Tropicália: Sonic Resistance, Relationships, and Reframing

Laura Robinson

In 1964, the military dictatorship in Brazil seized political power and extended their domain to many facets of Brazilian society. In this context of repression, artists and musicians created the powerful yet short-lived cultural movement called Tropicália. This paper examines the sounds of the Tropicália in response to the call to remap sound studies to include sounds of the “South” issued by Gavin Steingo and Jim Sykes in their edited volume Remapping Sound Studies. Concerning the terms “South” and “North,” they critically probe conceptualizations of the South not only in terms of geography but also as implicit bias in power relations. Significantly, they argue against the use of the “South” as an oversimplified binary that is contrasted with framings of the conceptual “North.” Instead, they argue that the terms are fluid and indicate both “empirical categories” and “ideological constructs” (Steingo and Sykes 2019: 3). Taking issue with the hegemonic influences along multiple axes of power, Steingo and Sykes argue for the fundamental need to examine sounds from the South as constituting an important but often neglected genre in the large field of sound studies. To fill this need, they make three proposals for the remapping of a new cartography of sound theory. First, in terms of sounds’ relationship to technology, Steingo and Sykes urge for exploration of the constitution of culture through techniques made possible by technological innovation. Second, they argue for sonic studies to move in a relational direction to illuminate the relationship between listener and what is heard. Third, they encourage scholars to unpack the elements of sonic studies that reveal friction and antagonism, particularly in terms of social relations, a shift that moves the field beyond the perceptual qualities of sound toward the emotional and relational constructions of sounds as they are interpreted by listeners.

1. Tropicália as Sound of the South

2. Tropicália and Sound Studies

3. The Historical Context of Tropicália

4. Antropofagia: Cultural Cannibalization

5. Cannibalization as Critique and Creation

Tropicália and Sound Studies

Sound and music have been powerful forms of expression in Brazilian society and are central to Brazilians’ sense of cultural identity. Brazil’s contributions to musical and sound innovation are significant: from the globally recognized samba, bossa nova, and sertanejo, to axé, MPB, forró, etc. (Perrone 1987). In terms of sound, many of these genres incorporate syncretic sound innovations produced by instruments including the pandeiro, berimbau, atabaque, and agogo. Of these, two will figure prominently in this essay: the pandeiro and the berimbau. The pandeiro is a hand frame drum many consider to be the unofficial instrument of Brazil. The berimbau is a percussion instrument made of wood and a metal arame wire attached to a hollow gourd. These instruments produce sounds that are key to two seminal songs from the Tropicálista movement: “Tropicália” and “Domingo no Parque.”

Imported from Africa, (musical) sounds are integral to a longer tradition of resistance in Brazil.^[1] Capoeira, the Afro-Brasileiro martial art, relies on music and sounds created by instruments including the berimbau and pandeiro. The berimbau was added as a sonic overlay to capoeira, disguising it as a dance form in order to conceal its true purpose and force as a martial art. The berimbau also was used to generate different rhythms or toques that generated coded messages. For example, the rhythm “Cavalry” or “Cavalaría” was used as a sonic warning of the arrival of the mounted police.^[2] The unique sounds produced by the berimbau and pandeiro indicate the degree to which Brazilian music comprises many rich syncretic tapestries, many rooted in the African Diaspora. Brazil’s diverse population has produced a truly unique sonic heritage that inextricably links the power of sound to music and to resistance.

To experience the pandeiro and berimbau, listen to maestro Welington Moreira “Mestre Pimpa do Pandeiro” and the berimbau played by master musician Wilson das Neves.

Exploring resistance through Tropicália offers a window into power relations. Many of the (musical) sounds that are celebrated today in Brazil have their origin in Africa. Although they were initially marginalized by those in power in Brazil, through a process of resistance and reframing, today these sounds are iconic components of Brazilian identity. It is often impossible to dissociate sound, dance, and music in Brazilian culture; for example, samba refers to all three. While today samba is revered as one of Brazil’s national treasures, it was prohibited and excluded from public space until the release of “Pelo Telfone” (“On the Phone”) in the early 1900s.

Capoeira – the martial art that also unites sound, dance, and music – was outlawed in the 1880s by the newly established republic before rising back several decades later and becoming a point of Brazilian pride. Motivated by power relations rooted in race and class, this pattern is evident in other genres such as funk (also known as Carioca funk or Baile funk)^[3] that was prohibited and subsequently idealized. This cycle is evident across different sounds, genres, and cultural icons in Brazilian music including the genre Tropicália, which was also first reviled and later embraced.

Within this larger tradition, I will examine Tropicália as an expression of resistance to the military regime in Brazil that seized power in 1964. Given the increasing scholarly interest in sound as a potential vector of resistance, my research begins to fill this gap by examining pivotal works by legends Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. I will unpack the key songs “Tropicália” and “Domingo no Parque” (Sunday in the Park); each harnessed sonic innovations as a means of socio-political protest. The essay offers compelling evidence of how artists expressed resistance via the electric guitar, pandeiro, and berimbau. As these elements may not be familiar to all readers, I will provide a musical and historical context, and also discuss Tropicália’s theoretical underpinning of antropofagia or cultural cannibalism based on Oswald de Andrade’s 1928 Manifesto Antropófago.

Implicitly promulgating antropofagia, Tropicálistas resisted visions of Brazil promulgated by the military regime and dismantled cultural representations of Brazil in order to reconstruct them. The essay concludes by exploring how different audiences heard and interpreted these innovative sounds, in particular at the third Festival International de Canção (FIC, the International Festival of Song) in Brazil. At the FIC, the movement’s use of the electric guitar was met with extreme and violent reaction due to the audience’s interpretation of the instrument as a signifier of Anglophone cultural imperialism. By contrast, today the mélange of these sounds is heard as a uniquely Brazilian contribution to both world music and protest (Dunn 2016; Veloso 2013; Behague 1993).

Next: The Historical Context of Tropicália

“Tropicália” 6.

“Domingo no Parque” 7.

Sonic Innovation: Cannibalizing the Electric Guitar 8.

Synthesis of Sound as Resistance in Tropicália 9.

References 10.