Tropicália
Tropicália (Portuguese pronunciation: [tɾopiˈkaʎɐ, tɾɔpiˈkaljɐ]), also known as tropicalismo ([tɾopikɐˈlizmu, tɾɔpikaˈ-]), was a Brazilian artistic movement that arose in the late 1960s.
[2] Today, tropicália is chiefly associated with the musical faction of the movement, which merged Brazilian and African rhythms with British and American psychedelia and pop rock.
[4] The movement was begun by a group of musicians from Bahia notably Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Tom Zé, and the poet-lyricist Torquato Neto.
The tropicália movement came to fruition at a time when Brazil's military dictatorship and left-wing ideas held distinct but prominent amounts of power simultaneously.
The tropicalists' rejection of both sides' version of nationalism (the military's conservative patriotism and the ineffectual bourgeois anti-imperialism) was met with criticism and harassment.
[2] A dominant principle of tropicália was antropofagia, a type of cultural "cannibalism" that encouraged the consumption of disparate influences, both temporal and geographic, as well as categorical, out of which could be created something uniquely Brazilian.
[citation needed] According to Maya Jaggi, "Gil was partly inspired by Jorge Ben Jor, a Rio musician on the fringes of the movement, who mixed urban samba and bossa nova with rhythm and blues, soul and funk.
"[6] The anarchistic, anti-authoritarian musical and lyrical expressions of the tropicalistas soon made them a target of censorship and repression by the military junta that ruled Brazil in this period, as did the fact some of the collective, including Veloso and Gil, also actively participated in anti-government demonstrations.
Veloso had won a major song prize at the previous year's festival, when he was backed by an Argentinian rock band, and although his unconventional performance caused some initial consternation, he managed to win over the crowd and was feted as a new star of Brazilian popular music.
By late 1968, however, Veloso was fully immersed in the tropicalia experiment, and his performances, which were expressly intended as provocative art "happenings", caused a near-riot.
The ensemble launched into a barrage of psychedelic music, played at high volume, and Veloso further outraged the students with his overtly sexual stage movements.
The crowd reacted angrily, shouting abuse at the performers and booing loudly, and their fury was only exacerbated by the surprise appearance of an American pop singer, John Dandurand, who joined Veloso on stage and grunted incoherently into the microphone.
After such a powerful negative reaction, Veloso was unsure whether to appear in the second round on 15 September, but his manager convinced him to go on, and this chaotic performance was recorded live and later released as a single.
In 1968, tropicália events at clubs, music festivals, and television shows attracted media attention and aroused tension between Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil and their critics.
Near the end of 1968, tropicália experienced a shift to a more overt association with international countercultures and movements, most notably that of African-American Black Power in the United States.
On December 27, 1968, at the peak of government repression, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil were arrested, detained, and exiled to London for two and a half years.
[2] Modern critic Roberto Schwarz addresses tropicália's hand in solidifying the idea of the absurd as a permanent evil of Brazil, and its issues with an ideological mentality.
[2] Tropicalismo has been cited as an influence by rock musicians such as David Byrne, Beck, the Bird and the Bee, Arto Lindsay, Devendra Banhart, El Guincho, Of Montreal, and Nelly Furtado.
In spite of the falling-outs and violence, there is a permanence of tradition in Oswald's antropofagia, who at one point of time conflicted with the idea of Romantic Indianism of the nineteenth century.
The 1999 compilation Tropicália Essentials, featuring songs by Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Tom Zé, and Os Mutantes, is an introduction to the style.
[16] A 2012 documentary film, Tropicália, was made on the subject and artists in general; directed by Brazilian filmmaker Marcelo Machado, where Fernando Meirelles served as one of its executive producers.
