When I was in my late teens, I discovered a Brazilian music CD compiled by David Byrne in a neighborhood coffee house and CD shop. On it were songs that I hadn't heard since childhood, and upon hearing them, I began to cry. It was as if so much of the beauty of life that I had always felt I had lost by moving away from my family, friends, and culture in Brazil as a child were communicated to me, in a perfectly condensed dose, in a song. Having often been frustrated with words and their inability to transmit the experiences I so much wanted to share with people as I described my immigrant experience and attempted to capture the contrasts of our cultures, I decided then that I had to share Brazilian music with people.
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Bossa NovaWith its rhythmic roots—taken from Afro-Brazilian music—stripped bare, Bossa Nova's appeal lies within its deceptively simple rhythm's blend with American Jazz harmonies. This style quickly exploded in Brazil in the late 50's and remains one of the go-to choices for American romantic movie scenes.
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SambaSamba is one of the most popular musical genres of the working class and working poor people of color of southeastern Brazil. It is a very rich, varied, and broad genre, with roots spread between the state of Bahia and São Paulo, and a lineage coming from Western Africa.
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MPB/TropicáliaOne fascinating aspect of Brazilian music's history is the promotion of National Popular Music (Música Popular Brasileira, a.k.a. MPB) by the Brazilian government over multiple decades, and its effect on the distinct national identity of the music. Equally fascinating was a briefly lived counter-cultural musical genre called Tropicália that has gained a large following in U.S. hipster circles.
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