Brazil Music Essay

Born on the northeastern coast of Salvador, Bahia—an area that harbored the most slaves from Africa to its main slave port in Salvador—Africans came and left a legacy of African culture such as Candomblé, samba, and music. Brazilian music has always played a big role in the culture. Music in Brazil is a ‘national passion. (BBC docu.) The music composed in Brazil was used to build its national identity and also produce unity among Brazilians. As mentioned in the Brazilian Sound, samba is comfort, celebration, escape and abandon, but also samba represents a culture, philosophy, and a tradition for Brazilians. The roots of samba some say to have derived from Angola, from the Kimbundu word “semba” referring to the “umbigada” also known as the “invitation to the dance”, though some argue that lundu was the musical parent of samba. Others imagine that an original samba style was brought to Rio de Janeiro from Bahia hundreds of years ago. Since the late nineteenth century slaves and former slaves left from Bahia to Rio de Janeiro, the nation’s capital at the time, as a result of
Its huge success created a bridge and brought the music outside of the black community and on the local people. In efforts to integrate the dance and the music into the native culture, they set up samba schools or escolar de samba in various areas in the community. The school was usually run by large dance groups and samba performers in hopes of the community's acceptance of the music. Ismael Silva established the very first escolar de samba or samba school, which he named Deixa Falar. Ismael purposely changed the beat of the music to make it fit the carnival atmosphere in Rio, which was a very popular and common event in the Brazil. Samba musicians then took part in carnival parade but with strict rules. Samba schools would have to pick a theme that taught a history lesson of