Translation

Thursday, 21 August 2014

Grupo Revelacao - Initiation into Brazil’s Samba music



By Lolade Adewuyi
The rhythm and soul of Brazil’s Samba music originates from African musical forms that have evolved over many centuries of contact with aboriginal and European instruments. Despite the years of distance occasioned by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, much of Samba music still carries some obvious reference to Africa and African traditions. I discovered the music of the impressive Grupo Revelacao while in Brasilia in June. A live performance of their hit track “Ta Escrito” from the Ao Vivo No Morro DVD was played on television.

The melody of the song captured my attention and I quickly made some research. Having been unable to watch much except football on TV due to language constraints, it was indeed interesting that one of the few times I watched the music channel I was able to find something that would make such huge impression on me.

The next day I visited the mall to buy the Revelacao DVD in order to have “Ta Escrito” for keeps. I joyfully paid for the copy that was handed over to me only to find out later that the song I wanted wasn’t on it but on the first volume. But the store didn’t have it. So I was stuck with Ao Vivo No Morro Vol 2. I’m glad that I kept it as it has changed my life and my family’s.

Via Grupo Revelacao’s music, I was able to take away a veritable part of Brazil back home with me. Forget the t-shirts and other souvenirs that tourists buy, the best way to preserve memory of a visit is to buy literature or music of a culture. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get translated copies of important Brazilian literary voices. However, Grupo Revelacao has been able to keep me in touch with the culture. In the absence of “Ta Escrito”, my wife and I have discovered songs like “Prazer do meu amor”, “Pai”, “Sou bamba, sou do samba” and the enigmatic “Meu Lugar”.

“Meu Lugar” (in English means ‘My Place’) was written by musician Arlindo Cruz and it romanticizes the Madureira neighbourhood of Rio where an important samba movement is entrenched via the Portela and Imperio Serrano schools. It has become our family favourite.

It is a classic example of the reference to African symbols and traditions. The song opens thus:

O meu lugar (My place
E caminho de Ogum e Iansa (It’s the way of Ogum and Iansa
La tem samba ate de manha (There we have samba up until morning
Uma ginga em cada andar (A swing on every step)

O meu lugar (My place
E cercado de luta e sour (Is surrounded by fight and sweat
Esperanca num mundo melhor (With hope of a better world
E cerveja pra comemorar (And beer to celebrate)

O meu lugar (My place
Tem seus mitos e seres de luz (Has its myths and light beings
E bem perto de Osvaldo Cruz (It’s very close to Osvaldo Cruz
Cascadura, Vaz Lobo e Iraja (Cascadura, Vaz Lobo and iraja)

O meu lugar (My place
E sorriso, e paz e prazer (Is smile, it’s peace and pleasure
O seu nome e doce dizer (Its name is sweet to say
Madureira! (Madureira!)



In the first two quatrains, one encounters the Yoruba deities Ogun (Ogum) and Oya (Iansa) as mythical custodians of the physical Madureira which the ballad extols. The Yoruba pantheon of gods were taken to Brazil as part of the slave trade and unlike in the United States where most of the legacies of the old continent were eliminated by the slave holders, the Africans were able to disguise their cultures under various guises like the Candomble religion as well as Samba in order to preserve their beliefs.

While this entry is not so much about the intricacies of the past, my intention is to show that Samba music carries a lot of African influence still.

While I am also just learning more and more everyday about the close ties that Afro- Brazilians still share with Africa, I will attempt to delve deeper into these using the music which I discovered during my trip in future posts.

Feel free to share your thoughts with us.

Wednesday, 30 July 2014

Translation available

Hey "lusophone" readers! The Portuguese translation for all posts will be available from now on. I'll be doing my best to release them simultaneously with the English version, so more people can enjoy the blog content and contribute. That's a way to reach Brazilians and people from those countries in Africa that also speak Portuguese.

To access the blog content in Portuguese, just click the Brazilian flag right below the blog title. In case you want to switch back to English, click the USA flag.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, 16 July 2014

Learning About my Roots

I just witnessed a World Cup in my country, Brazil. It was a huge party, different from every-year Carnival or New Year's eve: there was this whole soccer atmosphere and a feeling that could make Brazilians sing the National Anthem in a manner not seen even in the Independence Day. A sense of deep patriotism that lasted for 90 minutes, or that was shown whenever a foreigner made a comment about how the referee was helping Brazil on the previous match. Foreigners... our beloved "gringos", one of the most interesting contributions this World Cup could bring to Brazil.

They were everywhere. It's hard to find someone in the largest cities here who hasn't met a foreign supporter or hasn't heard a story about some interesting fact that happened to a visitor. I was lucky enough to have two national teams, Portugal and Nigeria, training in the city I live in, Campinas/SP. And even luckier to meet Lolade, a journalist that came to Brazil at work to publish news about Nigeria national team and ended up learning so much about my country that I was the one to learn about it from him.

We had hours of chatting about History, African influences, music, slavery, racism, food, santeria, cultural habits, society, every single subject that could be familiar to both Brazil and Nigeria. I had learned about so many things that came from Africa it made me eager to searching for more. Then Lolade came with the idea of this blog, which for me was the perfect opportunity to pursue this knowledge and share a bit of my culture and experiences.

One of the things that impressed me the most is how some usual things in Brazil still keep the African root. We eat food they have brought, we have lots of people who practice their religion, we have words from their vocabulary, we drum and dance like they do. Of course, a few centuries have passed and the influence of several other countries cultures might have changed things a bit, but they are still strong enough for African people feel that Brazil is not that distant after all.

In future posts I intend to explore these cultural similarities and show how they affect Brazil nowadays, as well as some curiosities regarding Brazil-Africa relations.

Welcome! I hope you enjoy your reading :) Feel free to contribute by commenting our posts and sharing your ideas.

Saturday, 12 July 2014

Discovering Brazil’s African Heritage



From left: Sergio Max and the staff of the Afro-Brazilian Memory Centre, Campinas

It was my first time in Brazil this summer. Part of a million crowd that invaded the country during the World Cup, it my job as a journalist that took me to South America’s largest country.

Most of my work was to report the Nigerian national team, the Super Eagles, who are the reigning African champions. The remainder of my job was to have a good experience, travel round the country and open my eyes to observe how different things are done.

Having read about the country and known that it was home to the largest Black African population outside of Africa, it was my hope to meet lots of Black people.

I was also aware that much of Brazilian music and culture was influenced by Africans who had come to the land as slaves many hundred years ago. These people who came from mainly West, Central and Southern Africa had given Brazil so much of their sweat and rhythm which is still present in the carnival and music today.

Brazil gave a bit back to Africa after some of the former slaves made their return home during abolition. Their influence can be seen in the architecture and lifestyle of places like the Lagos Island in Nigeria’s commercial capital.

I stayed most of my three weeks in the country in Campinas, a city 100km from Sao Paulo. It was where the Super Eagles stayed during their campaign.

Campinas is a bustling metropolis with a large economy and an airport that connected many other major cities of Brazil. I flew out of the Viracopos Airport many times to cover the Super Eagles’ matches in Curitiba, Cuiaba, Porto Alegre and Brasilia.

In my trips, I looked around the airports and flights without seeing so many Afro-Brazilians. It led to questions in my mind, where are the Blacks of Brazil?

We see them in the national team, the Selecao, we see them in the big carnivals on TV, they are the face of Brazilian integration but they are not really visible in the airports among the middle class in a country known for its big internal tourists.

I also didn't see any Black Brazilian journalists in the media centres at the four stadia that I visited. Neither did I meet any working for the big media houses Globo, SporTV, Band and Folha do Sao Paulo.

I only saw one Black woman on the cover of a major magazine, and she was ensconced in the arm of a white man who I suppose was her husband.

An article in the UK Guardian also questioned why there were not many Black people in the stadiums during matches.

However, I met some interesting Black people in Campinas. At the Afro-Brazilian Memory Centre where an exhibition about Candomble, a religion that has its roots in many African cultures with familiar names like Ogum, Xango, Ijexa, etc, I met Sergio Max Almeida Prado and his team who were very willing to share their thoughts on emancipation and quota systems for Blacks to rise up the economic ladder in Brazil.

Even though our conversation was hampered by language, we got the help of lawyer Milena, a white lady, who translated back and forth.
Babalawo Adegboyega Omo Odoagba
I met a Nigerian, Adegboyega Omo Odoagba, a babalawo and culture advocate who runs the Adimula Cultural Foundation, a Yoruba art, performance and dissemination think-tank and has lived in the country for almost 20 years.

“If you go to Bahia, it’s like being in Africa. People speak Yoruba, they dress like Yorubas. They are curious about our culture and want to know more,” he told me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to visit Bahia.


Da esquerda para a direita: Sergio Max e a equipe do Centro Campineiro de Memória Afrobrasileira

On my last day in Brazil, I had the most interesting experience in a shoe shop downtown Campinas. As I made to leave the store, I walked past a Black salesman in his late 40s who gently gave me a tap on the shoulder. It was an acknowledgement of being African, being Black.


Perhaps the best part of the trip was meeting computer engineer Camila Fausto da Motta Santos, whose English was very good she became my virtual guide. Always available over Whatsapp to answer questions and give tips on where to visit and what to do in each new city, she also tried to answer my questions on what it means to be Black in Brazil.

We found some similarities in our Africanness and it was nice to get her to start taking a closer look at the old continent as not just a far off place. She was also eager to learn about the craze for Brazilian hair among Nigerian women, something that sounded strange to her.

Together we decided to start this blog to encourage conversations between Africa and Brazil. We may be divided by thousands of miles of ocean, but we can begin to talk to each other via the internet.

We invite thoughts and opinions from every African who has had an encounter with Brazil and Brazilians who have encountered Africans.

This is a way for us to learn more about each other, long after the frenzy of the World Cup has ebbed.

Bem vindo!