Dictionary of the social history of samba

Dictionary of the Social History of Samba , winner of the Jabuti Prize for Non-Fiction Book of the Year

An expression of Rio's marginal culture in the early 20th century, samba withstood decades of racism and aesthetic prejudice and became an inextricable part of Brazilian national identity. In this pioneering work, Nei Lopes and Luiz Antonio Simas—leading scholars of the subject—inscribe the value of Blackness and Black history in the creation and establishment of samba, as well as the ambiguous insertion of this musical culture into consumer society.

More than simply describing concepts, in this important dictionary—which received the Jabuti Award for Nonfiction Book of the Year (2016)—the authors reconstruct the cultural memory of our country. The entries organize the plot of this narrative: the explicit repression of the early days; the samba schools, pagodes, and rodas as centers of resistance; the geographic distribution of these spaces; samba as a genre of popular music, with its multiple and diverse subgenres and styles and their regional differences. And, most importantly, they highlight the fundamental names that shaped this history: composers, instrumentalists, conductors, singers, dancers, set designers, directors, among others.

In the words of Rachel Valença, writer and samba researcher: "The great merit of Nei and Simas's book lies in the fact that it doesn't simply provide us with information (and lots of it!) about samba, its genres, and its exponents: it also leads us to reflect on the myths, prejudices, and half-truths that have accompanied samba throughout its victorious century-long trajectory. Reading it helps us better understand the society we live in, in which samba has established itself, resisting a limiting view of culture, identified with erudition, that saw it as folklore, as something picturesque, simply tolerated."

"Amidst all this, Rio's urban samba survives, here and throughout Brazil, with its cunning strategies of resistance, seeking the difficult balance between renewal and preservation of its identity, which gives it the enormous strength that comes from its origins. A beautiful struggle to witness and experience, with advances and retreats, with swings and movements, with guile and wisdom, is what this book recounts in the form of entries that follow one another in history. It is worth reading and reflecting upon."

The Social Dictionary of the History of Samba is a reference work that deserves to be on the bookshelf of all those curious, interested, or aficionados of this very Brazilian rhythm!