(This essay was republished in an abbreviated form by the Latin American Bureau. Many thanks to them for helping to draw attention to this issue.)
The vibrant street culture and ubiquity of live music is an obvious first impression made on any visitor to Brazil. Samba on the sidewalks of Rio or capoeira in Salvador are common sights and sounds, and not just staged for the tourists: they have also formed a part of social life there for generations. Maracatu de baque solto (sometimes called “rural” maracatu) is less widely known, in part because it exists only in the coastal sugar-producing region of Pernambuco north of the city of Recife. Although it has a strong carnival tradition, its backbone is really the all-night performances that emphasize the poetic prowess of its singers through their mostly improvised verse. These events include the sambadas or contests of intense verbal sparring, a battle of wits and wordplay between two established singer-poets from different maracatu groups, as well as looser, more open “rehearsals” (or ensaios) held once or twice a year by a given group in the neighborhood they call home, when visiting singers are also called upon by the hosts to display their skill throughout the night. The instrumentation is made up of brass and percussion played at a breathtaking pace, but which careens to a halt every time the singer signals that he is ready to launch into complicated stanzas of a cappella sung verse, performed within a demanding structure of rhyme and meter for a discerning audience, fanatics attentive to every detail, ready to howl with derision if a singer slips up. A sambada contest traditionally ends only at the break of dawn, the first rays of the sun revealing which mestre has emerged victorious. These unique events only occur on Saturday nights beginning in the traditional sugar harvest month of September and continue until carnival, at which point the groups take a long break before slowly beginning the cycle all over again.
