It was a hot day in the beautiful town of Amarante, the Portuguese base of Brazil’s MIMO festival. I’m chatting to Otto prior to his show at Parque Ribeirinho in the evening and a day after seeing him... Read Article
Nação Zumbi originated in the early 90s, climbing like a ‘crab with brains’ from the fertile mud of the delta on which the north-eastern Brazilian city of Recife grew. Back in the 90s Recife was struggling, suffering under... Read Article
Ever since I first heard “Qasida”, the 10th track off Siba Veloso’s latest album Avante, I haven’t been able to stop listening to it. It’s lyrics are apprehensive, poetic, the conflicting words of someone who is looking for... Read Article
Avante represents the third stage in Brazilian singer/songwriter Siba‘s career. After helping define manguebit with his band Mestre Ambrosio in the 90s he decamped to the small Brazilian town of Nazare da Mata in 2002 and delved even... Read Article
Feiticeiro Julião are one of the more interesting new bands to come out of Recife. With outlandish clothing, energetic stage presence and songs that mix mangue bit, jazz and funk with something tribal, hallucinogenic even, they are definitely... Read Article
And the award for irony most definitely goes to Pernambuco’s Volver and their song “Mangue Beatle.” If you don’t understand Portuguese unfortunately you may miss out on this song’s charms, including various nods to the mangue beat scene... Read Article
Pernambuco is one of the musical epicentres of Brazil, full of infectious rhythms and traditions such as caboclinho, forró, candomblé and baião. Since the emergence of Mangue Bit in the early 90s this has been even more the... Read Article
In the second part of Sounding Out the Swamp: Recife, Pernambuco, and The Cultural Rise of Northeastern Brazil (read part one here) Gregory Scruggs looks at how manguebit affected the musical landscape of Northeastern Brazil, starting with the... Read Article
Part one of a two-part series by Gregory Scruggs exploring the emergence of Pernambuco as one of the musical epicentres of Brazil. The first part looks at the history of Pernambuco and the beginnings of a musical revolution in the state, brought on by Chico Science and the Manguebit movement.
Deeply bound to the northeastern coastal cultures of Brazil is a stringed instrument known as the the rabeca. With the rise of Brazilian world music bands and pop groups in the 90s, the rabeca gained recognition and popularity... Read Article
In 1992, in the Bar de Dona Edna, in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil, the musician and cultural agitator Francisco de Assis França announced to his friends, “I mixed a hip-hop beat with a maracatu groove and it turned out... Read Article
Caçapa‘s debut album Elefantes Na Rua Nova will be released on June 12th. It’s a real taste of northeastern Brazil with Alessandra Leão appearing on a number of tracks. You can currently listen to the album in full... Read Article
