Feature
12/04/2006 -
Noites do Brasil, La Favela Chic, Batucadas, Monica Passos, Seu Jorge, Marcio Faraco, Orquestra do Fuba – these are just a few examples of the wealth of music nights, venues, projects and artists fuelling the thriving French-Brazilian scene today (cf. article "Brazil-on-Seine"). Guitarist Baden Powell de Aquino, the "father of Afro-sambas", was one of the first musicians to pioneer Brazilian sounds in France and Paris, where he frequently performed and recorded in the early 60s, a time when he met French musician Pierre Barouh (cf. article "A Lifelong Ambassador of Brazil"). Following Barouh's lead, a number of other French music stars including Brigitte Bardot, Pierre Vassiliu and Claude Nougaro, drew on Brazilian sounds over the years, recording cover versions of Brazilian classics which ranged from the sublime to the frankly ridiculous (cf. article "Paris Flies Down to Rio").
Thanks to Serge Gainsbourg's Les Sambassadeurs, Bernard Lavilliers's O Gringo, Henri Salvador's Sur mon île and Nino Ferrer's La Madureira, popular Brazilian rhythms of the day filtered through into French 'chanson.' However, this musical appropriation, together with the burgeoning international success of bossa nova, meant that other styles of Brazilian music have tended to be overlooked. Rumos, a music project currently being run in Brazil, is now looking to set that situation to rights. The project is promoting a generation of exciting new up-and-coming talents such as Renata Rosa and Raizes de Coco - renowned for reviving regional Brazilian sounds for the modern world - and cutting-edge acts such as Loop B, Mombojo and Uniao Racial who are serving up a mix of traditional Brazilian rhythms, hip hop and electro (cf. article "Less Bossa, More Nova").