When Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso—both from Bahia—moved to São Paulo in 1965 and were exposed to the burgeoning, heady arts scene there and in Rio de Janeiro, they developed the idea of creating an iconoclastic mixture of music in which everything would have its space. Luiz Gonzaga, the Beatles, João Gilberto, Chuck Berry, film director Jean-Luc Godard: everything would be cannibalized and put into the stew. Their lyrics would be sometimes poignant, other times surreal, always provocative.

In Tropicália, anything went: rock and samba, berimbaus and electronic instruments, folk music and urban noise, the erudite and the kitsch. There had been rock and roll in Brazil since the late 1950s, but this was the first time it was being mixed with native styles (and much else).

Tropicália was not only a musical phenomenon. It was an entire arts movement, which lasted roughly from 1967 to 1969. It manifested itself in music, theater, poetry, and the plastic arts. The word Tropicália came from a 1967 ambient-art piece by Hélio Oiticica. Some of the Tropicalistas’ ideas had precedents in the works of the Paulista poet Oswald de Andrade, who four decades earlier had created the concept of artistic cannibalism, which he discussed in his 1928 “Manifesto Antropofágico” (Cannibalistic Manifesto). Gil and Veloso took Andrade’s ideas to heart, devouring everything—national music and themes and imported cultural elements—and then re-elaborating it all “with autonomy,” as Andrade had urged. “Power to the imagination” and “down with [aesthetic] prejudice” were slogans that inspired Tropicália. Other musicians who participated in the movement included Júlio Medaglia (another classical conductor), Gal Costa, Torquato Neto, Os Mutantes, Capinam, and Tom Zé.
© Chris McGowan & Ricardo Pessanha 1991, 1998, 2008

Continued in...

The Brazilian Sound (U.S.)
Brazilian Sound (Canada)
Brazilian Sound (U.K.)
Brazilian Sound (Japan)
Brazilian Sound (Germany)

Also See:

Tropicália CDs

Gal Costa      Gilberto Gil     Rita Lee