SERGIO MENDES / “What Is This?”
“The samba is our truth, our peculiarity, our gold medal, our faith, our Brasilian standard.” —Seu Jorge







In a country rich in rhythms and full of a variety of instruments, the pandeiro is considered the Brazilian national instrument and an icon of samba. The pandeiro is a tambourine with a head made of either animal (goat, calf) skin or plastic. The jingles have a drier sound than most American tambourines. It comes in various sizes, from 8" to 16" across. The most common sizes are 10", 11" and 12". Although the pandeiro is most commonly associated with samba, it is also used in almost all other Brazilian rhythms and music, including rock, funk and pop.There is, of course, a whole more Brazilian music to explore. In due time we will get to it. To be continued.... —Kalamu ya Salaam Part of the family That Carmen Alice tune is one of my favorites too. It's the kind of record that grabs people right away. The moment you put it on, people stop whatever they're doing like, "What is this?" So I guess Carmen named the song right. It kind of reminds me of the Susana Baca moment from last week too: I love it when rhythmists of different cultures make a nod to hip-hop. It makes me feel like we're part of the family. Anyway, the liner notes to the Brasiliero CD gives quite a few details regarding both Carmen and her crew. —Mtume ya Salaam
Do you have notes I don't have?
Mtume, the notes in my CD say absolutely nothing about Carmen per se except that she is from Candial, a neighborhood in the city of Salvador, which is the major city of Bahia state in Brazil. The rest is Sergio's take on what Carmen was doing, I quote: "In Bahia, they hear everything — rap, reggae, meregue — and adapt it. Carmen's song is so raw and pure, I thought the simplicity and purity of it were really interesting. It's very Bahian." I'm still looking for the details. Anybody out there have any further info. And for sure if anyone out there has info about a recording or actually has a CD, a tape, a vinyl release, an MP3, whatever, in the immortal words of our dear Godfather, if you got it "please, please, please... please" hit a brother up!
—Kalamu ya Salaam
A few more details No, we have the same info. You about covered it. Although they do mention a few more details about Vai Quem Vem, "the stand-out 15-member Bahian percussion group" that Carmen belongs to. One note says, "The rap rhythms [are] played on surdos, berimbau, and other Brazilian instruments." I suspect that you'll never find any other info about Carmen because she isn't a solo musician; she's a member of Vai Quem Vem. Listening to "What Is This?," you can tell Carmen isn't a rapper or singer. She just happened to write a good tune and Sergio and Co. helped her to record it. The chances are very good that she's never recorded anything else. —Mtume ya SalaamThis entry was posted on Sunday, July 2nd, 2006 at 12:25 am and is filed under Contemporary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
3 Responses to “SERGIO MENDES / “What Is This?””
July 2nd, 2006 at 11:44 am
You are the second person this week to blog about this CD! The other person introduced me to Magalenha y Mas Que Nada (ft. the B.E.P.) Apparently, he is getting a new generation of listeners from the new interest in dance through movies like “Dance With Me” and shows like “So You Think you can Dance” and others.
July 3rd, 2006 at 2:35 pm
Just a minor correction, the Forro in the Dark(feat. Seu Jorge) mix is Suor de Pele Fina (Zeb’s Forrotone Mix)
kalamu sez
thanks much for the correction. do you have any further info on the track?
July 3rd, 2006 at 5:03 pm
There is a nice EP with the orignal and some remixes, I found it online at both emusic and itunes. The best information was here –
http://www.djouls.com/index.php/forro-in-the-dark-feat-seu-jorge-suor-de-pele-fina-mawglee-s-broken-remix
and here:
http://www.forrointhedark.com/about.html
Love the site by the way, I grew up in Mandeville long ago. Its good to hear voices from back home.
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