‘Soy loco por ti de amores
Tenga como colores
La espuma blanca
De Latinoamérica
Y el cielo como bandera
Y el cielo como bandera...

Soy loco por ti, América
Soy loco por ti de amores

Sorriso de quase nuvem
Os rios, canções, o medo
O corpo cheio de estrelas
O corpo cheio de estrelas’

'I'm crazy of love for you

Have as colours

The white foam

Of Latin America

And the sky as a flag

And the sky as a flag

I'm crazy for you, America

I'm crazy of love for you

Smile of almost-cloud

The rivers, songs, the fear

Your body full of stars

Your body full of stars'

Caetano Veloso singing an excerpt of the composition by Gilberto Gil and the poets Capinan and Torquato Neto[1]

The Tropicalia, Tropicalism or Tropicalist movement was a Brazilian cultural movement that emerged under the influence of avant-garde artistic streams and national and foreign cultures (such as  the deeply original Brazilian Anthropophagic movement of the 20s and 30s, with illustrious representatives, concretism, pop-rock, etc.); it blended traditional manifestations of Brazilian/South American cultures with radical aesthetic innovations and constant experimentation. The ironic Anthropophagic movement for example, primarily literary, postulated among other things that South Americans should consume and 'regurgitate' North American and European influences, after 'digesting' or mixing them with their own cultural matrixes. Tropicalism as a movement had broader behavioral goals, which found an echo in most of the South-American societies (and the Brazilian one in particular, under the military regime in the late 1960s). However, Tropicalism, for great annoyance of intervention singers and artists of those times, was not-engaged politically – more precisely, it did not feel a need to restrict itself or to have intervention as a goal, since its adherents strongly believed that Arts and Culture naturally promote social change (they not only believed so, they actually were  participating witnesses of that, as victims of the dictatorship that they were, nonetheless, which came in part to determine its fall), human nature is not compartmented, while philosophy could reflect on the importance of Multiculturality and the Other, a place where to meet which is a non-place, a creative concreteness with a rainforest ground, for example (why not?). All the great inventors, in all times, have asked this question: 'Why not?'. The movement, contemporary of at least other 3 main movements in Brazil's cultural life, manifested itself strongly in music (in which the greatest representatives were Caetano Veloso, Torquato Neto, Gilberto Gil, Os Mutantes and Tom Zé), visual arts (where the main figure was Hélio Oiticica), film (the movement was influenced and influenced the New Cinema of Glauber Rocha, for example, and many other directors) and the Brazilian theater (actors and directors were influenced, and particularly the parts of anarchic José Celso Martinez Corrêa). One of the greatest examples of the Tropicalia movement was one of the songs of Caetano Veloso, called exactly "Tropicalia".

‘Brazil is the society of the future’ the philosopher Agostinho da Silva used to say decades ago about a multiracial society inventing itself – and the ones that still considered Brazil as a 3^rd world country, until just today, laughed on his face as if they were dealing with a mere crazy man, or the face of anyone who would dare to say something similar. ‘Brazil? Oh, that’s too a dangerous country!!’ – how many times was I confronted with this sentence when mentioning Brazil a propos of anything, which for me was a natural reference, since Brazilian culture has been having a profound impact even in some parts of… Europe for the last decades – but Europeans don’t seem to be aware of it, perhaps they don't even consider those parts of Europe AS Europe (which is the most likely thing)!! They’re used to always ‘export their ideas’ (or advertise the phenomena like that) when in reality things don’t work in such way. People who work in Culture or the Arts, for example, know very well that borders don’t exist in fact, and influences are reciprocal. So my usual answer to 'Oh, that's a too dangerous country!!' was normally 'Well, it's not more dangerous than the US!!', an answer which is true and somehow leaves these people in Europe (including immigrants from other parts of the world who live in Europe) satisfied. I just wonder why. Anyhow, I don't care, as long as they feel satisfied with my answer. In fact, Brazil has very liberal gun control policies, similar to the US ones, which need to be reviewed. Second, violence has been increasing consistently in Europe and decreasing in the US, but Europeans seem hardly aware of it, they're too brainwashed by their own governments, which want them to believe 'here is the best place to live, in the whole world!'. It's a self-fulfilled prophecy, a shared dogma. Third, and to say the truth, a good slice of the violence and social problems which happen in the Southern Hemisphere have A LOT to do with the exploitation still operated by the 'First World' countries and corporations (now more hidden or disguised than in colonial times, but still operated anyhow), including the consumption of drugs culturally and traditionally used during century-old rituals in order to feed our 'First World' social diseases, a product proudly exported by the First World (the diseases), and the empty futility of our everyday lives which ignore totally the Other and have no sense of different human communities in this world connected to us as a 'Whole' whatsoever, or doing 'sex/drugs tourism' to South America (thousands and thousands of 'First-Worlders' promote such 'holiday packages' every year...) or selling guns to illegal groups throughout the world, which feeds the mafias, drug dealers and guerrillas in other South-American countries. Third, a slice of the people, when they say 'Oh, that's a too violent country!!' and I answer truly 'Well, it's not more violent than the US!!' feel disarmed because what they actually mean is 'Oh, that's a too poor country!!' - and, as such, dangerous (you should go on vacations but not live over there). So what to answer? With truth, I answer: Brazil is one of the most beautiful countries in the poetry of its people.

Other countries in South America increasingly see Brazil as a leader among them and the carrier of hopes for a promising future to the whole South America. In fact, besides representing more than 190 million souls nowadays and including, as part of its territory, some of the biggest metropolis in the world, Brazil can present an alternative 'American' model to the world, which doesn't oppose but complements and differs from the North American one. The inventive nature of the Brazilian society, its potential, its  alternative ways of life and alternative values, its critic sense, the natural compassion of its people, the openness to the foreign fed by the curiosity of the different and the thirst to interact and, above all, the sense of humour and joy, make Brazil's society incredibly flexible. The non-identity which opens space to any identity and becomes a supra-solidarity or a field for exchange has been a topic of discussion, debate, promotion and study for decades (centuries?), in Brazil. But of course we, blindly, in Europe and elsewhere are just 'proud of our multicultural societies', that is, our discriminations, ghettos and immigration policies. Once again, our fictions and our self-built myths. We're too sensible to see a favela, but we're not too sensible to indirectly cause its existence and feed its continuation. We abominate non-cultured beings, but we do not abominate arrogant, hypocrite and narcissistic ones, actually we reward them. We mistake information with wisdom and solidarity with interest. And no, we're not children, we're the 'developed' ones. So there, I guess that says everything about our priorities and our level of development. As long as these myths are not deconstructed, there's no hope of true 'progress' for the so-called 'First World'. Humane progress, I mean. Is there any other kind of progress? Because  development as at least a part of the world understands it can only happen through-within ethics.   

Another myth in the EU, US and other 'First World' countries is that 'only we create the trends, only we create the ideas'. Well we don't. 'Other countries have no innovations in culture, they were basically influenced by us'. Well it's a lie, it's our own fiction fooling us again, the marketing of our governments and institutions to make us feel 'better than'. 97% of us believe, in a more or less openly assumed or conscious way, that we are better. Much harder is to recognize that we were influenced by somebody else in the world, in part because 'First World' countries face the Cultural innovations of other countries in a totally Anthropophagic way (which denotes a complete vacuum of First World ideas), with the arrogance of calling themselves 'the developed ones', while the Cultural traditions of elsewhere are merely considered 'exotic' and an object of study for Anthropologists to deal with and to exhibit in our 'developed' museums, which we visit happily on Sunday afternoons, as if we were on a freak show or an entertainment boulevard. 'Consume (others, ourselves, us all, all there is) and entertain', those are the First World flags. And who are the cannibals here, who are the primitive souls? We can't even conceive that there can be avant-gardes elsewhere, in the most 'unexpected' (for whom?) places. Well there are. 'Third World' is not = absence of brain, on the contrary. Our modern myths blind our societies totally, we look ourselves in the mirror constantly, we dress in 'trendy' clothes, we say that 'we are artists' and those are, for most of us, the main prerequisites to have an avant-garde established. 'Established'. We even eat our own Culture, not only the 'Third World' Cultures. We close our artists in socially accepted places, that is old warehouses with dozens of studios, so that they can produce not far from our sight, controlled and dependent of our power structures and grants. So that we can annul them in their transformative power, because we are allergic to social change and we're afraid of invention, we cannot stand the unknown, we mistrust diversity (but we advertise it, and deep down we know that we have good reasons, provoked by ourselves, to fear retaliations from the 'foreigners' that we 'tolerate' inside our societies); goodness, kindness, solidarity and empathy: we can only understand these under trade and consumption and survival logics, otherwise we mistrust them. We don't know what honour is, that doesn't exist in most developed minds. We don't know what dignity means, if it's not a material concept. That is so sad. We're afraid to live. We need alcohol, we need drugs, we need parties and fashionable or formal work dinners during which everybody bitches on each other, we need to be perfect and obedient workers, and 'climb up' stepping on the faces of others, we need to be good students always ready to... obey to the power structures, we need to have a good job, the same routine, a family, a house in the suburbs, a dog and a bicycle. We need appearances much more than essences (I can not be competent, but I must look competent, I can not be rich but I must look rich, I can not be talented but I must look talented, I can not be smart but I must look smart, I can not be happy but I must look happy), because if you look 'successful' others will accept you, as you're contributing to the collective myth according to which our societies are 'better'. We need to exercise so that others will accept us for how we look like, not for whom we are, not for our character, not for our talents – no talent is rewarded but the talent to obey and to lie, and 'being smart is to earn money'. Exercise doesn't come naturally, but as something imposed by our societies, which also impose sedentary routines – and we go to the gym because it is an obligation, there we feel 'safe' from the non-competitive contact with others and with nature, from naked social and personal truth. We don't have time for such futilities, we must be efficient at all cost, above all we must be efficient in our own lies.

The First Tropical Olympics

'It is time to light the Olympic flame in a tropical country'  

Lula da Silva

Are the Brazilians aware of the scandals inside the IOC? Are they aware that the IOC wants to expand the Olympics to other continents (more than one century after Coubertin revived the Games, they remembered that South America actually exists, and of course Africa or the Middle East are still not on their map!!) in order to clean their image after China and not succumb to all the bribes, scandals and doping? Of course they are. But the important thing for Brazilians, a multicultural and open society which believes in dream as it believes in bread while at the core of the Brazilian identity is the  union of all races and nationalities, is not to make a marketing campaign of a regime, like China did, a campaign with close associates in which money and stock exchange are the supreme values. The most important thing is that Brazil is honest about it, including the Olympic spirit – most common Brazilians believe in it, that is, and their love for sports doesn't need to be proved. Sports are integrated in everyday life, weaved with the culture, naturally. The second most important thing is that this is a major chance for Brazil, a country which is loved by most South-Americans. And the third important thing is that Brazilians are not naives, so they know that the IOC is taking advantage of this to try to clean their image and pretend a sudden interest in social matters. For the IOC, it’s the opportunity to have more than a façade make-over, it could mean the chance for a bigger change, an ethical one, which will doubtfully happen, as they're not open to that – they just want to prolong the myth that 'they believe in the Olympic spirit because they 'help' poor countries with deep social problems'. 

‘Tropical Truth’

‘Tropical Truth’ is the name of the book that Caetano Veloso published in 1997 ‘From the dark background of the solar heart of the southern hemisphere, within the melting pot that does not guarantee degradation nor genetic utopia, from the filthy (and yet, remedial) bowel of the internationalizing entertainment industry, from the island Brazil hovering eternally half a millimeter above the real ground of America, from the center of the fog of the Portuguese language’, words which came out 'as a testimony and questioning of the meaning of the relations between human groups, individuals and artistic forms, and also trading and political forces, in short, about the taste of life in the end of the century'.

Where is true beauty? Beauty lies in the essence of all things, in our ability to connect with each other (which is a very developed Brazilian Art), to create through/in such connection. To connect is at least as important as what is conveyed through the connection we establish. What should be conveyed? Fragility and Beauty. Sensitivity. The ineffable. Our subjectivities, which are the most beautiful thing in this world. Those are some of our basic truths.

Tropicalism influenced names such as David Byrne, Arto Lindsay, Beck, Ney Matogrosso or Devendra Banhart. In 1998, Beck released Mutations, the title of which is a tribute to the band Os Mutantes, one of Tropicalisms' pioneers. Compilations of Tropicalist Music include Tropicalia Essentials (1999), Tropicalia: Millennium (1999), Tropicalia: Gold (2002), New Millennium: Tropicalia (2005) and Tropicalia: A Brazilian Revolution In Sound (2006).

Tribalists – the Tropicalists of the 21^st century

'Tropicalia was the reverse of Bossa Nova'

Caetano Veloso

The Tribalists (Marisa Monte, Carlinhos Brown, Arnaldo Antunes) released their album in 2002, with a chocolate-made sweet cover by the plastic artist Vik Muniz – part of a bigger group of high-quality contemporary visual artists, such as Cildo Meireles, Ernesto Neto, Marepe, Adriana Varejao, Artur Omar, Gilvan Samico, Emmanuel Nassar, Os Gemeos or Paula Trope, showing deeper affiliations, on its originality more than its concepts, with a whole earlier group of Brazilian NeoConcretist artists, such as Lygia Clark and Helio Oiticica, Amilcar de Castro or Franz Weissman, or roots which extend to the fantastically rich and original Brazilian literature, with names such as Mario de Andrade, Decio Pignatari, Drummond de Andrade, Augusto de Campos, Haroldo de Campos, Cecilia Meireles, Clarice Lispector, Ferreira Gullar, Vinicius de Morais, Oswald de Andrade, Jorge Amado, Jose de Alencar, Mario de Andrade, Machado de Assis, Manuel Bandeira.

The collaboration of the trio of Tribalists (with very different individual expressions and distinct influences) represents just a very tiny fringe of a profoundly rich, artistically, new generation of Brazilian artists and musicians (of which are part, for example in music, also Maria Rita, Moreno Veloso, Thalma de Freitas, Adriana Calcanhoto, Vanessa da Mata, Mariana Baltar, Fernanda Takai, just to name very few... and they master jazz or blues with the same ease as they master fusion, mpb, world music, etc). The Tribalists' album achieved great success/resonance in Brazil, many South-American countries, parts of Africa and also parts of... Europe (are we Europe, are we not? - always the same dilemma). I guess we aren't: how can a European be Tropical or Tribal in any way? Unthinkable, we should be 'sophisticated' creatures and, as such, dedicate ourselves to recycle exclusively hypocrisies instead. The Tribalists now prepare their second project. Under the Tribalists' premises there is in fact the belief that the whole world is a tribe, the Tribalists are infused with the values of the tribe, while gathering/incorporating different styles and distinct urban and non-urban artistic, popular and intellectual tribes. They represent a new understanding of the world and a new ethical approach. The world is connected and we are a global community. The 'internet age' generations, in particular, can be deeply aware of that. We try to infuse change through communication streams, short-circuit information channels with wisdom and infiltrate solidarity in the competition structures. 

One of the greatest defies for younger generations is simply to 'translate' tropicalist and tribalist terms and make them accessible to the whole world, or to the highest number of people possible, who might be interested in them – so that the visual, plastic, musical, written, poetical, behavioural manifestations of Tropicalism and Tribalism won't be lost in the vacuum of a cultural arrogance which rises borders, and snobbish oblivion which selects gratitudes, forever. We act as translators of culture and poets who spread seeds in the wind. We create, convert and synthesize, but we have to translate our original heritage and our cultural backgrounds as well, because most of the world still didn't bother and doesn't actually want to bother with learning our languages. And those are, dear gentlemen, original and tropical seeds – like a palm tree sprouting in the middle of the freezing snow. Those seeds are an answer and they are a question. We have arts affiliations and frames of reference, we actually have ideas, creative ideas, full of sense of humour – that seems hard to understand in most 'First World' countries. We don't have a need to classify our 'Worlds' in 'First', 'Second' and 'Third'. And we want to know who did that first! Just to give them a 'chapadao' as an answer... that is an unlimited horizon!!

Tropicalia, by Caetano Veloso:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9754NizSyIA

Lyrics

The green eyes of the mulatta
The mane hides behind the green woods

The moonlight of the sertao

The monument doesn't have a door

The entrance is an old, narrow, twisted street

On her knee a smiling child, ugly and dead

Stretches a hand

On the interior patio there's a swimming pool

With blue water of Amaralina

There are coconut trees, a breeze and lighthouses
On her right hand she has a rosebush

Authenticating the eternal spring

And the vultures in the garden all afternoon stroll
Among sunflowers
Long live Maria -ia -ia Long live Bahia -ia -ia -ia -ia -ia
On the left wrist bang-bang
In his veins runs very little blood
But his heart balances to a samba tambourine
Emits dissonant chords
Through the five thousand speakers
Ladies and gentlemen he puts his big eyes
On me

Long live Iracema-ma-ma Long live Ipanema-ma-ma-ma-ma
Sunday is a fine bossa

Monday he's in the pit
Tuesday he goes to the farm²
However
The monument is thoroughly modern
He said nothing about the model of my suit
Let everything else go to hell
My dear
Long live the band-and-and
Carmen Miranda-da-da-da-da.

Tropicalia, by Beck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvJ4T0P2W-I

Lyrics

Oh when they beat
Upon a broken guitar
And on the streets
They reek of tropical charms
The embassies lie in hideous shards
Where tourists snore and decay
When they dance in a reptile blaze
You wear a mask
An equatorial haze

Into the past
A colonial maze
Where there's no more confetti to throw
You wouldn't know what to say to yourself
Love is a poverty you couldn't sell
Misery waits in vague hotels
To be evicted
You're out of luck
You're singing funeral songs
To the studs
They're anabolic and bronze
They seem to strut
In their millennial fogs
'til they fall down and deflate
You wouldn't know what to say to yourself

Love is a poverty you couldn't sell
Misery waits in vague hotels
To be evicted
Oh and now you've had your fun
Under an air-conditioned sun
It's burned into your eyes
Leaves you plain and left behind
I see them rise and fall
Into the jaws of a pestilent love
You wouldn't know what to say to yourself
Love is a poverty you couldn't sell
Misery waits in vague hotels
To be a victim

a) region of steep cliffs, usually at the edge of plateaus. Chapada Diamantina is the name of a National Park with great plateaus and cliffs inland from Bahia, homeland of Caetano Veloso, where diamonds where discovered in the mid 1800s. On the other hand, the Central Plateau of Brazil is the region where Brasilia, Brazil's capital city, is located.

b) strong slaps on somebody's face.