A ‘Brazilian James Brown’ In the Land of Samba Music | Okayafrica
A ‘Brazilian James Brown’ In the Land of Samba Music
50 TONS DE PRETO – Hyldon (Lyric Video)
Because Combo was a choreographer involved with the rock scene, it’s not suprising that rock music influenced his first recordings. “His debut as a singer was strongly marked by the aesthetics of the Jovem Guarda music,” explains Combo’s last manager, Ronaldo Pereira, referring to the Brazilian musical movement inspired by young rock icons from the US and UK, like The Beatles. Having worked with Combo since 2009, Pereira also believes that Combo’s brother Getúlio, “who was more of a rock composer, was also a big reference in his early productions.” Getúlio, indeed, composed one of the most famous Jovem Guarda songs: “Negro Gato” (Black Cat), a 1966 anthem for the rock-fan youth.
The “conversion” of Gerson Côrtes to the “King of Soul” Gerson King Combo (an allusion to the American band King Curtis Combo) happened somewhere in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As Gerson affirmed to a Brazilian TV show a few weeks before he died, he was in the United States, working as a crooner for the singer Wilson Simonal, when he first heard Martin Luther King‘s “I Have a Dream” speech—which, in Combo’s words, felt “like a punch.” While King’s words inspired Simonal to release the powerful “Tributo a Martin Luther King” in 1967, the minister’s non-violence philosophy was, ten years later, incorporated into the most iconic song that Combo has ever created: “Mandamentos Black” (“Black Commandments”).
Talking directly to the Brazilian black youth, the album Gerson King Combo (1977) is considered one of the “bibles” of Brazilian soul music. Singing about black pride, self-love, and freedom in tracks like the above-mentioned “Mandamentos Black,” but also “Hereditariedade” (“Heredity”), and “Esse é o Nosso Black Brother” (“This is Our Black Brother”), Combo “managed to get heard by this audience, who was in ecstasy with American black music. In a very ludic way, he brought up an empowering and positive speech for this audience,” affirmed Luiz Felipe Gaoners, journalist and co-author of 1976 – O Movimento Black Rio, a book on the movement that celebrated the black music culture with parties in Rio de Janeiro.
Though little-heard-of, Black Rio was an impressive cultural phenomenon that started in Rio, but rapidly spread to São Paulo and Salvador. What began as small and amateur gatherings soon turned into massive black music parties, marked by ostensive sound systems and diversified audiences of up to 30,000 people. As Brazil’s contemporary black music owes extensively to Black Rio, the fundamental contribution of Combo to this movement also deserves attention.
More than a regular performer at Black Rio events, Combo brought Portuguese-language songs to a scene dominated by English lyrics. Hyldon recalls: “The Black Rio balls only played the American songs, but no one understood it. So we started to compose soul music in Portuguese. “By singing the black pride in his native language, Combo also helped raise awareness on race issues among the (predominantly black) audience of Black Rio.
But a repressive military regime ruled Brazil during Black Rio’s most shining years. As a movement openly standing for black pride, Black Rio was watched closely by Brazil’s surveillance organs. Even though peace and respect predominated in Black Rio’s events, the regime classified the movement as dangerous: it could ignite a racial revolution in the country at any time. Because it was concerned with a broader notion of ‘black identity’ (one connecting diverse black experiences across the globe), Black Rio was also suspicious of being a Black Panther cell in Brazil. Its main leader? None other than King Combo, according to supporters of the regime.
Despite the black pride message of his lyrics, Gerson couldn’t be less engaged with conventional political activism: “I didn’t even know what was right-wing and left-wing. All I wanted to do was music,” he affirmed in his last interview. The Brazilian left-wing, by the way, considered Brazilian soul music “alienated.” According to left-wingers, Black Rio was leaving Brazil’s authentic music culture aside in the name of “imperialist America’s music.”
Black Rio didn’t stay silent. One of the most resonating answers came in 1976 from Dom Filó, a music producer and manager of Soul Grand Prix, one of Black Rio’s biggest sound system teams: “Why is it so naturally accepted that the affluent youth wear jeans, dance to rock music, and revere Mick Jagger, while the black youth from the outskirts cannot wear colorfully, dance to soul music and revere James Brown? Why does the black person have to be the stronghold of Brazil’s music purity?,” he told the Brazilian magazine Veja in November that year.
Hyldon agrees with Dom Filó’s 1976 statement: “If you think this way, Bossa Nova should also be revisited—it is inspired by jazz music, which is from the United States.” In “Jingle Black” (1977), Combo also reacts, sarcastically referring to samba musicians who criticized Black Rio (like the composer Candeia) as the “Robin Hood of Samba.”
Like Combo, most Black Rio characters didn’t engage with conventional political activism, nor did they want to. But this doesn’t mean Black Rio didn’t connect with political activism in creative ways. As Luciana Xavier, author of A Cena Musical da Black Rio (The Musical Scene of Black Rio), puts it, the race consciousness strategies of Black Rio manifested through leisure and entertainment—the promotion of beauty contests that celebrated the Afro-Brazilian features, for example. These were strategies that went beyond conventional political-pedagogical participation.
Coupled with systematic police repression from dictatorship times, the growing influence of pop-rock and disco music in Brazil led to the decline of Black Rio and soul music in the late 1970s. After twenty years away from the business, Combo returned to the stages in 2005. In February 2020, he launched “Deixe Sair o Suor,” the music video for a Portuguese-language version of Rufus Thomas “Breakdown.” But Combo’s last (and unfinished) project was also one of the most daring from his career: a song on the murder of George Floyd.
A straightforward anti-racist manifest, “Tira Esse Joelho Daí” is Combo’s first composition in partnership with his brother Getúlio. “This is a song about all the knees that suffocate us: unemployment, racism… We wanted to go deeper in the #BlackLivesMatter message and put a finger in the wound,” he explained, anticipating his favorite part of the lyrics: “I use my knee to pray, you use yours to kill.” According to Côrtes, the song should be released next year.
Combo’s death came as a shock to Brazil’s hip-hop community. He will be missed, believes Pereira, because Combo invented rap music in Brazil. “In songs like ‘Melô do Mão Branca‘ (1980) and ‘Funk Brother Soul‘ (1978), he rapped without having any previous reference from American rap music. It was intuitive,” affirms Combo’s last manager, who will miss the charisma of his former client and friend.
For Gaoners, Combo’s uniqueness will forever reside in his thunder voice, proud lyrics, and dressing style. “He looked like the superhero of Brazil’s black music. Honestly, there are not many places in the world where you see a black music personality wearing a flying cover and singing ‘Own your mind, brother!’”
Fonte: Okayafrica