As October ushers in Black History Month in the UK, it’s a good moment to check the recent documentary, "Black Rio!! Black Power!!" (Emílio Domingos, 2024) which premiered in theatres earlier this month. "Black Rio!! Black Power!!" highlights the often-overlooked Afro-Brazilian counterculture of the 1970s and 80s in Rio de Janeiro, profoundly shaped by American funk music and the Black Power movement. This vibrant cultural wave emerged during Brazil’s military dictatorship, which both perpetuated the myth of racial democracy and actively persecuted supporters of Black Rio, erasing much of their activism. These events fostered popular cultural gatherings among the youth, showcasing their resilience.
In 19th-century Brazil, abolitionist movements aimed to end slavery. However, after 388 years of oppression, enslaved Africans had already forged a robust culture of resistance. Capoeira, believed to have originated in the senzalas (slave quarters) and quilombos (escaped slave communities), blends combat with music and dance, preserving African traditions while bolstering physical and spiritual strength. Even after the abolition of slavery, the lack of reparations left many Afro-Brazilians marginalised, continuing to face discrimination and persecution of their cultural practices, including capoeira, samba, and religious traditions.
In the early 1970s, the "bailes da pesada" emerged in Rio de Janeiro, with soul and funk as the dominant genres, pioneered by DJs Big Boy and Ademir Lemos at the Canecão. These events evolved throughout the decade, incorporating "black" into their names or asdopting "shaft" style parties—inspired by the Blaxploitation movie classic, Shaft, starring Richard Roundtree and featuring a soundtrack by Isaac Hayes. The meteoric rise of Blaxploitation coincided with Hollywood's financial crisis and capitalized on the momentum of the civil rights movement, and the emergence of Black Power, the Black Panther Party, and key figures like Angela Davis; appealing to Black audiences with stylish, empowered heroes and heroines backed by Black American music.
In Brazil, the movement gained national recognition in 1976 when a journalist coined the term "Black Rio." This cultural phenomenon fused samba and forró with a strong influence from American Black music, particularly soul, jazz, and funk, resulting in a uniquely Brazilian expression of identity.
Forró is a genre that originates from Northeastern Brazil, with Luiz Gonzaga recognized as its ambassador both within Brazil and internationally. In the 1940s, he performed in Rio de Janeiro, which was the capital at the time and attracted many Northeasterners seeking better opportunities. Homesick migrants found solace in Gonzaga's music, often characterised by a distinctive trio of accordion, Brazilian bass drum, and triangle, including genres such as baião, xaxado, xote, chamego, cocos, and forró pé de serra. One theory about the origins of forró music traces it back to the farms and plantations in Pernambuco and northeastern Brazil, where farmers and enslaved Africans sang while harvesting crops like sugarcane, coffee, and corn. Different songs accompanied each crop and stage of the harvest, and as these workers moved from the fields to their homes and cafes, the music followed, eventually becoming popular at parties and gatherings. Talented local singers began performing these songs, often engaging in freestyle improvisations with viola players.
In the 1960s, the influence of American Black music began to permeate Brazilian styles, as evidenced in the works of artists like Jorge Ben (with songs such as "Agora Ninguém Mais Chora," "Negro É Lindo," and "Que Nega É Essa"), Wilson Simonal’s Pilantragem (including "Mamãe Passou Açúcar em Mim," "País Tropical," and "Tributo a Martin Luther King"), the group Bossa Trio (which fused samba and soul), and Cassiano.
However, it was Tim Maia who truly defined the fusion of these musical styles in Brazil. After returning to the country in 1964, he witnessed the rise of the Jovem Guarda movement, also known as "Iê, Iê, Iê" (1965-1968), which drew inspiration from Elvis Presley and The Beatles. This movement featured songs with simple melodies and lyrics centred around teenage life and romantic themes. In 1968, he produced Eduardo Araújo's album A Onda É o Boogaloo, injecting soul into the "Iê, Iê, Iê" era. Around the same time, Tim Maia began performing in São Paulo and made notable appearances, including on Wilson Simonal's radio show and a television performance with the up-and-coming band Os Mutantes. His first solo release came in 1968 with a single from CBS featuring two of his original songs, "Meu País" and "Sentimento." In 1969, Elis Regina invited him to record These Are the Songs, which paved the way for his debut solo album, Tim Maia (1970). This album, filled with hits from the 1970s that still resonate today, became the best-selling album for six consecutive months, reflecting the powerful influence of soul and funk music that Tim Maia absorbed during his time in New York.
In 1980s Brazil, funk began to merge with hip hop and rap, Miami Bass introduced a fast-paced rhythm infused with Cuban influences, featuring more erotic lyrics and choreography that quickly resonated in Brazil, especially in Rio de Janeiro.
Traditionally, Carioca funk blended electronic beats from hip hop and afrobeat, Candomblé drumming, rap’s poetic lyrics, and DJ-driven repetitive melodies. The genre often reflected daily life in the suburbs and favelas. However, by the 1990s, as urban violence surged and favelas faced police invasions, the lyrics shifted to depict this harsh reality, transforming into a platform for social and political expression.
Women have increasingly taken on prominent roles within the genre, challenging passive portrayals and empowering themselves through the music. Despite its evolution, funk remains stigmatized due to its humble origins, where poverty in Brazil is intertwined with racism and aporophobia. Some have even called for the criminalization of the genre, dismissing it as sound pollution.
Nonetheless, Brazilian funk has achieved mainstream success internationally, with artists like Anitta bringing the genre to global stages through international tours, Brazilian summer hits, as well as Carnaval’s.
Brazil is home to the largest Black population outside of the African continent. Black Rio gave identity to young Black people. It offers a counterculture movement celebrated in natural hairstyles, and fashions—platform shoes, bell-bottoms, a wholly unique style, and a distinctive dance style inspired by James Brown. It broadened horizons and created opportunities in the entertainment industry, especially within music, introducing a range of genres beyond samba. The movement defined the 1970s generation in Brazil.
"Black Rio!! Black Power!!" illustrates this era through the repetitive use of archival footage intertwined with interviews and testimonials. It suggests that records from this period are rare and difficult to access, blending archives from newspapers and personal collections. In Brazil, "Black Rio!! Black Power!!" is referred to as the Carioca counterpart of “Chic Show” (Emílio Domingos and Felipe Giuntini, 2023), which takes a similar approach but focuses on the São Paulo scene of the late 1960s, created by Luiz Alberto da Silva (Luizão). He organised "bailes" for young Black (and poor) youth, embodying the role of a Black entrepreneur in a corporate world dominated by whites in a country reluctant to acknowledge its racism.
Luizão was already known for his sound systems and his special participation in parties and dances in the neighbourhoods of Bonfiglioli, Butantã, Ferreira, Vila Madalena, Vila Sônia, and in the city of Taboão da Serra, in the metropolitan region of São Paulo. The success of the lively atmosphere created by Luizão at wedding events, birthday parties, and private celebrations was so great that the producer soon established his own venture in the entertainment industry. Thus, Chic Show was born, a dance party that became a staple of São Paulo’s nightlife on weekends, located on Rua Morato Coelho in the Pinheiros neighborhood of the western zone. Until that point in history, the idea was to expand what was already being done in the backyards of Black families to even larger venues. However, the activity ultimately became a fixed gathering in the calendar of the Black community at the time, seeking to celebrate their culture.
Chic Show hosted iconic performances, including James Brown in 1978 and Koo Moo Dee in 1998, the first American hip-hop artist to perform in Brazil. Additionally, Chic Show is regarded as the mother of 1990s pagode. These events paved the way for a range of emerging Black talents, who seized music as their voice and platform, particularly during the oppressive climate of a right-wing dictatorship marked by authoritarianism, human rights abuses, political persecution, exile, censorship, and cultural blooming.
However, this environment was also marked by daily violence from police and microaggressions stemming from veiled racism outside the parties. “Chic Show” even references a harmful report from the Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS), one of the era’s most repressive agencies, which alerted the government to the perceived ulterior motives of the event organizers and attendees. This report spread misinformation that contributed to the media’s creation of a non-existent rivalry between samba and funk/soul culture, and it criticized young Black people who did not engage in nationalism—perpetuating stereotypes that associated them solely with samba dancing or eating feijoada, a culinary symbol of Rio de Janeiro created by African slaves using meat scraps.
This text is also available on Outsisde Left: https://outsideleft.com/main.php?updateID=3215
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