March 23, 2011

Say a Prayer at the Water’s Edge

I am laying on a beautiful tropical beach. I lift up my groggy head and gaze at the scene around me. Everything looks hazy for a few moments until my eyes adjust to the bright sun reflecting off of the white sand. I wonder how I arrived at this place. A beautiful black woman rises out of the most sparkling, yet deep blue water I have ever seen. She laughs and beckons for me to come to her. I belong to her; she is my mother, the primal mother that rises from the bottom of the depths

The Brazilian Voice Unchained: Tradition and Innovation in Brazilian Candomblé as Seen Through Ritual Drumming and Popular Music

Percussion instruments are the predominant driving force behind both Brazilian popular music and the ritual music of Candomblé, a world religion birthed in Brazil. It can be argued that through the musical political movement, Tropicália in the 1960’s, drums connected the sacred and the profane in such a way as to help shape the collective identity of a people in a particular place–Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. Christopher Dunn, a scholar of popular music who researched the Tropicália movement, and its primary founders Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, supports the theory that cultural, religious practices and political perspectives can combine to create complex new musical forms.

© 2023 Kris Seraphine. All rights reserved.