Brazilian Popular Music and Globalization
Turned-Around Beat: Maracatu de baque virado and Chico Science
Larry Crook
The maracatu was incorporated into the carnival celebration of Recife as its most “African” element. With the international success of the Afro-Bahian carnival music in the 1980s and 1990s, traditional maracatu groups were also revitalized and new formations emerged. Additionally, a new generation of popular musicians in Recife– notably Chico Science and Nação Zumbi– updated the maracatu and connected it to global youth culture via a movement dubbed movimento mangue. This essay examines how international exposure for maracatu groups and the creative energy of the movimento mangue have helped to construct a contemporary aesthetic identity for maracatu that is relevant to youth, and particularly black youth, in the state of Pernambuco.
About the author: Larry Crook is Professor Emeritus of Ethnomusicology; he was an affiliate of the Center for Latin American Studies, and co-director of the Center for World Arts at the University of Florida. 2020.