Mystery Brazilian Song about the Plight of Favela dwellers

August 9, 2008 3:27 PM

When I was in Brazil a long time ago, I heard this song on a Brazilian CD. I do not know the name, only that it is some sad song about the Favelas, with a bunch of African sounding women wailing on the background. Here is the link the YouTube rough reproduction of it. Can anyone identify it or the CD it came from?

Thanks for the help, me and my friend have been trying to find this song for a few years now.

posted by markovich to Media & Arts (10 answers total)

I'm not sure at all, but I'll post this lead as a first guess. Diplomacia by Batatinha has some of the same melodic and harmonic material in the youtube recording, but it's not by any means exact. How confident are you of what you played in that recording? How rough is it?

Also, do you remember generally what era it's probably from, based on the production values? Was the lead singer male or female? How old? Do you know if it's a samba? Anything you remember might help us track it down.
posted by umbú at 5:44 PM on August 9, 2008

Nah, it's probably not Diplomacia. Now this is driving me insane!
posted by umbú at 5:49 PM on August 9, 2008

How long ago were you in Brazil? Does the song have lyrics? Could it have been something by Adoniran Barbosa? He composed and/or recorded several songs about the favelas, including one called Despejo na Favela.
posted by iconomy at 6:14 PM on August 9, 2008

Response by poster: This was in 2004. The lyrics were all in portugese, so I don't know. It may have been something to do with bahia.
posted by markovich at 9:16 PM on August 9, 2008

Response by poster: This was a guy singing in a low voice (a bit like the buena vista social club voice), and the main falling bit was a chorus of women who sounded a bit like they were in a distance. This was a recording of classic brazilian songs, so it would probably be something old recordeded off an LP, but I'm not sure!
posted by markovich at 9:20 PM on August 9, 2008

Response by poster: The first song of Adoniran Barbosa sounds like it is in the right direction, as it has the women chorus and the voice. But which song?
posted by markovich at 9:25 PM on August 9, 2008

I am *sure* it is this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SatVnfhvNvo

Maybe not this version, though.
posted by Zé Pequeno at 5:24 AM on August 10, 2008

Woops, it's not this one. But it's definitely a song called "Eu sou Favela" by Bezerra da Silva. I can't find it on Youtube though :(
posted by Zé Pequeno at 5:28 AM on August 10, 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK0N01Iz2WQ
posted by Zé Pequeno at 5:29 AM on August 10, 2008

Response by poster: No, none of those is it. The piano being played in the demo is the voices of the people, not the background music. I remember the lyrics as being very simplistic.
posted by markovich at 6:33 AM on August 10, 2008