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he Mangueboys believed that Brazilian traditions were robust enough to stand up to anything and that preserving them only prevented them from evolving. DJ Dolores said: “We didn’t respect anything – whether traditional or contemporary, it was all fair game.” This attitude of cultural inclusion was aided by the arrival of the sampler in Brazil. The Mangue artists used the new technology to cut and paste from records by Run DMC, James Brown, Fela Kuti and the Beatles and bring them together with Brazilian music such as the Forró and Samba of Jackson do Pan- deiro and the Baião of Luiz Gonzaga.


The Mangueboys’ attitude to cultural mixing attracted critics. One of the most fervent was Ariano Suassuna, the septuagenarian poet, author and dramatist. Suassuna’s Armorial Movement fierce- ly protects Brazil’s northeastern traditions, believing that they should be shielded from global influences for fear of diluting and drowning them out. Acting as Recife’s Secretary for Culture at the time, he declined to support Manguebeat.


Among Suassuna’s arguments for not supporting Manguebeat was that it was already doing spectacularly well by itself. In 1993, MTV and Sony Records were among the first visitors attracted to Recife by the Manguebeat scene. That same year, Chico Science And Nação Zumbi signed to Sony’s Chaos label. A contract with a major international label would have been a remarkable accomplishment for many established Brazilian bands at the time but for a band from Recife who sang exclusively in Portuguese, it was unimaginable.


In 1994, Chico Science And Nação Zumbi released their debut


album Da Lama Ao Caos (From Mud To Chaos). Although the produc- er provided by Sony didn’t do justice to the sound of the Maracatu drums, the new concept was enough to gain critical acclaim in Brazil as well as Europe, America and Japan. World tours followed and Manguebeat bands topped lists of the best Brazilian albums for the following years. In the documentary Malungo A Malungo, journalist Pedro Sanches from the newspaper Folha De São Paulo said “At that time there was no doubt… Recife was where it was happening”.


By the mid-1990s, Mangue was being compared with the Trop- icália movement. The Tropicalists had been condemned for bring- ing modern elements such as the electric guitar into traditional Brazilian music. In the 1970s the movement’s founders – Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil – were exiled to London by Brazil’s military dictatorship. While the Tropicalists had shocked by using interna- tional elements in the 1960s, in the 1990s it was Mangue’s use of national rhythms that was considered outrageous.


Chico Science And Nação Zumbi were at the height of their success, recording with Brazilian legends Jorge Ben Jor and Gilber- to Gil and performing on the billing as the Specials, the band they had idolised since their days as a Ska band. In 1996, they released their second album, Afrociberdelia – the name was a nod to Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat, cybernetics and 1960s psychedelic rock. It is now considered one of the essential Brazilian albums of the 1990s and in 2007; it was ranked in The Guardian’s list of 1000 Albums To Lis- ten To Before You Die where it was described it as a “thumping redefinition of Brazilian music.”


Then, in 1997, Chico Science hit a lamp post while driving from Recife to nearby Olinda. He died tragically and suddenly at the age of just 31. Chico’s obituary was printed in newspapers around the world. The Observer reported that Chico had “produced a shock- wave analogous to that of the Sex Pistols in Britain.”


The British drum’n’bass star Goldie paid homage to Chico on


the track The Death Of A Rock Star, which was included on Chico Science And Nação Zumbi’s self-titled album in 1998. True to the Mangueboys’ philosophy of creative democracy, the band wasn’t happy with the name of the track. Rather than rock-stars, the Mangueboys preferred being called Pobrestars (poor-stars).


Certain members of the press were quick to call Chico’s death the end of Mangue. H D Mabuse said: “It was pure sensationalism and it was completely disrespectful, not just to Chico but everyone who was involved in the Mangue scene.” But Manguebeat didn’t end in 1997; Nação Zumbi has since recorded five albums with Chico’s best friend – and former percussionist – Jorge du Peixe as vocalist. They continue to tour the world and performed on the BBC’s Later With Jools Holland in 2006.


Mangue’s lasting influence is most palpable in the city that was once christened ‘Mangue Town’. Talking at Chico Science Week (Recife’s annual celebration of Chico’s birthday), Fred Zero Quatro said: “If you didn’t live in Recife before Mangue, you can have no idea of how much it has changed. My son will grow up in a very different city from the one I was raised in.”


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