Recife Style Wars
As mentioned before: Recife is Brazil’s New Orleans (not just in both cities being equally close to total social chaos) – the home of enormous musical innovation and weird Afro-American religions. This is mostly a thing of the past. Still, I see the world’s most futuristic tags here (I couldn’t find any of them googling, sadly, and a friend claimed that it’s plain stupid for a white-skinned, blue-eyed person to walk around with a camera here – just take my word for it; the letters are much more complex and cleverly put together than anything I saw when wandering endlessly, mouth-open amongst the rune-like letters of the pixadores of São Paulo). That the great hope in American Rap represents New Orleans and named his first EP Style Wars surely means something as well. Erik Davis came correct in his Dub, Scratch, and the Black Star, drawing a line from the carnivals of Brazil to the soundsystems of Jamaica and further on to the Style Wars of Philadelphia, Bronx, and so on.
Such style wars show up in various guises across the African diaspora, from the taunts and “disses” of rappers to the yearly carnival competitions of Trinidad and Brazil, when various roving “bands” try to top each other and woo the crowd with music, dance, and costume. As Lee Perry said, “Competition must be in the music to make it go.”
Olinda, neighboring town of Recife, reminds me of São Luiz do Paratinga, but it’s bigger, more beautiful, and the carnaval is much better. Chico Science grew up here and learned hiphop on these streets, moving from the James Brown-parties of his childhood to breakdance and rap. This is also where he died, in a car accident during the carnaval in 1997.
We can understand the carnival through Batailles as a social system against profits and accumulation. As Potlatch. But also as refusal of work. The carnival also struggles to preserve the unique North-Eastern Brazilian culture. It’s in this light we should see the aggressive commercialization of the Carnival in Recife.
Frevo: carnival music concentrated on metal section, bass, percussion, call and response. Much faster than the music I’m used to from São Luiz do Paratinga. Most of it too cheezy and carnivalesque for my tastes, but the 19 man strong Spok played a jazz-influenced frevo that blew my brain to bits.
I saw Siba e a Fuloresta twice; should have made that three shows. He reminded me of Fela Kuti, with the generous musical backup, the call and response-singing, the way that riffs and grooves float into each other unexpectedly, and very fittingly.
Otto and Cordel do Fogo Encantado were disappointments. Former membership in Nação Zumbi and Mundo Livre S/A doesn’t guarantee anything obviously, except a taste-free mess of beach rock and regional influences. The guys in Cordel do Fogo Encantado seemed to be nice people, and they delivered a very raw underdog story to the audience (that becomes extra powerful in Recife, the fourth worst city in the world talking quality of life, a place where the class struggles are intensified to the point of absurdity) – but as time passes I have less and less patience for music involving elements of theater, clowns and stand up poetry.
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