Brazilian Popular Music and Globalization
Songs of Olodum: Ethnicity, Activism, and Art in a Globalized Carnival Community
Piers Armstrong
The article explores lyrics of carnival songs of the bloco afro Olodum 1984 -1999. Three recurring images and key references identified are the words negro (black), Pelourinho (the central historic district which is home to the bloco), and Olodum (the name of the bloco). The article documents samples of eachinstance and discusses the metaphoric charges and other creative connotations associated with these motifs in the subjective approaches of lyricists.The key point of hermeneutic interest is in how thelyrics intertwine ethical, social, material and aesthetic concerns. The article further explores a poetically fertile paradox in the juxtapositions of traditional communitarian concerns and a (post)-modern,globalized eclecticism. Finally, within the context of popification or industrialization of Bahian carnival music, the article examines the lyrics for insights into the potential difference of interests between the trajectory of the lyricist in pursuit of an individual artist career,and group adscription based on the logic of subaltern, “ghetto” marginalization.
About the author: Piers Armstrong (Ph.D UCLA 1994) teaches in the Departament of Spanish and Portuguese at CSULA. (See a photo of the author, in a more musical setting foto)
