In the late 1960s, Brazilian artists forged a watershed cultural movement known as Tropicalia. Music inspired by that movement is today enjoying considerable attention at home and abroad. Few new listeners, however, make the connection between this music and the circumstances surrounding its creation, the most violent and repressive days of the military regime that governed Brazil from 1964 to 1985. With key manifestations in theatre, cinema, visual arts, literature, and especially popular music, Tropicalia dynamically articulated the conflicts and aspirations of a generation of young, urban Brazilians. Focusing on a group of musicians from Bahia, an impoverished state in northeastern Brazil noted for its vibrant Afro-Brazilian culture, Christopher Dunn reveals how artists including Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, and Tom Ze created this movement together with the musical and poetic vanguards of Sao Paolo, Brazil's most modern and industrialized city. He shows how the tropicalists selectively appropriated and parodied cultural practices from Brazil and abroad in order to expose the fissure between their nation's idealized image as a peaceful tropical ""garden"" and the daily brutality visited upon its citizens.

About the Author
Christopher Dunn holds a joint appointment in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the African and African Diaspora Studies Program at Tulane University. An affiliate of the Roger Thayer Stone Center for Latin American Studies and codirector of the Brazilian Studies Council at Tulane, he is coeditor of Brazilian Popular Music and Globalization.


Book Information
ISBN 9780807849767
Author Christopher Dunn
Format Paperback
Page Count 276
Imprint The University of North Carolina Press
Publisher The University of North Carolina Press
Weight(grams) 389g