Samba is a broad term for many of the rhythms that compose the better known Brazilian music genres that originated in the Afro-Brazilian communities of Bahia in the late 19th century[8] and early 20th century, having continued its development on the communities of Rio de Janeiro in the early 20th century.[9][10]
Having its roots in the Afro-Brazilian Candombl,[11][12][13] as well as other Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous folk traditions, such as the traditional Samba de Caboclo,[14][15] it is considered one of the most important cultural phenomena in Brazil[16][17] and one of the country's symbols.[18][19][20][21]
Present in the Portuguese language at least since the 19th century, the word "samba" was originally used to designate a "popular dance".[22] Over time, its meaning has been extended to a "batuque-like circle dance", a dance style, and also to a "music genre".[22][23] This process of establishing itself as a musical genre began in the 1910s[24] and it had its inaugural landmark in the song "Pelo Telefone", launched in 1917.[25][26] Despite being identified by its creators, the public, and the Brazilian music industry as "samba", this pioneering style was much more connected from the rhythmic and instrumental point of view to maxixe than to samba itself.[24][27][28]
For many years of the Brazilian colonial and imperial history, the terms "batuque" or "samba" were used in any manifestation of African origins that brought together dances (mainly umbigada), songs and uses of Black people instruments.[22] At the end of the 19th century, "samba" was present in the Portuguese language, designating different types of popular dances performed by African slaves (xiba, fandango, cateret, candombl, baio) that assumed its own characteristics in each Brazilian state, not only by the diversity of the ethnic groups of the African diaspora, but also the peculiarity of each region in which they were settlers.[22] In the twentieth century, the term was gaining new meanings, as for a "circle dance similar to batuque" and a "genre of popular song[23]
The use of the word in a musical context was documented as early as 1913 in the "Em casa de baiana", registered as "samba de partido-alto".[70][71] Then, the following year, for the works "A viola est magoada"[71][72] and "Moleque vagabundo".[73][74] And, in 1916, for the famous "Pelo Telefone", released as "samba carnavalesco" ("carnival samba")[75][76] and regarded as the founding landmark of the Modern Carioca Samba.[9][77]
During a folkloric research mission in the Northeast Region of 1938, the writer Mrio de Andrade noticed that, in rural areas, the term "samba" was associated with the event where the dance was performed, the way of dancing the samba and the music performed for the dance.[78] The Urban Carioca Samba was influenced by several traditions associated with the universe of rural communities throughout Brazil.[79] The folklorist Oneida Alvarenga was the first expert to list primitive popular dances of the type: coco, tambor de crioula, lundu, chula or fandango, baiano, cateret, quimbere, mbeque, caxambu and xiba.[80] To this list, Jorge Sabino and Raul Lody added: the samba de coco and the sambada (also called coco de roda), the samba de matuto, the samba de caboclo and the jongo.[81]
In its beginnings, Samba was heavily criminalized by the Brazilian government. Born in the Favelas, it was a distinctly Afro Brazilian musical genre that brought people together in community and celebration, but that, to the Brazilian elite, was threatening. Samba's incorporation of African drumming was thought to be a connection to Afro Brazilian cults.[87] Many early composers were thought to be leaders of African cults and for this connection, samba faced policed persecution. Any Samba gathering was swiftly shut down, with musicians arrested and their instruments destroyed. As a result, Samba had to go underground; it relied on community members to assume the risk of persecution to have Samba parties out of their homes. Ultimately samba became a hallmark of Brazilian culture, highlighted at Carnival, but it was not always that way, as in its origins practicing samba was defiance against the government. [88]
The success of "Pelo Telefone" marked the official beginning of samba as a song genre.[9][106][110] Its primacy as "the first samba in history" has, however, been questioned by some scholars, on the grounds that the work was only the first samba under this categorization to be successful.[70][77][113][114] Before, "Em casa da baiana" was recorded by Alfredo Carlos Bricio, declared to the National Library as "samba de partido-alto" in 1913,[70][71] "A viola est magoada", by Catulo da Paixo Cearense, released as "samba" by Baiano and Jlia the following year,[70][71][113] and "Moleque vagabundo", "samba" by Lourival de Carvalho, also in 1914.[9][73][74]
The solidification of the electric recording system made it possible for the recording industry to launch new sambas by singers with less powerful voices,[nb 5] such as Carmen Miranda[128] and Mrio Reis, performers who became references when creating a new way of interpreting the most natural and spontaneous samba, without so many ornaments, as opposed to the tradition of belcanto style.[129][130][131] These recordings followed an aesthetic pattern characterized by structural similarities to the lundu and, mainly, to the maxixe.[27] Because of this, this type of samba is considered by scholars as "samba-maxixe" or "samba amaxixado".[24][132] Although the samba practiced in the festivities of Bahian communities in Rio was an urban stylization of the ancestral "samba de roda" in Bahia,[133] characterized by a high party samba with refrains sung to the marked rhythm of the palms and the plates shaved with knives, this samba it was also influenced by the maxixe.[134] It was in the following decade that a new model of samba would be born, from the hills of Rio de Janeiro, quite distinct from that of the amaxixado style associated with the communities of Cidade Nova.[24][27]
Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, in the context of the First Brazilian Republic, the poor strata of Rio de Janeiro faced serious economic issues related to their survival in the federal capital, such as the imposition of new taxes resulting from the provision of public services (such as electric lighting, water and sewage, modern pavements), new legislation that imposed architectural norms and restrictions for urban buildings, and the prohibition on the exercise of certain professions or economic practices linked to subsistence, especially of the poorest.[136] The situation of this population worsened further with the urban reforms in the center of Rio, whose widening or opening of roads required the destruction of several tenements and popular housing in the region.[137][138]
As a result, these homeless residents were temporarily occupying slopes in the vicinity of these old demolished buildings, such as Morro da Providncia (mainly occupied by former residents of the Cabea de Porco tenement[139] and former soldiers of the War of Canudos)[140] and Morro de Santo Antonio (especially by ex-combatants of the Brazilian Naval Revolts).[141] In a short time, this type of temporary housing was permanently established in the urban landscape of Rio, originating the first favelas in the city.[142] From the increase in the populations expelled from the tenements and the arrival of new poor migrants to the capital of the Republic, the favelas grew rapidly and spread through the hills settlements and suburban areas of Rio.[140][143]
It was in this scenario that a new type of samba would be born during the second half of the 1920s, called "samba do Estcio", which would constitute the genesis of urban Carioca samba[27] by creating a new pattern so revolutionary that its innovations last until the days current.[42][144] Located close to Praa Onze and housing Morro do So Carlos, the neighborhood of Estcio was a center of convergence of public transport, mainly of trams that served the North Zone of the city.[145] Its proximity to the nascent hills settlements as well as its primacy in the formation of this new samba ended up linking its musical production, from urban train lines, to the favelas and suburbs of Rio, such as Morro da Mangueira,[146][34] and the suburban neighborhood of Osvaldo Cruz.[30]
At that time, samba did not work for carnival groups to walk on the street as we see today. I started noticing that there was this thing. The samba was like this: tan tantan tan tantan. It was not possible. How would a bloc get out on the street like that? Then, we started making a samba like this: bum bum paticumbum pugurumdum.[150]
The intuitive onomatopoeia built by Ismael Silva tried to explain the rhythmic change operated by the sambistas of Estcio with the bum bum paticumbum pugurumdum of the surdo in marking the cadence of the samba, making it a more syncopated rhythm.[151][152] It was, therefore, a break with the samba tan tantan tan tantan irradiated from the Bahian aunts meetings.[32]
Thus, at the end of the 1920s, the modern carioca samba had two distinct models: the primitive urban samba of Cidade Nova and the new syncopated samba of the Estcio group.[153] However, while the Bahian community enjoyed a certain social legitimacy, including the protection of important personalities of Rio society who supported and frequented the musical circles of the "Pequena Africa",[154] the new Estaciano sambistas suffered socio-cultural discrimination, including through police repression.[155] A popular neighborhood with a large Black/mixed contingent , Estcio was one of the great strongholds of poor samba musicians situated between marginality and social integration, who ended up being stigmatized by the upper classes in Rio as "dangerous" rascals.[146][156] Because of this infamous brand, the Estaciano samba suffered great social prejudice in its origin.[154]
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