Afropop Worldwide Folgen

Jorge Ben Jor first began to experiment with fusions of samba, bossa nova, rhythm ‘n’ blues and soul in the early 1960s. Together with Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, he participated in the watershed cultural movement, Tropicália, in the late 1960s. In the 1970s, he further explored Afro-Brazilian history and culture in a series of popular albums that have since become key points of reference for a contemporary neo-soul movement. Jorge Benjor continues to be an active presence in Brazilian popular music. He grants us a rare interview to tell his story. The program is produced by Sean Barlow and co-produced with Christopher Dunn, author of Brutality Garden: Tropicália and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture (University of North Carolina Press, 2001) as part of Afropop Worldwide’s “Hip Deep” series

On one stretch of Nostrand Avenue in Flatbush, Brooklyn, there’s a Haitian radio station on every block—Radio Soleil, Radyo Panou, Radio Triomphe—each broadcasting the sounds of Kreyol conversations and konpa music. Haitian immigrants have brought a deep love of radio from their native land, where a strong oral culture, high illiteracy rates, and poor infrastructure have made radio the media of the masses—even in diaspora. Produced and hosted by Ian Coss. [Distributed 8/9/2016]

In part one of our 2012 Hip Deep Brazil series, we travel back in time to Rio de Janeiro in the early 20th century to explore the birth of Brazil’s most iconic sound: samba. Beginning with the arrival of poor nordestinos in the city after the end of slavery in 1888, we follow the exploits of the early sambistas as they forged the genre that would come to represent the nation. Brazilian scholar Carlos Sandroni shows us how Afro-Brazilian religious music and popular styles like modinha transformed into the syncopated samba beat. Then, media scholar Bryan McCann guides us through the glamor and political intrigue of 1930s Rio as samba explodes as the popular music of choice throughout the country. We speak with samba greats from the old guard to the young bloods, including Dona Yvone Lara, Heitorzinho dos Prazeres, Paulão 7-Cordas and Luciana Rabelo. In closing, we find out how samba, an ambitious radio station and a populist dictatorship worked together to shape Brazilians’ ideas about race, society and the Brazilian nation itself