The campo troupial was formally described in 1788 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae.

[2] Gmelin's text was based ultimately on the "Jamacaii" that had been described and illustrated in 1648 by the German naturalist Georg Marcgrave in his work Historia Naturalis Brasiliae.

Additional names used for this species in the 1800s include black-banded troupiale, soffre, and (erroneously) Jamaica yellow bird.

[10] The campo troupial is endemic to northeastern Brazil, where its area of occurrence is estimated to be over 2,000,000 square kilometres (770,000 sq mi).

[10] The diet consists of insects and other small invertebrates, fruits and nectar; one individual was found to have 126 fly larvae in its stomach.