Da lama ao caos

Chico Science and Nação Zumbi

album cover

The New Brazil Starts Here

In the loose-limbed grooves of this first album by Brazil's Chico Science and Nação Zumbi, there are trace elements of James Brown (the tightly coiled rhythm guitar threaded throughout), Black Sabbath (the power chords), the Gap Band (the thumping stop-and-go bass lines), Korn (the hip-hop–style shouted vocals), Jimi Hendrix (the piercing lead guitar of "Rios, Pontes & Overdrives"), and suave African pop (the continent-hopping "Samba makossa").

None of these are rip-offs. Like previous generations of Brazilian musicians, vocalist and songwriter Science (1966–1997) and his band assimilate all sorts of music, and spit it back in a way that leaves only hints of their sources. Informed (and aided) by collage-style hip-hop beat-making, the band came along in the early '90s, at the time U.S. rockers were fusing metal and hip-hop with great commercial success. Science's crew takes the amalgamation to more sophisticated, polyrhythmic places. (They're Brazilian, after all.)

Science called his particular blending of funk, hip-hop, and rhythms native to the Recife region "Mangue Beat," a reference to the mud flats of the area. It proved almost instantly infectious: Not even a year after it began playing live, Science's band inspired several other outfits (see Cascabulho, p. 149) and began to attract the attention of such heavyweights as Gilberto Gil. Fed up with edgeless bossa nova lite, Brazilian youth rallied around Caos, and Science's rapid-fire rhythm-assassin vocals.

Science was killed in a car accident shortly after finishing the group's second album, Afrociberdelia, which was released in 1996. Although Nação Zumbi continued without him, Science's shoes were impossible to fill.

Genre: World, Brazil
Released: 1994, Sony Brazil (International release, 1995)
Key Tracks: "Rios, Pontes & Overdrives," "Samba makossa," "A cidade," "Maracatu de tiro certeiro"
Catalog Choice: Afrociberdelia
Next Stop: Carlinos Brown: Omelette Man
After That: Cascabulho: Hunger Gives You a Headache
Book Page: 681