How African are the Afro-Sambas?

The Afro-sambas, it can be seen, are dense with references to Umbanda and Candomblé. Their lyrics and rhythms are steeped in Afro-Brazilian culture. But how authentic are they? How deeply rooted are they in the culture they invoke?

Neither Vinicius, an Oxford-educated diplomat, nor Baden Powell (named after the founder of the boy scout movement), were from the Afro-Brazilian end of the racial-cultural spectrum in Brazil. Neither had much prior knowledge of the African heritage of their country. At the time of composition both of them had spent more of their lives in Europe than they had in Salvador da Bahia (though Baden Powell spent increasing amounts of time in Salvador as the 1960s progressed).

In Vinicius’ own account of their composition, he wrote:

Baden’s musical antennae, which extended to Bahia and, in a final stretch, as far as Africa, made it possible for him to put together this new syncretism, adding a “carioca” [Rio de Janeiro] flavour, in the spirit of modern samba, to Afro-Brazilian Candomblé, giving it a more universal dimension.

Their compositions incorporate rhythmic and lyrical motifs from Afro-Brazilian religious performances, but these are not songs that would form part of such a performance. So the Afro-sambas are not to be taken as part of a sacred hymnody. Nevertheless, in the continual hybridization of Brazilian culture, where elements from Africa and Europe, from high culture and popular culture, commingle endlessly, they have their place. In them the dignity of Afro-Brazilian religion is preserved—not simply as folklore but as a living system of belief.

With their use of the esoteric vocabulary and rhythms of Afro-Brazilian religion, the Afro-Sambas are not only songs about the orishas and other spirits; they are invocations of them. They are genuinely devotional songs, building, in some cases, on existing chants and phrases taken from Umbanda liturgy. As religiously-inspired popular music they may be compared with the spirituals and gospel songs of the North American tradition, or with Rastafarian-inspired Jamaican reggae.

If there is any remaining doubt about the authenticity of the Afro-Sambas it is resolved in the performances on this recording. Virginia Rodrigues is a black Brazilian from Bahia, from the heart of the culture that Vinicius and Baden Powell drew on. Her performance gives these songs a heightened dignity, not simply because of the remarkable gravity and resonance of her voice, but because the orisha tradition is central to the milieu she was born and raised in. In her rendering the Afro-Sambas have been brought back to the place from which they drew their inspiration.

Capoeira and berimbau

The present recording includes all of the eight Afro sambas originally written and recorded by Vinicius and Baden Powell. Four additional songs from the same era have been added, most of them in the same, Afro-Brazilian, vein. Three of these—“Berimbau”, “Labareda” and “Consolation” (“Consolacão”)—were also written by Vinicius and Baden Powell; one of them (“Lapinha”) was written by Baden Powell with another collaborator, Paulo César Pinheiro.

“Lapinha” and “Berimbau” concern themselves with a further expression of Afro-Brazilian cultural tradition: capoeira, the arrestingly graceful martial art that has spread in recent years from Brazil to the cities of Europe and North America.  “Lapinha” is based on a traditional capoeira chant; the subject of the song is a celebrated nineteenth-century Bahian capoeirista named Besouro (“Beetle”) Mangangá, who is also known as Cordão de Ouro (“Golden Cord”). Like many capoeristas of the era, Besouro lived on the wrong side of the law; he met his end, as mentioned in the song, stabbed to death by police in Salvador. Lapinha, the title of the song, is the name of a district in the city.

The berimbau—the title of another of the songs—is the key instrument of capoeira: a single-stringed bow-harp with a gourd resonator that accompanies and structures all performances. The distinctive rustle and drone of the berimbau, actual or simulated on the guitar, can be heard in the accompaniment to this and other tracks on the recording.

Vinicius’ and Baden Powell’s afro-sambas have been recorded numerous times (twice by Baden Powell himself), but there has never been a version like this. Virginia Rodrigues’ arresting voice and the spare but sure musical arrangements that surround it reveal the enduring elegance and power in the songs, whether it is the stately melancholic strain manifested in “Yemanja”, or the explosion of samba heard in “Lapinha” or “Black Rock’s Song”. Four decades after their composition, the Afro-Sambas, and other songs recorded here, have received their most authoritative interpretation yet. Here, in Virginia Rodrigues’ performance, it can be said, they have finally come home. ★