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ARTS CULTURE EQUALITY FEMINISM FOOTBALL MUSIC RACIAL EQUALITY

Brazil mourns the loss of Elza Soares

With a career that spanned nearly 70 years and 34 albums, Brazil’s beloved singer and activist passed away peacefully at the age of 91 by Brian Mier In 1953, a young woman appeared at an amateur singing competition in the auditorium of a Rio de Janeiro radio show. Her borrowed clothes, too big for her, […]

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ARTS CULTURE MUSIC SÃO PAULO

São Paulo artist NegoVila shot dead by off-duty Police

Beco de Batman, the São Paulo alley that is world famous for its graffiti art, has been painted completely black in mourning over the police murder of popular local artist and cultural icon NegoVila Madalena. By Caê Vasconcelos | Ponte Jornalismo. Last Sunday, the Vila Madalena neighborhood on São Paulo’s west side awoke in mourning. The famous […]

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64-85 DICTATORSHIP ARTS CULTURE HISTORY MUSIC UNDERSTANDING BRASIL UNITED STATES

Bossa Nova, Modernity and Empire

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ARTS CULTURE MUSIC UNDERSTANDING BRASIL

João Gilberto, Bossa Nova pioneer, has died

João Gilberto, native of Bahia and pioneer of Bossa Nova, which put Brazilian popular music on record players in homes across the planet during the 1960s, has died aged 88 in his adopted Rio de Janeiro. His cultural importance to Brazil, and indeed the world, is immeasurable. We cannot think of a better tribute than […]

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ARTS CULTURE MUSIC

Akira S e as Garotas Que Erraram: Tropical Art Punk from the Girls Who Fucked Up

Acclaimed music theorist and renowned author, Simon Reynolds pointed out in his article on the subject in The Village Voice, that the constant mining of Post-Punk during the noughties left slim pickings and the archivists had to go further afield to find lost and undocumented curios. The smart money would have gone to another European […]

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ARTS CULTURE HISTORY MUSIC

Musica Caipira: From The Backwoods To The Rodeo

By Andrew Cumming. Rio has Baile funk, Salvador has Axé, Belem and the Amazon have Brega, but what does the vast interior of Brazil have? That huge expanse of outback that takes in the states of Goias, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, and Minas Gerais? It has Sertanejo, which is basically Brazil’s own Country […]

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ARTS DEMOCRACY INTERVIEW

An interview with Carlos Latuff

Carlos Latuff is one of the World’s most famous political cartoonists. Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1968, he published his first political cartoon in a Longshoremen’s Union newspaper in 1989 and continues drawing cartoons for unions to this day. As the internet gained force during the 1990s, he began drawing cartoons  in solidarity with […]

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ARTS CULTURE SÃO PAULO VIDEO

Kobra

Chances are you have passed by one of Eduardo Kobra’s street art murals. His kaleidoscope style images have transformed city walls and sidewalks across the globe into colourful sights that pay homage to some of the world’s most influential figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Dalai Lama. But, in his native city of São […]

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ARTS CULTURE ESSAY UNDERSTANDING BRASIL

Portinari – A Portrait of Populism

In 1947, the Brazilian artist Candido Portinari gave a talk at the Centro de Estudiantes de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires called ‘The social meaning of art.’ The environment was relaxed, with young people clustering around eagerly to hear him speak; later Portinari would refer to the event as a ‘conversation among friends’. Addressing the crowd, […]

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ARTS CITIES CULTURE SÃO PAULO SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Reclaiming the Jungle

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