Punchy words

Adding strong lyrics to catchy reggae sounds and mixing them with lively Brazilian rhythms, some bands from Brazil are filling up dance halls, getting gold records, and giving some lessons on protest.

Alessandra Dalevi

Despite its delirious beat and reputation as being a tropical tune intended to entertain and give sensual pleasure, reggae has mostly been a protest music. Its name most likely comes from the way Jamaicans pronounce ragged (as in clothing) and it originated among the oppressed Jamaican poor.

This tradition lives on in Brazil through a handful of new bands who are starting to hit the airwaves and the nation's consciousness. Mind you, reggae is not a marginal or new phenomenon in Brazil. Several big MPB (Brazilian Popular Music) composers such as Gilberto Gil have penned reggae-flavored tunes, but the social-criticism sting is something more recent.

Bahiana (from Bahia) Daniela Mercury, composer and singer, from reggae's softer side too, has become an international phenomenon in the last few years selling close to 2 million records in her samba-reggae rhythm better known as axé music.

The three newest and most popular groups exploring the reggae mother lode are from distinct parts of Brazil, barely know each other and have been developing a very independent work. The Nadegueto is from Bahia, O Rappa was born in Rio, and Papas da Língua has its origin in Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul state.

Their common trait is their social conscience that's translated into their heavily political lyrics which talk about poverty, drugs, lack of perspective, police harassment. "Fogo Cruzado" ("Cross Fire") from the Rappa, for example, says,

"No gueto o medo ilude e seduz

Com o poder da cocaína

Quem comanda o sucesso

Das bocas de fumo da esquina.

Mas a favela não é mãe

De toda dúvida letal."

("In the ghetto fear deceives and seduces

With the power of cocaine

Those who command the success

Of the corner joint spot.

But the slum is not mother

Of all lethal doubt.")

This success comes on the heels of another less caustic reggae style which is a big hit in Brazil thanks to bands like Skank and Cidade Negra. In another proof that no region detain the monopoly of the new rhythm, the Skank became famous despite its origin: Minas Gerais, a state which hasn't made a big splash in music since Milton Nascimento's Clube da Esquina.

The Cidade Negra, from the poor-class neighborhood of Rio's Belford Roxo, has been living on the fast lane playing more than 20 shows every month since they signed up with Sony. Their "Onde Você Mora" ("Where You Live"), the first single to be released from their third and latest album Sobre Todas as Forças (Over All the Forces), is a big hit. Sony imposed some changes after their second album, Negro no Poder (Black in Power) bombed.

"We were misunderstood in that album," says the band's percussionist, Lazão. He accuses, refusing to cite names, some radios of boycotting their music due to racism. Toni Garrido, the new crooner of the group, has also given a new direction to Cidade Negra not only commercially but also politically. He and his colleagues like to talk about awareness, mainly their African root awareness.

"We don't use our success to bed girls. We're interested in transmitting a feeling of peace and harmony. That's the message of reggae: love and energy," says Garrido.

Skank has also become a Sony Music star band after having found a niche on Brazil's pop music charts by financing themselves their 1992 debut album, which became a golden disk, selling more than 100,000 copies.

For the second work recently released, Calango (Lizard), the ambition to get platinum was satisfied in just a few months. Skank has made a rich salad of rhythms, mixing reggae to Northeastern baião and Minas's calango (a Mineiro version for Alagoas' coco de embolada) and the band seems to have survived without scars the attacks accusing them of exploitative middle-class white men taking advantate of black music.

Calango is irresistible in the dance hall, but has also its socially conscious lyrics, as in "A Cerca" ("The Fence") in which two bumpkins fight for a piece of land or "Pacato Cidadão" ("Easy-going Citizen") which is a homage to Paul McCartney's "Let'Em In." The theme here is the marginalized poor who cannot eat in the same restaurants and go to the same parties as the more privileged citizens.

The rap, another protest music, has never got the status given the reggae and has been mostly confined to poorer neighborhoods. Being more moderate, the reggae musicians have been able to please the middle class who buys records and the media which promotes them.

Salvador's (Bahia) Nedegueto, formed by a group of musicians who used to play for axé-music biggest stars, is an example of moderation. "O futuro é uma vaidade/ Daqueles que nasceram com bem-estar", ("The future is a luxury/ For those who were born under a lucky star"), they sing in "Pelas Ruas" ("Through the Streets").

The Papas da Língua make their protest using history and some didacticism as in Música para Dançar (Music for Dancing) in which they present some pressing questions: "Discutir a questão da pobreza/ Debater a questão da miséria/ Repensar a questão dos mendigos/ Resolver a questão dos meninos ("To discuss the poverty question/ To debate the misery question/ To rethink the mendicants' question/ To solve que children's question").

Despite all the moderation the songs' sting, however, can still cause some commotion. Rappa's lyrics, for example, talk about torture, social walls, and politicians who ask for votes in the favela and in the next day send the police to beat those living there.

LYRICS

Esmola

Skank's Samuel Rosa & Chico Amaral

Eu tô cansado, meu bom, de dar esmola

Essa cota miserável de avareza

Se o país não for pra cada um

Pode estar certo

Não vai ser pra nenhum

Alms

I'm tired, my good man, of giving alms

This miserable share of avarice

If the country isn't for every one

You can be sure

It will be for no one

Pelas Ruas

Nadegueto

As camas de concreto ainda têm as marcas

Dos sonhos mutilados pela força da lei (...)

O risco é tudo o que lhes resta nessa vida

E a vida não vale o preço da submissão

Through the Streets

The concrete bed still have the marks

Of dreams mutilated by force of law (...)

Risk is all that life left them with

And life isn't worth the price of submission

Todo camburão tem um pouco de navio negreiro

O Rappa's Marcelo Yuca

Quem segurava com força a chibata

Agora usa farda

Engatilha a macaca

E escolhe sempre o primeiro

Negro pra passar na revista

Todo camburão tem um pouco

De navio negreiro

Every paddy wagon has a little of slave ship

Who used to hold forcibly the whip

Now wears uniform

Cocks the shotgun

And always chooses the first

Black to frisk for weapons

Every paddy wagon has a little 

Of slave ship

Democracy

Papas da Língua's Léo Henkin

Muito ouro se achava por aqui

Mas no mundo é que ele brilhava

E quem vive na terra patropi

De pobreza e preguiça se cala (...)

Desse culto à miséria eu já cansei

Canta a voz da mentira outra vez

Democracy

There was plenty of gold over here

But in the world it used to shine

He who lives in the tropical land

With poverty and laziness, keeps quiet (...)

I'm tired of this misery cult

Once again the lie's voice sings

Big mouths

Playing in a quiet different field there's a group of musicians whose forte are the risqué lyrics, whose main intention is not to protest, but to shock and to cause polemic. The most successful band exploring this side of music is called Raimundos. They have sold close to 200,000 records, and is based in Brasília, Brazil's capital.

Their suggestive and vulgar lyrics haven't prevented the FMs across the country to repeatedly play a campy tune called "Selim" ("Bike seat") which says, 

"Eu queria ser o banquinho da bicicleta 

Pra ficar bem no meio das pernas 

E sentir o seu ânus suar 

Eu queria ser a calcinha daquela menina 

Pra ficar bem perto da vagina 

E às vezes até me molhar."

"I wish I were the bicycle seat

To stay there between the legs

And to feel you anus sweating

I wish I were the panties of that girls

To stay so close to the vagina

And even get wet sometimes"

In "Puteiro em João Pessoa" ("Whorehouse in João Pessoa") they tell the story of a young boy's sexual initiation and paint the prostitute he meets as a third rate human being:

Era uma quenga fedorenta

Daquelas das mais nojenta

Mas se você não agüenta

Você a leva para o quarto

She was a stinking whore

One of those most repulsive

But that you take to bed

When you can't wait anymore

To promote their album released last year, the Raimundos had a promotion giving a band CD to anyone who would be able to say how many four letter words their 16-track disc contained. No one of the band's participants knew it.

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