Gilberto Passos Gil Moreira, is a Brazilian singer-songwriter and politician, known for both his musical innovation and political activism. From 2003 to 2008, he served as Brazil's Minister of Culture in the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Gil's musical style incorporates an eclectic range of influences, including rock, Brazilian genres including samba, African music, and reggae.
The music of Brazil encompasses various regional musical styles influenced by European, American, African and Amerindian forms. Brazilian music developed some unique and original styles such as forró, repente, coco de roda, axé, sertanejo, samba, bossa nova, MPB, gaucho music, pagode, tropicália, choro, maracatu, embolada, frevo, brega, modinha and Brazilian versions of foreign musical styles, such as rock, pop music, soul, hip-hop, disco music, country music, ambient, industrial and psychedelic music, rap, classical music, fado, and gospel.
Samba is a lively dance of Afro-Brazilian origin in 2/4(2 by 4) time danced to samba music.
Axé is a popular music genre originated in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil in the 1980s, fusing different Afro-Caribbean genres, such as marcha, reggae, and calypso. It also includes influences of Brazilian music such as frevo, forró and carixada. The word Axé comes from the Yoruba term àṣẹ, meaning "soul, light, spirit or good vibrations". Axé is present in the Candomblé religion, as "the imagined spiritual power and energy bestowed upon practitioners by the pantheon of orixás". It also has ties with the Roman Catholic Church and the Lenten season, which represents the roots of Bahian Carnival.
Olodum is a bloco-afro from Salvador's carnival, in Bahia, Brazil. It was founded by the percussionist Neguinho do Samba.
Antônio Carlos Santos de Freitas, known professionally as Carlinhos Brown, is a Brazilian singer, percussionist, and record producer from Salvador, Bahia. His musical style blends funk, latin music, R&B, soul music, reggae, and traditional Brazilian percussion.
The Carnival of Brazil is an annual festival held the Friday afternoon before Ash Wednesday at noon, which marks the beginning of Lent, the forty-day period before Easter. During Lent, Roman Catholics and some other Christians traditionally abstained from the consumption of meat and poultry, hence the term "carnival", from carnelevare, "to remove meat."
Batucada is a substyle of samba and refers to a percussive style, usually performed by an ensemble, known as a bateria. Batucada is characterized by its repetitive style and fast pace.
A samba school is a dancing, marching, and drumming club. They practice and often perform in a huge square-compounds and are devoted to practicing and exhibiting samba, an Afro-Brazilian dance and drumming style. Although the word "school" is in the name, samba schools do not offer instruction in a formal setting. Samba schools have a strong community basis and are traditionally associated with a particular neighborhood. They are often seen to affirm the cultural validity of the Afro-Brazilian heritage in contrast to the mainstream education system, and have evolved often in contrast to authoritarian development. The phrase "escola de samba" is popularly held to derive from the schoolyard location of the first group's early rehearsals. In Rio de Janeiro especially, they are mostly associated with poor neighborhoods ("favelas"). Samba and the samba school can be deeply interwoven with the daily lives of the shanty-town dwellers. Throughout the year the samba schools have various happenings and events, most important of which are rehearsals for the main event which is the yearly carnival parade. Each of the main schools spend many months each year designing the theme, holding a competition for their song, building the floats and rehearsing. It is overseen by a carnavalesco or carnival director. From 2005, some fourteen of the top samba schools in Rio have used a specially designed warehouse complex, the size of ten football pitches, called Samba City to build and house the elaborate floats. Each school's parade may consist of about 3,000 performers or more, and the preparations, especially producing the many different costumes, provide work for thousands of the poorest in Brazilian society. The resulting competition is a major economic and media event, with tens of thousands in the live audience and screened live to millions across South America.
The timbau or Brazilian timbal is a membranophone instrument derived from the caxambu drum, usually played with both hands. Slightly conical and of varying sizes, it is usually light in weight and made of lacquered wood or metal with a tunable nylon head. It is in the shape of an ice cream cone with the top and the point cut off.
A repinique is a two-headed drum used in samba baterias. It is used in the Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo Carnival baterias and in the baterias of Bahia, where it is known as repique. It is equivalent to the tik-tik in the non-Brazilian drum kit or to the tenor drum in marching bands. It is tuned very high to produce a tone that cuts through the sound of the rest of the bateria and it is a lead and solo instrument.
The surdo is a bass drum or a large floor tom-like drum used in many kinds of Brazilian music, such as Axé/Samba-reggae and samba, where it plays the lower parts from a percussion section. The instrument was created by Alcebíades Barcelos during the 1920s and 1930s as part of his work with the first samba school in Rio de Janeiro, Deixa Falar. It is also notable for its association with the cucumbi genre of the Ancient Near East.
Virgínia Rodrigues is a Brazilian singer. Her music has an influence of classical music, samba, and jazz, and her lyrics reference Candomblé and Umbanda entities.
Margareth Menezes da Purificação is a Brazilian singer and politician from Salvador, Bahia.
Samba-reggae is a music genre from Bahia, Brazil. Samba reggae, as its name suggests, was originally derived as a blend of Brazilian samba with Jamaican reggae as typified by Bob Marley.
Batalá is an international samba reggae music project. The name Batalá is a combination of the phrase "bate lá" meaning "hit there" in Portuguese and Obatalá (Oxalá), the Candomblé deity who is the father of the Orixas and of all humanity.
Periperi is a subdistrict north of Salvador, in the Brazilian State of Bahia.
Samba Squad is a Canadian world music group. The Squad was formed in 1999 by percussionist Rick Shadrach Lazar. The band incorporates world rhythms performed on Brazilian Bateria drums and percussion. Their musical style combines samba with other styles such as salsa, soca, reggae and funk. Samba Squad was awarded the UMAC Award for Best World Recording of 2001 for their self-titled debut album. They are a popular group well known for the energy of their live shows.
A Samba band or samba is a musical ensemble that plays samba music. Samba styled music originates from Brazil.
