable results for afrodescendants in the world, and to a lesser degree, where
they originate from, as racial hierarchies are a universal problem. For more information on the concept of
negromestiços and brancomestiços, read Antonio Risério’s A Utopia Brasileira e Os Movimentos Negros
(2007).
 207

population, in which 60% are descendants, distant or not, of enslaved Africans here in

Brazil] (Interview, 08/18/2010).

Likewise, the Afro-Brazilian Elton Medeiros asserts, “a opinião predominante no

país é do cidadão branco, quem está dando ordem para ter um negro em cem, é o homem

branco” [the predominant opinion in the country is that of the white citizen, the white

man is the one who is giving orders to have one black person out of a hundred people]

(Interview, 08/07/2009). The Afro-Bahian intellectual Muniz Sodré probed even deeper

by stating that, in Brazil, publicity agencies generally avoid using blacks given the

problem of “visibility.” According to Sodré, “essa questão da cor é um obstáculo e um

impasse epistemológico, por mais que haja aceitação da consciência. O problema é tão

grande que não consegue ver o problema. É grande demais para ser visto. Ele é

tentacular, da ordem de raíz, não é da ordem das antenas” [No matter how much

acceptance of consciousness, the question of color is an obstacle and an epistemological

impasse. The problem is so large that one cannot see it. It is too big to be seen. The

problem is tentacular, of the root order, and not of the antenna order] (Interview,

05/25/2010).

Martinho da Vila also reminds us that “ainda hoje temos no Brasil muitas

empresas que não empregam negros a não ser em posições bem subalternas” [even today

in Brazil many companies do not hire blacks with the exception of very low rank

positions] (Interview, 06/18/2010).158 Although Carlos Lyra stated that he was “black

power” on Fire Island, New York, he did not provide any specific information on his

158
When referring to his film, Rio, 40 Graus (1955), Nelson Pereira dos Santos explained, “não existia uma
quantidade de atores negros, eram atores não profissionais” [there was a lack of black actors, those hired
were non professionals] (Interview, 06/01/2010).
 208

ideas concerning race relations in Brazil and the Americas. Similarly, whereas Ricardo

Cravo Albin did not touch upon racial identity in Brazilian society, Dona Ivone Lara

engaged the topic of race with precision in artistic terms; at the same time, she identified

herself as black and not mestiça (mixed) in the spontaneity of our conversation: “por que

é que vou pensar que o meu samba foi mais bonito que o seu, só porque sou negra? Gosto

de samba desde que seja bem feito. Que a qualidade do samba está na inspiração de quem

fez” [Why would I think that my samba is more beautiful than yours, just because I am

black? I like samba provided that it is well done. The quality of samba consists in the

inspiration of who made it] (Interview, 07/07/2010).

Given the outright avoidance and reiteration of official discourses on Brazilian

race relations in the area of samba, I found interviews to be a crucial supplement to

academic texts and alternative press on samba, affording me the liberty to ask questions

related to my particular research interests.159 For these reasons, the types of questions that

I formulated, and the paths that I carve in my interpretation of the data given in

interviews and critical texts are divergent from the current narratives and approaches to

writing on samba. Instead of celebrating racial mixture in samba and Brazilian society

vis-à-vis popular wisdom, my research examines the perspectives of (Afro) Brazilian and

foreign scholars on samba and black culture in the Americas. For example, some of the

sambistas and intellectuals I interviewed had never expressed their position regarding

race relations in Brazilian society due to the “selectivity” of the mainstream media, self-

159
Alison Raphael affirms, “oral history among Brazil’s lower class is an area which has scarcely been
explored. Nearly all oral history projects in Brazil concentrate on elites, particularly on former government
figures. At the same time, it is the elites who have the skills and conditions to write their own version of
history. The result is a closed circle in which only one point of view is ever recorded. From my experience,
even with the difficulties encountered, the information gathered from interviews suggests that the oral
approach is a valid and valuable source when dealing with a population still fundamentally outside the
world of literary expression” (14).
 209

censorship in a patronage society, or to the fact that researchers had not prioritized the

questions treated in this dissertation. Often times, I wonder what role my gender, race,

and nationality have played in terms of access to information on Brazilian racial politics

in these interviews. Is it possible that some of the interviewees at times felt more

comfortable discussing Brazilian race relations with me than with their co-nationals,

some of whom often invent and control, especially in the national and international

media, their tools of self-definition in relationship to others, and hence, their culture

(Thiong’o 16)? By the same token, how might the Brazilian musicians and intellectuals

have responded to my questions if I were an Afro-Brazilian or white Brazilian woman?

The new body of knowledge that I have acquired is the direct result of the “confrontation

gap” between official accounts of racial history in books and the oral histories of the

main actors of samba’s stage. Aside from enriching the scope of this dissertation, my

fieldwork experience has taught me that my interlocutors certainly exist beyond the

academy.
 210

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 225

Discography

Aragão, Jorge. O Melhor de Jorge Aragão ao vivo. Rio de Janeiro: Indie, 2004.

Candeia Filho, António. Autêntico. Samba. Melodia. Portela. Brasil. Poesia. Equipe,
1970.

---. 4 Grandes do Samba. RCA/BMG, 1977.

Carvalho, Beth. De Pé no Chão. RCA, 1978.

Hollanda, Chico Buarque de. Vol. 4. Phillips, 1970.

Keti, Zé. Zé Keti. Abril Cultural, 1970.

Lopes, Nei. A Arte Negra de Wilson Moreira & Nei Lopes. EMI-Odeon, 1980.

---. Negro Mesmo. Continental, 1983.

Nogueira, João. João Nogueira. RCA, 1986.

Vila, Martinho da. Canta, Canta Minha Gente. RCA, 1974.

---. Novas Palavras. RCA, 1983.

---. Criações e Recriações. RCA, 1985.

---. Festa da Raça. CBS, 1988.

 226

Films

Araújo, Joel Zito. A Negação do Brasil: O Negro na Telenovela Brasileira. Senac, 2000.

Bacellar, Bruno, Luís Fernando Couto, and Regina Rocha. Eu Sou Povo! 2008.

Bulbul, Sózimo. Abolição. 1988.

Hirszman, Leon. Partido Alto. 1982.

Hollanda, Lula Buarque, and Carolina Jabor. Filhos de Ghandy. Conspiração Filmes,
1999.

---. O Mistério do Samba. 2008.

Manoel, Claudio, Calvito Leal & Micael Langer. Simonal: Ninguém Sabe o Duro que Eu
Dei. 2009.

Mansur, Edu. Filosofia da Vida—O Pequeno Burguês. 2009.

Pereira dos Santos, Nelson. Rio, Zona Norte. 1957.

---. Rio, 40 Graus. 1955.

---. Meu Compadre Zé Ketti. 2003.

PBS. Black in Latin America. 2011.

Sá, Sandra de. Sandra de Sá ao Vivo: Música Preta Brasileira. 2002.

Stepan, Adam. Samba! 2007.

Watzl, Márcia. É Candeia. 2010.

 227

Interviews

Albin, Ricardo Cravo. Personal Interview. 22 June. 2009.

Anonymous Interview via e-mail. 12 March. 2009.

Cabral, Sérgio. Personal Interview. 13 July. 2010.

Da Silva, Marília T. Barboza. Personal Interview. 17 June. 2010.

Da Vila, Martinho. Personal Interview. 18 June. 2010.

Dos Santos, Nelson Pereira. Personal Interview. 1 June. 2010.

Gullar, Ferreira. Personal Interview. 27 Oct. 2009.

Khouri, Simon. Personal Interview with Zé Keti. 1974.

Lara, Dona Ivone. Personal Interview. 7 July. 2010.

Lopes, Nei. Interview via e-mail. 18 Aug. 2010.

Lyra, Carlos. Personal Interview. 7 Dec. 2009.

Medeiros, Elton. Personal Interview. 7 Aug. 2009.

Pamplona, Fernando. Personal Interview. 29 July. 2010.

Sodré, Muniz. Personal Interview. 25 May. 2010.