TOP 10 REASONS WHY THE WALL IS THE DUMBEST POLICY IDEA EVER

Image source: CNN

AN OPINION PIECE

One of the most contentious issues in America right now is Donald Trump’s vision of a wall along the border with Mexico. It is his signature campaign pledge, the one he kicked off his race with and the theme he returned to most often over the long campaign. Accordingly, building a wall is one of, if not the, main reasons Trump’s supporters voted for him. That makes Republicans in Congress adamant about appropriating funding for it. Democrats are equally adamant about opposing it, however, since it stands against what they stand for. Like many political issues over the past decade in America, this has deadlocked Congress and provoked threats of shutting down the government rather than, you know, actually reaching a deal.

Normally, I hate this kind of brinkmanship and all-or-nothing politics, since all it does is energize the base while leaving urgent problems to fester. Ideally both sides should come together and work out some kind of compromise. However, I find it extremely hard to support that in this case, because the wall isn’t just some kind of flawed policy plan that could feasibly be watered down a bit and passed. It is, quite simply, the dumbest public policy idea I’ve ever heard of. To prove it, here are 10 reasons why.

1. Most Americans don’t even want it. It is important to remember any time Trump does something that makes your blood boil that he lost the popular vote. America uses a system called the Electoral College to choose its presidents; the number of its members is proportional to the population of America’s various states, but they usually vote in blocs for whichever candidate won their state. Trump actually only won 46% of the popular vote. This is hardly a convincing mandate for building a wall, but subsequent polls have shown a dearth of popular support as well. This poll found 57% against it; another one found 63% opposed. As for the states and counties along the border — you know, the ones who would be most affected by this —support is even more tepid. Support is strongest in states like Indiana and Alabama, which love Trump but have relatively few immigrants to stymie in the first place. Considering how big a project like building a wall is, drawing support from a minority of Americans — and a disproportionately old minority at that — is hardly a strong mandate.

2. Immigrants would still find a way in. They always do. Latino immigrants are fleeing desperate poverty and criminal violence; some are so pathetic they feel as if they have nothing to lose in attempting to cross. A wall may be harder to climb than a fence, but determined and well-organized immigrants could still do it. The plan for the wall may include a 6-foot-deep underground section, but immigrants could still tunnel 7 feet deep. (Drug smugglers have long managed to sneak their goods across the border this way.) Some immigrants are already making their way to Canada and crossing America’s other border. (Now there’s a border way too long for a wall.) Drug smugglers, in particular, are resourceful, and come up with devious ways to get around border security — everything from catapults, to wedging drugs in car bodies, to just going around the border by sea. If all else fails, they could always just punch a hole through the wall. The fence currently spanning the border incurred 9,287 breaches between 2010 and 2015. What makes you think a wall would be immune to this?

3. There aren’t even that many immigrants coming in. Trump’s rhetoric may be that dirty, dangerous Mexicans are flooding through the flimsy border, but in actuality there has been a sustained decline in Mexican immigration since 2001. A Pew Research Center report found that 870,000 Mexicans emigrated to America from 2009 to 2014 compared to 1.4 million from 2005 to 2010. This is due partly to the depression in America, partly to improved economic conditions in Mexico, partly to a slowing of the Mexican population growth rate, and partly to immigration enforcement in the US. Like much of Trump’s rhetoric, his descriptions are outdated. America does have a huge ethnic Mexican population, though, which might fuel these misperceptions. (It is also true that immigration from chaotic Central America has picked up.)

4. Immigrants have a beneficial effect on society. This is an important point in rational Democratic arguments, so I won’t go into it too much here, but suffice it to say that Americans should probably want immigrants. Desperate Mexicans are vital components of the American economy and fill the vast majority of low-paid agricultural, construction, restaurant, fishing and domestic jobs — the “dirty work” that whites rarely want to do. In America’s border states they are essential parts of local society. Despite Trump’s ranting about “bringing crime,” immigrants are actually more law-abiding than locals, and despite the perception that they are “taking jobs,” they actually help the economy, and therefore create jobs.

Image source: Brookings Institution

5. Actually building the wall would be a nightmare. Although vast tracts of the US-Mexican border are publicly owned desert, other parts are private property. What if the owners don’t want a wall built on their land? The US government could always negotiate to buy the land, but that would take years. 90 land rights lawsuits over building the border fence are still open from 2008. There are also environmental laws to consider. And what about the Rio Grande, which forms about half of the border? How would the wall work there? What about the mountains that dominate the Arizona-Sonora border? These sorts of logistical issues wouldn’t stymie the building entirely, but it would make it a long-term project that might outlast the lifespans of many Trump voters.

6. There are more innovative ways to secure the border. A wall is a very blunt, old-fashioned solution. For a country as innovative and forward-thinking as America, it’s not a very imaginative solution. Those actually involved in border security would rather opt for things like towers with radar, electro-optical and infrared cameras, aerial monitoring, and ground sensors that rely on AI or machine learning. Given the aforementioned difficulty in keeping out those determined enough to cross perilous distances with little loose money, it would be more practical and cost-effective to focus on detecting illegal border-crossers. Hiring more border security is usually lumped in with the wall in budget debates; it should really just replace the wall entirely.

7. It would ruin Mexican-American relations. Having a wall built on your border is one of the most in-your-face ways to be told “I don’t like you very much.” Trump may claim to be keeping out the “bad hombres,” but in reality he is playing on anti-Mexican sentiment, and Mexico gets it. As a result, Mexican-American relations have free-fallen since the election (really since Trump entered the race in 2015). Only 30% of Mexicans have a favorable opinion of the US, with 42% having a very unfavorable opinion. Anti-American feeling was instrumental in propelling Andrés Manuel Lôpez Obrador, a populist firebrand, to the presidency this year. As a general rule of thumb, it’s not a good idea to be on bad terms with your neighbors. In this specific case, good Mexican-American relations are important because the 2 countries’ economies are very interlinked thanks to NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) and immigration, and because America depends on Mexico for security cooperation. Trump acts like America is wasting money on Mexico, with its security aid, but what would happen if Mexico dropped its intelligence sharing with America? What if Mexico just stopped trying to detain migrants headed north, or looked the other way as drugs are smuggled up there? What if Mexico reneged on its water-sharing agreements and let American farmers wilt?

8. It would be a colossal waste of money. This should be pretty obvious, but walls are expensive. It is estimated that it could cost up to $25 billion. (Democratic estimates reach up to $70 billion, but of course those probably aren’t very accurate.) So much for shrinking the government. This would add to the tax cuts passed last year to further increase America’s budget deficit and basically asks future generations to foot the bill for the older generation’s xenophobia. Trump’s talk of seizing the remittances that Mexican immigrants send or of “making Mexico pay for it” is ridiculous.

9. It would have a chilling effect on immigration and tourism to America. A wall on the Mexican border would mainly affect Mexico and Central America, of course. But it would also send a strong signal that America no longer welcomes immigrants. This is apparent in some Trump voters’ fears that “terrorists” or “ISIS” are sneaking across the border. Even foreigners that reach America by plane would think twice before doing so. Trump’s rhetoric has already lowered the number of tourists, skilled immigrants, and students coming to America. These are important contributors to America’s economy and society. Imagine the harm that could be done if America actually built a wall.

10. It would besmirch what America stands for. As the most powerful argument, I save this for last. Americans get weepy and sentimental about their country being a beacon of hope and freedom. What that basically means is that it serves as a compelling destination for outsiders eager to make something of themselves, to try their luck in America’s dynamic, freewheeling, capitalist economy, and to flee oppression, stagnation and/or danger back home. That is the real symbolism of the Statue of Liberty (“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…”). America is hardly unique in welcoming immigrants from all over the world and moulding them into different people over many generations, but it is the most diverse and influential. Mexicans are not unique in contributing a great deal to American society. There has always been a strand of xenophobia and racism in American society, but by and large most Americans would agree that immigrants are a good thing. If America built a wall, it would no longer be able to claim some sort of moral superiority. It would no longer be able to gloat about bringing down the Soviet empire with its Berlin Wall. It would come to resemble a miserly, suspicious gated community that glares at brown passersby. Given the various impracticalities and stupidities associated with the wall, it should be fairly obvious that it’s meant to be a symbol — but of what? Of an America that sees the outside world as a threat?

So there you have it. The wall is not just dumb, it’s really, really dumb. I haven’t even gone into lesser reasons why it’s stupid, like its possible impact on animal migration patterns or how it would be hard to see what Mexicans might be doing on the other side. It’s so dumb, in fact, that I don’t think it should even be treated as a serious policy idea, but as a crackpot promise tossed out by an attention-hungry mogul looking to energize his political campaign without even considering it seriously. It speaks to how beholden the Republican party has become to deranged fanaticism that so many politicians are willing to treat this as a serious idea. Democrats, and sensible Americans in general, owe it to themselves to stand against such a dumbass idea no matter what.

DON’T BE HAITIN’

Haiti’s sprawling capital, Port-au-Prince. Image source: Short Term Memory: Tandem in the Foreign Service

Haiti is a country in the Caribbean, one of the parts of the world most beloved by tourists and outsiders in general. It has glorious palm-fringed beaches, coral reefs, lush tropical forests, lots of rum, a colorful history, cultures that blend influences from Europe and Africa, great music and dancing, and a lifestyle that ranges from easygoing to partying hard — lubricated by all that rum. Haiti has all of these and more, but it also has a dire reputation as the most problem-plagued part of the Americas. Foreigners are far more likely to visit as aid workers than to relax.

This reputation is mostly deserved, and Haiti does face enormous obstacles before it can reach the levels of its Caribbean neighbors. This blog post will shed some light on arguably the Americas’ most maligned nation and provide some perspective on how it came to this.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Originally, Hispaniola (the island Haiti is on) was inhabited by the Arawaks, who lived in villages of varying size governed by chiefs and subsisting on horticulture of root vegetables, fishing, and barbecue (which they invented). Then Cristobal Colón came by in 1493, and everything changed. It is obvious how much Spanish colonization changed the Americas — probably nowhere else in the world has gone through such a drastic change — but Hispaniola got the first, most intense dose of it. Eager to exploit its gold, the Spanish enslaved the natives and worked them to death in mines. Revolts were put down ferociously. To top it off, the Spanish introduced diseases the Arawaks had no resistance to. By the 1540s, the Arawaks were pretty much extinct, making this episode probably history’s most successful genocide. Today only faint traces of Arawak culture, like canoes and cigars, survive, although the Spanish predilection for rape at least ensured the survival of some Arawak genes.

But for the most part, Haitian history has been shaped by a different group of outsiders: Africans. To replace the native population they had wiped out, Spain imported African slaves instead, turning the Caribbean into an interesting outpost of African culture in the long run. The western part of Hispaniola was less-developed than the east, making it easy prey for the French when they got around to sailing in the Caribbean; they seized it in 1697 and named it Saint-Domingue (the Spanish colony being called Santo Domingo).

Thanks to intensive sugar cultivation on plantations, St-Domingue became France’s most profitable colony, and the island developed a class of rich, conservative French planters. It also had free blacks and mulattoes, or mixed-race people. But over 80% of St-Domingue’s people were slaves, and they worked under horrible conditions and were subjected to constant brutality. A steady flow of slaves from Africa ensured that slaves’ lives were cheap. Revolts were common — machetes are awfully sharp — but they never caused the French too much trouble.

… Until the French Revolution, that is. Stirred by that movement’s calls for liberty and equality, a mulatto named Vincent Ogé called for the same ideals to be introduced in St-Domingue. When he was ignored and thrown out of the National Assembly, he resorted to a revolt in 1791. Although it was short-lived, it helped inspire a much longer, more violent one. Stoked by the cruelty with which they were treated and coordinated through secret societies imported from Africa, the revolt could not be put down. The story of the ensuing Haitian Revolution is an involved and interesting one; it includes a three-way war between St-Domingue’s different racial classes, the whites’ political confusion as the home country tore itself apart, rank betrayal, the unification of Hispaniola under black rule, British and Polish (!) intervention, outbreaks of yellow fever, a prominent starring role by Napoleon, accomplished generalship by Haiti’s national hero (Toussaint L’Ouverture), and a LOT of grisly violence, torture and destruction. When it was all over in 1804, St-Domingue was independent at last, as Haiti (an old Arawak term). It was only the 2nd country in the world (after America) to throw off colonial rule, and the only successful slave revolt in history, 2 facts that give Haitians enormous pride to this day. On the other hand, its white population mostly fled during the war, except for a band of Polish soldiers who stayed behind to farm.

Haiti struggled from the beginning. The revolution left it split in 2, with Henri Christophe ruling the north as a king and reintroducing slavery and Alexandre Pétion ruling the south as a president and encouraging small-scale subsistence farming. Unsurprisingly, slavery was unpopular, and the kingdom crumbled in 1820, leaving the republican system ascendant. But the shift from sugar plantations to small cassava farms hobbled the Haitian economy. America despised Haiti for setting a “bad” example for its own slaves and refused to recognize it. France demanded 60 million francs in compensation for all its colonists had lost (and to assuage its own wounded ego); Haiti spent over a hundred years paying it off, bankrupting the economy. Like other ex-colonies later in history, Haiti was deprived of crucial knowhow and leadership by the violence of its revolution. Its politics were highly unstable, and its presidents kept getting overthrown and assassinated. Santo Domingo successfully revolted in 1844.

The early international isolation of Haiti had subsided by the 1900s, and a small German community gained disproportionate influence over its economy. That unnerved America, which was determined to control the Caribbean and safeguard the Panama Canal nearby. It occupied Haiti in 1915 after its dictator was lynched and essentially recolonized it. According to Hans Schmidt in his study of the occupation, it “embodied all the progressive attributes of contemporary Italian fascism” — better roads, bridges, and buildings than Haiti had before, plus a more productive economy, but with all power in the hands of the American army, censorship and arbitrary arrests, forced labor, sugar production oriented for America’s own benefit, and systemic racism along the lines of America’s “Jim Crow” system of segregation. The occupation ended in 1934 — either because America wanted to promote better relations with its neighbors or because growing resistance in Haiti had made it unpopular at home, depending on your level of cynicism. Still, the Haitian treasury remained under American supervision for another decade.

After this, Haiti was ruled by a series of weak, incompetent dictators who tended to get forced out by street protests. They were succeeded in 1957 by a strong one: François Duvalier, usually called “Papa Doc” since he was a folk doctor. He promoted blacks in the government (mulattoes had been dominant ever since the revolution) and by encouraging their culture, even styling himself after the Vodou spirit Baron Samedi. He also pillaged the government for his family’s gain and terrorized the country with his private militia, the Tonton Macoute (named after and dressed as another spirit who kidnaps kids). America sponsored him because he was anti-Communist. The Duvalier regime continued after Papa Doc’s death in 1971 through his son, Baby Doc, until he was ousted by a coup after popular revolts against his accepting payments from the Dominican Republic to send migrant workers over. (He ran off with the money.)

Image source: Pinterest

The main political drama since the Duvalier era was the rise and fall of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. A populist priest who won a following among the poor with his impassioned sermons, he won the election in 1990 but was overthrown in a coup only a year later. He moved to America and lobbied it for an intervention to restore him to power. A flood of Haitian refugees fleeing the dictatorship added to the pressure. American president Bill Clinton relented in 1994, and once again US troops marched on Port-au-Prince. Yet Aristide failed to turn around the economy, and he and his successor agreed to IMF-imposed terms that gutted Haiti’s subsistence farmers. The political situation and crime had grown so bad by 2004 that the UN intervened, the only UN occupation force in the world outside of a war zone.

As if all this wasn’t dire enough, Haiti was battered by God in 2010, when an earthquake struck Port-au-Prince. At magnitude 7, it would be difficult for any country to deal with, but with Haiti’s shoddy infrastructure, most of the capital was in rubble, including the presidential palace. To make matters worse, much of the foreign aid Haiti needed to clean up afterward never arrived or was slow in arriving. To make matters even worse, UN troops from Nepal introduced cholera through lackluster sanitation, killing another 10,000 Haitians. And to make matters even worse, it has become increasingly obvious that foreign aid workers indulged in sex slavery rings.

CURRENT SITUATION
Given this dismal history, it is easy to conclude that Haiti has been “cursed by one thing after the other,” as the American preacher Pat Robertson once claimed. And it continues to face huge challenges. Only half the population can read or access basic health services. Most Haitians rely on informal jobs or farming small plots to get by. The contrast with Haiti’s neighbor, the Dominican Republic, is glaring, leading many Haitians to head east for work, despite the racism (both petty and official) they face by its lighter-skinned population.

Yet this is only one aspect of Haiti. It offers picturesque scenery like all the other Caribbean islands. Its heritage is evident in sites like the massive Laferrière Citadel built on a prominent peak and the colonial architecture in its towns. The ethnic cleansing in Haiti’s past means that African culture has been better preserved here than anywhere else in the Caribbean, although it has blended with European and Arawak influences. That means its language, Creole, is basically French but with different grammar and a smattering of vocabulary from Spanish, Taino (an Arawak language) and West African languages. Haiti also has its own religion, Vodou, which is descended from a similar faith in Benin; it is a blend of Catholicism with the worship of unique spirits called lwa, which can possess adherents in lengthy ceremonies. Vodou’s tight-knit secret societies makes the religion a potent political crucible, but it’s also led to a lot of bogus portrayals overseas since its priests are said to perform magic.

An example of metalworking art in the artists’ neighborhood of Croix des Bouquets. Image source: Students Rebuild

Vodou is a major source of inspiration for Haitian culture, and Vodou images, paraphernalia, flags and clothing are important preoccupations of Haiti’s vibrant arts scene. Haitian painting is colorful and creative, but the most interesting thing about Haitian art might be how its artists use whatever stuff they can find to make something strange, ghoulish or beautiful. Street and even bus art is everywhere. Music is also a Haitian highlight: rara uses crude instruments like drums, bamboo trumpets and maracas to bang out simple but infectious beats, while Cuban son, Dominican merengue and American rap are also popular and filtered through Haiti’s more African sensibilities. All of these art forms come together in wild Carnival parties, which rival any other of the Caribbean’s many wild parties.

Haitian culture also places a big emphasis on solidarity and community spirit. Urban neighborhoods and rural villages are tight-knit and mutually supportive. Haitians are resourceful and used to making do with what little they have. They are hardworking and, out of necessity, patient in the face of adversity. This has made Haitian workers crucial for the Dominican Republic and the American state of Florida, as well as other Caribbean countries. Haiti also may hold promise as a low-wage manufacturing center and already has a textile industry.

That being said, Haiti resembles Africa in other ways too. It is the poorest part of the Americas, and by quite a margin too (its average per capita income is $719 a year). Damage from the earthquake is still evident 8 years later, and some still live in tents in “temporary” camps. Living conditions in general are shabby: power and water are scarce, roads are potholed, and public transit is unreliable and crowded. Port-au-Prince’s vast slum, the Cité Soleil, was once considered one of the world’s most dangerous places and was basically ruled by warring gangs until the UN took control in 2007. Crime and violence are still very high. About 150,000 Haitians have AIDS. Sanitation is in a dire state: trash and poop are dumped in ditches and canals, which means they get in houses when there are heavy rains. Most Haitians have to skip meals or eat basic foods like yams, plantains and rice. 200 years after the revolution, a racial divide between mulattoes and blacks persists.

Yet another problem is pell-mell deforestation, caused by a lack of regulation of Haiti’s many poor hill-dwellers. From the air you can see quite clearly where the Haitian-Dominican border is.

At the root of all of these problems is the government, which struggles to provide even basic services. It is caught in a classic African trap: it has very little tax revenue to spare, but its people have very little money to tax. This means it is very dependent on foreign aid, even if that means accepting crippling conditions from the World Bank and IMF. For example, the government is currently buckling under protests against a slash in fuel subsidies that makes the kerosene many Haitians depend on unaffordable. This is not new in Haiti: as the historical background should make clear, Haiti doesn’t exactly have a stable political tradition, and civil disorder can make the country ungovernable sometimes. The usual corruption and mismanagement of developing countries hollows out government resources even more.

Haitians are optimistic and stoic in even the worst of circumstances, and there are far worse neighborhoods than the Caribbean. But it will be a long time before Haiti becomes a place most people want to go to instead of a place they’d rather leave.

BOSSA BRASILEIRA

Image source: Framepool & RightSmith

Brazilians are stereotyped as an artistic and creative people, but the diverse cultural mix that makes up the country allows for a lot of interesting experimentation and fusion in its artistic expression that has made Brazil a formidable brand in the art world. Music is probably the foremost example of this. Brazilians are primarily a mix of Portuguese and other Southern Europeans with Africans — all of which appreciate a good beat. And indeed, it’s common for Brazilians to break out drums and/or a guitar at the end of a party and do some group singing. Everyone loves to dance and some do it extremely well. Banging out an impromptu beat on doors or even your own thighs is a classic way of alleviating boredom on the train. The nightlife scene in Rio and São Paulo is legendary. So let’s take a break from nuclear confrontation, repressive dictatorships and other such heavy topics and reflect on the richness of music in Brazil.

Music has formed an important part of Brazilian life from the very beginning. The native people, the Tupis, had a musical culture all of their own, but unfortunately it (like them) has been essentially wiped out. Although music in the Amazon is influenced by native peoples, who still remain there, for most of Brazilian history music was composed and played along European lines. And for the most part that meant church music; although the influence of the Catholic Church has waned in modern Brazil, it dominated life until the 1900s, and musicians in the remote, conservative towns of Brazil’s rugged interior composed some beautiful choral music.

Brazil has also produced some prominent figures in the secular classical music tradition. The most famous of these is definitely Heitor Villa-Lobos, who studied music at a conservatory and hobnobbed with the many, many other intellectuals who haunted Paris in the 1920s, but also infused his music with a distinctive Brazilian flavor culled from folk and even native rhythms he studied on travels around his homeland. This is exemplified in his Bachianas Brasileiras, which, as the name indicates, sound like something Bach would’ve written on a Brazilian holiday.

But let’s not kid ourselves: You probably aren’t reading this article to listen to church choirs and orchestras. What really sets Brazilian music apart is its African influence, courtesy of the huge slave population brought into the country until 1889. At first African music, like African culture in general, was despised and snubbed by Brazil’s high society, but in the favelas (shantytowns) where Brazil’s urban black population is concentrated, a lively genre of music called the samba was born. It used distinctive instruments like the pandeiro (a kind of tambourine) and berimbau (a bowed instrument with a gourd attached that makes a very reedy sound) that are descended from African instruments but are distinctively Brazilian. By the early 1900s, the wild parties had spilled out of the favelas and became popular among many Brazilians, especially in Rio, which has always been Brazil’s musical capital (and used to be its political capital too). Over time Rio’s Carnival celebration (a crazy party thrown by Catholics before Lent, which is supposed to be a sober, pious season) especially became famous for its joyful samba.

These days, Carnival has gotten REALLY over-the-top…

The frenzied beat played during Carnival is what most foreigners associate with samba, but in reality most sambas are more sedate and suited for impromptu street jam sessions than giant crazy block parties. It can even be quite sad sometimes. A subgenre of samba, choro, was popular early in the 1900s and involves sad melodies played with flutes, guitars, horns and a guitar-like instrument called the cavaquinho — although as the sample below from the early samba titan Pixinguinha demonstrates, it can be peppy too.

By the 1930s, samba was finding an audience outside of Brazil. This was mostly thanks to Carmen Miranda, a Portuguese-born carioca who made it big in Hollywood by combining good lucks with singing and acting ability — the winning combo for female stars in America back then. She had less of a following in Brazil, mostly because she presented a stereotyped, watered-down image of the country to foreigners, but she did increase international interest in the country and popularize some of its most famous songs, as well as the samba in general.

Brazilian music’s biggest international success, though, came in the ’50s and ’60s. This is when bossa nova came along. Bossa nova is basically an even slower subgenre of samba with very sparse instrumentation and a simple presentation in general. It was born on Rio’s sunny South Zone (the part with the beaches) and has been dominated by a sort of holy trinity all along: João Gilberto, Antônio “Tom” Jobim, and Vinicius de Moraes. They sang about Rio’s stunning geography, love, homesickness, and other emotions — the concerns of Rio’s privileged class. Its exponents drew upon jazz and recent classical music and came up with a distinctively Brazilian jazz-samba hybrid that helped epitomize the country and its extremely laid-back lifestyle. Bossa nova is so representative of Rio in particular that the city even named its airport after Tom Jobim. It may not be for everyone, but it has to be some of the most relaxing music ever recorded. The most famous bossa nova song — maybe the most famous Brazilian song ever — was “Garota da Ipanema” (“The Girl from Ipanema”), about a hot girl Tom & Vinicius saw walking down the street in Rio’s upscale Ipanema district; instead, here’s a song from Black Orpheus, a 1959 movie that set the Greek legend of Orpheus in a Rio favela.

Another prominent bossa nova musician was Sérgio Mendes, who specialized in jazzier versions of the subgenre with his band Brasil ’66. They played a hauntingly evocative cover version of “Mas Que Nada” (“Oh, Come On”) which is another one of Brazil’s most iconic tunes (and my personal favorite Brazilian song).

The other titan of bossa nova was Elis Regina, who was mostly known for her voice. She died at the age of 36 from a drug overdose but is still fondly remembered today, and her daughter, Maria Rita, is also a famous singer. (Music in Brazil tends to be dynastic; as another example, both Astrud, João Gilberto’s wife, and Bebel, his daughter, became popular singers in their own right.) Elis’s duet with Tom, “Águas de Março” (“Waters of March”), is probably her most famous song — a soothing, playful stream-of-consciousness back-and-forth about things as varied as the end of the road, a bottle of booze and a bird in the sky.

 

Although bossa nova is still alive and well, it isn’t exactly “nova” (new) anymore. By the late ’60s, it was being transplanted by a new type of music influenced by the experimentation going on in the West. This genre, now broadly referred to as “MPB” (for Brazilian Popular Music), has probably been the most popular in Brazil ever since, although it gets less exposure internationally because not speaking Portuguese hinders your enjoyment somewhat. Its opening salvo was probably an album by the band Os Mutantes (The Mutants) that brought a bunch of prominent musicians together on one record. Called Tropicalia ou Panis et Circencis (“Tropicalia, or Bread and Circuses”), it was definitely of its time — 1968, an era when psychedelic rock and hippie culture were taking young people by storm.

A more representative band might be Novos Baianos, who combined samba rhythms and instrumentation with a rock sensibility. Their breakout hit was called Acabou Chorare (“No More Crying”), which expresses their upbeat mood pretty well.

The 3 biggest names in MPB, however, are Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Chico Buarque. They led a movement in the late ’60s and early ’70s called “Tropicalia” (after a Caetano song) that expressed the resentments, frustrations and anxieties of Brazil’s youth in terms clearly influenced by British rock, American folk and (eventually) Jamaican reggae. Since Brazil was a military dictatorship at the time, the government did not approve, and strict censorship forced them to be very creative and subtle with their lyrics to mock the regime without getting caught. Before long, though, they were exiled to Europe until the censorship was relaxed (although Chico only left for 1 year).

In this long and bleak song, Chico sings about 3 construction workers dying. It is usually interpreted as an anti-capitalist poem.

All 3 of these singers, by the way, are still going strong and selling out stadiums today, and continue to mix up their music by incorporating different influences over the years. Gilberto Gil even had a stint as minister of culture in the leftist government of Lula da Silva in the ’00s!

The other 2 giants in this genre are Milton Nascimento and Jorge Ben Jor. Milton, unlike almost everyone else I’ve mentioned so far, came from practically the middle of nowhere but climbed his way to national fame through the sweetness of his voice and his musical versatility and inventiveness. Jorge is a carioca (very much so, as the song below demonstrates) and started out singing more traditional pop but veered into more funky stuff later in the ’70s. He is also the original writer of “Mas Que Nada.”

These are pretty much the biggest names in Brazilian music and the stars Brazilians everywhere can recognize. But Brazilian music doesn’t really end there. There are regional music scenes and genres with passionate followings but lower profiles nationally (and especially internationally). For instance, Rio’s biggest rival as musical capital is Salvador, the biggest city in the northeast and the hometown of João Gilberto, Caetano and Gilberto Gil. The northeast is much more heavily inspired by African culture, and Salvador’s Carnival is even rowdier than Rio’s. The local genre, axé, is inspired by the local Candomblé religion and accordingly has a strong Afro-Caribbean feel. Daniela Mercury and Ivete Sangalo’s poppy versions have made axé popular all over Brazil, especially for energetic parties.

Although its homeland is also the northeast, forró is a very different genre. It is sort of like Brazil’s country music, although it sounds much more akin to Mexican music. It is played and listened to by sertanejos, the often very poor farmers of the dry interior of the northeast and central parts of Brazil, and incorporates influences from southern Europe and (allegedly) American airmen stationed there during World War II. Its Grand Old Man is Luiz Gonzaga, famous all over Brazil for his floppy hat and this sad ballad about a drought-stricken village. (It was played not only in the closing ceremonies of the Rio 2016 Olympics, but in the crowd warm-up session before them!)

Meanwhile, the southern parts of the country tend to be more urban, white and well-off. Its music accordingly more closely resembles the stuff you’d hear in the West, only sung in Portuguese (but sometimes not even that). The rock band Legião Urbana (Urban Legion), from Brasilia, Brazil’s futuristic capital, was popular in the ’80s and imitated the New Wave rock of that era. While Legião Urbana have since disbanded, São Paulo’s Titãs (Titans) are still going strong, having kept on top of the various trends in rock since the ’80s.

Other genres popular in the West also have flourishing fanbases in Brazil. Many Brazilians just listen to the same American music the whole world does; but there are all kinds of options for those seeking something homegrown, from metal…

… to rap…

… to Christian rock (hey, Christianity is still a major force in Brazil; just not necessarily of the Catholic variety)…

… to folk-infused pop.

Brazil’s musical richness may be one of its defining contributions to the world. The heady days of the ’60s may be long gone, but musicians from the Black-Eyed Peas to Michael Jackson still take frequent pilgrimages to Brazil to soak up some sounds and get some inspiration there. Grumpy Brazilians say they steal their ideas, but if this musical survey has shown anything, it’s that Brazil is part of an international dialectic of musical ideas. Those who can overlook the language barrier and do a little digging beyond the famous, obvious names will find much to reward them.

Finally, no overview of Brazilian music would be complete without “Aquarela do Brasil” (“Watercolor of Brazil”), a loving tribute to the country written in 1939 and alluded to in numerous jazz pieces since then. Although there have been many great versions, I like the Disney version the best — partly because I love animation, and partly because of the rich nostalgia of Aloísio de Oliveira’s voice.

If you liked any of the songs I included on this post, please consider supporting the artists that bring this music to you.