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Chief-Boima

Eat Rio meets Chief Boima!

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Chief-Boima

Chief Boima.

 

It’s been a while since we’ve had a musically-themed post on Eat Rio so I’m delighted to return to the subject today. Recently life has been a big whirl of food tours, writing gigs and a few other bits and pieces thrown in – that hasn’t left me much time for music. Luckily, not so long ago, the music came to me!

Boima Tucker booked an Eat Rio Food Tour with us back in February as his parents were visiting. Despite taking bookings from people from all over the world I don’t  think I’d ever seen the name Boima before and my curiosity got the better of me. After a little Googling I found that Boima is also known as Chief Boima and (amongst other things) is a Sierra Leonean-American music producer, DJ and writer who is currently living in Rio.

Although his food tour was guided by my fellow guide Angela, I managed to grab a few words with Boima at the end of the tour and then followed up later with an interview (completed on 30th March – yes, I’ve been busy!).

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Cristo-Redentor

The reason I started Eat Rio

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Cristo-Redentor

 

Next month Eat Rio will be 3 years old. During this period I’ve written over 400 posts and 48 static pages; you guys have left more than 4,500 comments, and I’ve filtered out almost 2,000 spam comments (if I ever do inherit 22.9 million dollars from a long lost uncle in Nigeria, I’m almost certainly going to miss out). The Eat Rio Facebook page has almost 1,000 likes (come on people!) and the Eat Rio Twitter account has almost 1,000 followers (are you trying to torture me?).

Now I don’t want to get too misty eyed here but, for me at least, Eat Rio has meant more than just the numbers. Writing this blog has pushed me to investigate and learn more about this great city. I’ve also made lots of friends through the blog, had several of those mythical ‘free lunches’ and just recently I was able to escape a less than satisfying job and switch career paths completely. Not bad for 3 years!

It feels like an age ago now, but I still remember why I started this blog in the first place.

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Bezerra-da-silva

Bezerra da Silva – Samba and the Malandro

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Bezerra-da-silva

Every man in his area, Every monkey on his branch, Every cockerel in his yard, Every king in his deck

 

I only became aware of the subject of today’s post recently, when I passed that piece of street art (above) during carnival. It’s a nice piece of work and the guy has a nice looking face – then I saw the lyrics and decided it was time to find out more (starting with what a baralho is – a deck of playing cards).

Born in 1927 in Recife, José Bezerra da Silva grew up singing a North/Northeastern style of music called Coco. In 1942 he moved to Rio and in the 1950s found work as a session musician. His first record was released in 1969 and he went on to record 30 albums over the following 4 decades. He became particularly renowned for a style of samba known as partido alto.

 

Malandros and Malandragem

It seems impossible to say much about Bezerra without mentioning the term malandro. A malandro is someone who lives by malandragem, a lifestyle of hustling, petty crime and idleness. It wasn’t long after I got to Rio that I first came across this word malandro. Fittingly enough, a colleague was warning me about wandering down the wrong street in Lapa – “Watch out for malandros” she said. I say ‘fitting’ because, in Rio there is a strong association between malandros and Lapa.

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medley-in-brazil

Gringo Funk

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medley-in-brazil

 

If you spend any amount of time in Rio, you’ll find Baile Funk (AKA Funk Carioca) hard to avoid – you might hear it being played at the beach, on the bus or pumping out of clubs and favelas on the weekends.

I’ve spent a fair amount of listening-time trying to get into this style of music but with a few exceptions I’ve found most of it sits somewhere between ‘underwhelming’ and ‘downright annoying‘. To me, Baile Funk sounds about as unfunky as you can get.

I’ve watched a couple of documentaries about DJs coming over from Europe and the US and championing Baile Funk (Favela On Blast) and I always wonder if the estrangeiros really understand what the lyrics are all about (common criticisms levelled at funk music is that the lyrics are misogynistic and encourage the sexualisation of young girls).

Well, help is at hand for the confused gringo wannabe funkeiro. A group calling themselves “Medley In Brazil” have been performing translated versions of popular Funk tracks and the results are pretty hilarious. First have a listen to the original as Avassaladores (Overwhelmers?) sing this self-effacing song of modesty and meekness, Sou Foda:

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Vinicius-de-Moraes

Vinícius de Moraes

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When I get to the end of my life, I hope I’ll be able to look back and say that I lived a little. I guess things are going pretty well so far – I’ve travelled more than most (and had scrapes and adventures along the way), I’ve had some interesting jobs and I’ve met a good number of weird and wonderful people.

But no matter how interesting my life turns out to be, I doubt I’ll come close to the subject of today’s post. This Brazilian was born in 1913 and died in 1980 and during his 66 years he worked as a diplomat, musician, composer, poet and playwright. He married 8 times, had 4 kids, wrote a play that was adapted into an Oscar winning film and was central to the development of a new and hugely successful style of music. Oh yeah, and he co-wrote the second most recorded pop song of all time.

In case you haven’t guess yet, I’m talking about this guy:

Vinicius-de-Moraes

Vinícius de Moraes – a man of many talents.

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