Caetano Veloso at the Barbican: The exile who sparked Brazil's tropicalia revolution

Seminal: Caetano Veloso, the founding father of tropicalia, performs at the Rio Carnival in Sambodromo
Getty Images
Jochan Embley13 July 2018

On a December morning in Sao Paulo, 1968, musician Caetano Veloso walked into his living room and found a group of military policeman waiting to arrest him.

It was the climax of a sharp, short-lived feud between a dictatorship and a movement – led by Veloso – of fierce artistic innovation that, despite being all but finished within a year or so, would unalterably shape Brazilian music.

He spent the next six months imprisoned, first in solitary confinement and then under house arrest. Weeks after being released, he was exiled from Brazil.

In the mid-to-late 1960s, Brazil was in a state of authoritarian flux. Its democratically elected president had fallen victim to a US-backed military coup in 1964 and was supplanted by military rule, led by the army general Humberto Castelo Branco. He surged on a populist policy of economic reform while beginning a crackdown on dissent – first purging the political class and then censoring the artistic community.

As the government’s vice started to tighten on the country, some of its musicians started to move in unfamiliar ways. Up until that point, popular music in the country had been dominated by musica popular brasileira (Portuguese for “popular Brazilian music”, known as MPB), a softly melodic samba sound. But, spurred on by Veloso and fellow visionaries such as Gilberto Gil and Gal Costa, something new swiftly emerged; something abrasive, bold and unsettling. The movement, driven by music but drawing in strands of poetry, theatre and art, became known as tropicalia.

Veloso’s self-titled album, his second studio release, came out in 1968 and is widely credited with sparking the genre. It’s a disorienting, intoxicating record; a dizzying haze of bossa nova, woozy psychedelia and jittering funk, ignited by a rock n’ roll fire that simply hadn’t been present anywhere else in Brazilian music before it.

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It emboldened a community of musicians to explore untrodden territories: Gil’s self-titled album was similarly shocking and frenetic, even featuring the electric guitars – a radical inclusion at the time. Os Mutantes’ first album, self-titled, sounded like a peculiar Brazilian cross between the Beatles and the Beach Boys, spookily psychedelic and unashamedly rocking. Tom Ze’s debut Grande Liquidacao was idiosyncratic and confusing, bursting with blinding colour. These albums were all released within months of each other in 1968.

The sudden seismic shift in Brazil’s cultural landscape was of great concern to the government. Led by the new hardline president Artur da Costa e Silva, Institutional Act No 5 was brought into effect, a sinister piece of legislation that swiftly eroded freedoms in the country. It eliminated habeas corpus for politically charged crimes and wrote official censorship into law. Artists would have to send lyrics off to be checked and amended and often they would return “mutilated”, as Ze later put it. Sometimes the cryptic anti-authority symbolism that had come to characterise the lyrics of tropicalia did manage to slip through, however.

Game-changer: Caetano Veloso performing in France in 2016
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It wasn’t just ruling elite who were enraged by tropicalia and in particular Veloso. The country’s Marxist youth hated his music, seeing it as an abandonment of traditional Brazilian values and a fetishisation of sounds from America and the UK (and the fact that the CIA helped enact the 1964 coup only exacerbated things). The radical stage performances were a source of moral alarm, too – his bombastic outfits were an assault on the eyes and his demeanour was scandalously amorous.

The burst of tension and hysteria was only going to end one way: Veloso, along with Gil and various other artists, were put away on flimsy charges of subversion, effectively eradicating tropicalia. After Veloso and Gil’s release in 1969, they were ordered to leave the country, a darkly comical irony arising when authorities allowed them to play a concert in order to fund their plane tickets.

Veloso landed in London, where he stayed until 1972. It broadened his musical horizons, exposing him to the whirlwind of sound and invention that was sweeping through the city. He would take it all back to Brazil and then – along with many of his tropicalia peers who had taken inspiration from the fleeting movement and carried it into new realms – became one of the biggest and most celebrated musicians the country has ever produced.

On July 10, Veloso returns to his place of exile to play the Barbican in support of his most recent album, Ofertorio. Ahead of that, we’ve rounded up the tracks that serve as an introduction to the game-changing sound he helped create.

Tropicalia: An introduction in 10 tracks

1. Tropicalia – Caetano Veloso

Swirling strings, chaotic percussion and a rasping Brazilian voice herald the dawn of tropicalia. The song is a manifesto, a statement of intent and an absolute romp.

2. Domingo no Parque – Gilberto Gil

The closing track on Gil’s second studio album is a sunny-sounding delight, but the lyrics tell the story of a double murder, typifying the contradictions and confusions that made tropicalia so exciting. The arrangement is by Rogerio Duprat, a seminal composer of the movement.

3. A Minha Menina – Os Mutantes

That fuzzy, overdriven descending guitar line that comes in after 14 seconds was the noise that sent shockwaves through Brazilian music. Os Mutantes would go on to become one of South America’s all-time great rock bands.

4. Nao Identificado – Gal Costa

Gal Costa was tropicalia’s leading female voice. This song, written by Veloso, showed how her heavenly vocal could be twisted into an avant-garde squeal.

5. Sao Sao Paulo – Tom Ze

A twisted ode to the pain and joy that Sao Paulo heaped upon Ze, a hugely influential tropicalia musician who would nevertheless fade into obscurity for decades. The music is a parade of boisterous horns and funk.

6. Baby – Gal Costa

English lyrics weren’t all that common in tropicalia, but they’re featured in this luscious pop ballad from Costa (if only for a chorus). Os Mutantes also recorded an altogether more experimental version.

7. Brasil Pandeiro – Novos Baiaonos

Acabou Chorare is one of the finest Brazilian records ever released and, arriving in 1972, it was hugely indebted to tropicalia before it. Brasil Pandeiro is a particular high point of the album, a jaunty celebration of the country’s music fuelled by a desire for the world to know about it.

8. Bat Macumba – Gilberto Gil

This song is strongly flavoured by the African rhythms that poured into tropicalia’s sound. An alternative version appeared on Os Mutantes’ debut album.

9. Marinheiro So – Caetano Veloso

A blazing rock ‘n’ roll remake of a traditional capoeira song – exactly the kind of thing that enraged the country’s traditionalists.

10. Pais Tropical – Jorge Ben

Jorge Ben Jor, originally known just as Jorge Ben, would go on to become an Brazilian icon. This was one of his first major hits. Released in 1969, it was heavily inspired by tropicalia.

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