Tropicália Ever After

Cover artwork of 1967 album by Caetano Veloso, one of the movement's founding fathers

Brazilian music after 1968′s Tropicalismo explosion by Joseph Pasztak

Brazil has been a fantastic breeding ground for many diverse and influential styles of music. Samba, bossa nova and Brazilian roots all emerged from the country. But it was not only a genre of music but a movement which encompassed various forms of expression including art, film, theatre and poetry, which stood out the most.

Tropicália (or tropicalismo) was established in the 60s by a plethora of talented Brazilian artists including Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Os Mutantes, Tom Zé, Torquato Neto, Gal Costa and Rogério Duprat. They would often perform on each other’s music as guests and in 1968 a majority of them joined together to record an LP. Tropicália: Ou Panis et Circencis has since become one of the most important albums in Brazil’s musical history. But in spite of this, Tropicália lasted only a little over a year before it was subsequently banned.

Every country in South and Central America has at some point been subject to a coup d’état, where a military government is usually placed in charge and civil liberties are slowly eroded away. When this happened in Brazil, a little over 40 years ago, freedom of speech was remembered as a mere memory and artists were sometimes put on trial, exiled or murdered on a whim. The country spent three years suffering under a CIA-backed dictatorship but during this time the most wonderful protest music crept out, distributed on whatever format could be made available. The risks involved in the possession of this music were grave. The owners and sellers of records faced imprisonment, torture or even death. If this was a possibility for simply owning the music then those who were caught creating it would bear the brunt of the punishment. And that is exactly what happened to the founders of Tropicália.

Gilberto Gil was recently known as the Minister of Culture for Brazil (2003-2008), but during the Tropicália era, Gil along with his long-time friend Caetano Veloso were arrested and told to leave Brazil after the thinly-veiled social and political commentary was discovered in their material. They spent three years living in exile in London, a distant land from their home country in political terms. Their friend, Torquato Neto, a poet and lyricist who collaborated with Gil and Gal Costa amongst others, briefly travelled around Europe and the United States with his wife after his friends were sent into exiled. On his return to Brazil he was forced into a “psychiatric care” unit (quotation marks dripping with sarcasm) and later committed suicide. Even former Os Mutantes singer Rita Lee couldn’t escape persecution from her association with Tropicália. She was victimised by the police, charged with possession of marijuana and later held under house arrest for one year. Although at the time their music was deemed as ‘pop’, in reality it was so much more.

But what happened after Tropicália movement when the news of its creators reached the ears of the artists who remained under the rule of the military? A previously-known style of music known as MPB (Musica Popular Brasiliera) was given a second wind and would go on to become the mainstream form of music for the coming years. Those who recorded were now unable to speak against their rulers, and to ensure the opportunity never arose: all new music was subjected to state censorship and up to two-thirds of music was banned. Influenced by the founders of Tropicália, the youth continued to oppose the government by moving away from the sprawling cities to less populated country areas, growing their hair, taking drugs and listening to rock’n’roll. Before long, Brazil had a flourishing underground scene, which cultivated traditional Brazilian roots music with British and American psychedelia and rock.

Aside from Tropicália: Ou Panis et Circencis, other essential Tropicália records include Gilberto Gil’s eponymous album, Caetano Veloso and Os Mutantes’ first three-offerings respectively. These albums left a lasting impression not only on Brazilian culture but in western musical circles too.

Kurt Cobain personally wrote to Os Mutantes bassist, Arnaldo Baptista, requesting a reunion tour – thirteen years before it would eventually happen. Beck also paid tribute to Os Mutantes by releasing the track ‘Tropicália’ on his Mutations LP. David Byrne had been a long-time fan of Brazilian music and began to release compilations and albums on his own label, Luaka Bop, as far back as the late 80s, which continues to release albums by artists such as Tom Zé to this day. With the internet it’s easy to find archive footage of Tropicália artists such as Gilberto Gil and Os Mutantes performing Gil’s ‘Domingo No Parque’ (Sunday in the Park). The track is widely regarded as one of the greatest Tropicália songs with its Beatles-like brass sections and attacking orchestration.

Rita Lee commented on Os Mutantes’ involvement with the movement in an interview with label Luaka Bop, “I would say that Os Mutantes gave the Tropicália movement a new expansion by using electronic instruments for the first time in the Brazilian music panorama without even worrying about prejudice, facing this struggle like clowns in the middle of the reactionaries. By doing so, we’ve caught much more attention to the powerful and beautiful lyrics, to the strong and daring messages of the Tropicália movement.”

Aside from regular Luaka Bop releases, London-based Soul Jazz Records has released several compilations of influential Brazilian music, including the 2007 album Brazil 70: After Tropicalia – New Directions In Brazilian Music in the 1970s. As well as featuring the founding members of Tropicália, the compilation draws from a wealth of talented newer artists including Novos Baianos, Raul Seixas and Secos e Molhados, amongst others and offers a fascinating insight into the recordings which existed under the oppression of the government.