10. Forró: Xote
Introduction
Audio: Som da Massa, “Transcontinental Baião”
Schuyler Whelden: I’m Schuyler Whelden.
Juliana Cantarelli Vita: And I’m Juliana Cantarelli Vita.
SW: This is Massa, a podcast about Brazilian music and culture.
JCV: Schuyler and I are musicians and music professors. In each episode we dive into a specific genre, song, artist, or issue in Brazilian music to try to understand how it works and what it means.
SW: Juliana, can we listen to something?
JCV: Hi Schuyler. I’m fine, thanks. And you?
SW: Oops. Yeah, I’m great, thanks, you?
JCV: Good.
SW: So, can I play you this?
JCV: Sure.
Audio: Accioly Neto, “Espumas ao Vento” (YouTube) (Spotify)
JCV: Ooh, that’s a classic. Accioly Neto singing his song “Espumas ao Vento.” But I don’t think that the topic of today’s episode is “Schuyler’s karaoke songs.”
SW: No, but that’s a great episode idea! One sec. [whispering to self: Schuyler's karaoke songs.]
JCV: Okay, okay. Can I play the next part for everyone so we can introduce the topic?
SW: Please!
JCV: That’s better.
SW: Yes! Folks might recognize that ensemble from the last episode.
JCV: The accordion, the triangle, and the large drum called zabumba, along with a few other things.
SW: That ensemble is associated with the genre known nowadays as forró.
JCV: This particular song is an example of a northeastern dance genre called xote.
SW: You could think of xote as a sub-genre of forró, or, perhaps more accurately, think of xotes as part of the repertory of a typical forró composer or performer.
JCV: So today we are going to dive deep into the xote.
SW: We’ll learn a bit about its history.
JCV: We’ll use Luiz Gonzaga’s classic “Numa Sala de Reboco” as a paradigmatic example to break down some of the musical characteristics, such as what the zabumba does and what the accordion does in a xote.
SW: Hopefully after this, you’ll all be able to recognize a xote next time you encounter one in the wild.
JCV: And we’ll also play a bunch of examples of popular songs, both within and possibly outside of the umbrella of forró, that draw on the xote tradition.
SW: We’re very lucky to have a special guest who will help us walk you through the musical characteristics and history of this genre. You might remember him from the last episode:
Julinho Mendes: Meu nome é Julio Cesar Mendes. Minha família e meus amigos me conhecem por Julinho, que é um diminutivo do meu nome. Eu toco acordeom. E aqui no Brasil, na região nordeste o acordeom é chamado de sanfona. Eu nasci numa cidade chamada Garanhuns, no estado de Pernambuco e moro hoje em Recife, que é a capital do estado. Moro aqui em Recife desde 11 anos, embora sempre tô indo a Garanhuns—inclusive ultimamente a trabalho. Eu comecei a tocar muito cedo, tanto profissionalmente como ter contato com a música. Meu avô tocava acordeom e é uma coisa meio que tradicional em toda música tradicional que tenha acordeom, tanto aqui no Nordeste como no Sul, é muito comum que isso seja uma coisa hereditária.
[My name is Júlio César Mendes. My family and friends know me as Julinho, which is the diminutive of my name. I play accordion, and here in Brazil, in the Northeast region, the accordion is called sanfona. … I was born in a city called Garanhuns, in the state of Pernambuco. And I live today in Recife, which is the capital of the state. I have lived in Recife since I was 11 years old, but I go to Garanhuns regularly, including lately to work. I started to have contact with this music and play professionally since very young. My grandfather played accordion, and something that is sort of traditional in traditional music that has accordion, both in the NE and in the South, is that it is common for it to be hereditary.]**
History
JCV: Let’s start by talking about the history of this dance genre.
SW: Okay! To start, the word xote is a Brazilianization of the German word schottische, meaning “Scottish.”
JCV: The anthropologist Megwen May Loveless notes that the schottische has Hungarian and German roots and that, in the mid-nineteenth century, it had a popularity boom in France and Britain.
SW: In Britain, it’s called a “barn dance.”
JCV: It seems to have been brought to Brazil by the dancer José Maria Toussaint in 1851.
SW: In the late nineteenth century, European rural and salon dances were very important elements of social culture throughout Brazil. While ballroom styles like the waltz found a strong footing in urban areas, especially in the Southeast, in rural areas of the Northeast, the xote became one of the most popular social dances.
JCV: It’s a couples dance that—
SW: Before you describe it, what do you say to letting Luiz Gonzaga do that for us?
JCV: Okay! As with many of the forró dance genres, we have Gonzagão to thank for really making the xote an enduring popular form.
SW: This is the song “No Meu Pé de Serra.” It was written by Gonzaga and Humberto Teixeira and first recorded in 1947.
Audio: Luiz Gonzaga, “No Meu Pé de Serra” (YouTube) (Spotify)
JCV: Let’s pause and explain this. The lyrics start by setting the scene.
SW: Much like many of the songs that we discussed in the previous episode, Luiz Gonzaga expresses saudade.
JCV: Or, nostalgic longing.
SW: For a homeland he has left.
JCV: He sings, “Lá no meu pé de serra / Deixei ficar meu coração / Ai, que saudades eu tenho / Eu vou voltar pro meu sertão.”
SW: That translates to, “Over there in my foothills / I left my heart / Ah, what saudades I feel / I’m going to return to my sertão.”
JCV: The sertão is an area in the interior of the Brazilian Northeast. The difficulty in farming there, because of droughts, is one of the reasons for migrations that led so many northeasterners to cities like Rio and São Paulo.
SW: It often translates to “hinterlands,” but it’s actually a specific climate and geography that you would encounter in states like Pernambuco, Bahia, Maranhão, Paraíba.
JCV: Right. We’ve talked about coastal cities like Recife, which is in Pernambuco, and Salvador, in Bahia. And we’ve talked about the forests near the coast that were taken down for sugarcane plantations. And further inland is the sertão, which is an arid landscape dotted with scrub brush. It can be a difficult life.
SW: In addition to the realities of the sertão, that area has also become mythologized in Brazilian culture.
JCV: The big touchstone for the myth and the reality of the sertão is Euclydes da Cunha’s 1902 book Os Sertões, called Rebellion in the Backlands in English. And this was reinforced in Graciliano Ramos’s 1938 book Vidas Secas.
SW: Glauber Rocha turned that book into a film in 1963 and started a long trend of films about this region. Some recent examples are Vincente Amorim’s Caminho das Nuvens and Lírio Ferreira’s Árido Movie.
JCV: Just as important as these cinematic and literary depictions of the sertão are the musical depictions by Gonzaga and others.
SW: Yeah.
JCV: The other lyric I want to highlight before we get to the xote is the title lyric, “there in my pé de serra,” which refers to the foothills where Gonzaga actually grew up.
SW: Yeah, that’s what the classic forró ensemble.
JCV: Of triangle, zabumba, and accordion.
SW: Has come to be called: forró pé de serra.
JCV: Exactly.
SW: He goes on “No meu rancho / tinha tudo o que queria / Lá se dançava quase toda quinta-feira / Sanfona não faltava e tome xote a noite inteira.”
JCV: “On my ranch / I had everything I ever wanted / There we danced almost every Thursday / The accordion never faltered and played xotes all night long.”
SW: Then he tells us how to dance it.
JCV: “The xote is good / For you to dance to / We’re glued to the cabocla and don’t let go / One step there / One step here / While the accordion is playing / is moaning, is crying / is sniffling, complaining without end.”
SW: We talked about this before, but you want to remind us what cabocla means?
JCV: Starting in the colonial era, cabocla—or the masculine form caboclo—was a term of racial classification for someone with one indigenous parent and one Portuguese parent. But it can also refer to indigenous people broadly, or to people from the sertão, and some people even use it to mean “person of color.” It’s got a complex history that includes classifying people within a social hierarchy on one hand and a reclaiming of certain terms as positive markers of identification on the other.
SW: So, here he’s using it to describe a person from this region, the sertão.
JCV: It seems that way.
SW: To be honest, I didn’t really understand the steps.
JCV: Yeah, it’s less clear if you haven’t seen it, but the dance is a couple’s dance where the two dancers are very close. Sometimes cheek to cheek. It’s very intimate. One dancer leads. The leader holds the partner in the middle of their back with their left hand. And the other one puts their left hand on the leader’s right shoulder.
SW: What are the steps? One there and one here?
JCV: The couple makes two steps to the leader’s right and then two steps to the leader’s left. 1, 2, 1, 2.
SW: So, it’s not hard to learn?
JCV: Nope.
SW: Okay, I’ll work on it. [whispering to self: Okay, so, learn to dance xote.] I love the part at the end of this refrain when he runs together all of the verbs describing what the accordion is doing.
SW: These actions are all the actions of someone who misses their homeland, except they are located within the accordion, which has a bellows that “sniffles” and “moans” as the player plays the notes.
JCV: This song was an early Gonzaga success that was based on Gonzaga’s memory of his father Januário playing xotes when he was a kid.
SW: The story goes that at a recording session, Gonzaga was in the process of introducing these kinds of northeastern dance rhythms into his repertory. He met the lyricist Humberto Teixeira for the first time and this song was the first thing they made together.
Rhythm
JCV: Some of you may have already noticed that the xote is characterized by a specific rhythmic pattern.
SW: Yes. It’s identifiable by the pattern on the zabumba.
JCV: Real quick reminder: the zabumba is a large, shallow bass drum that is played on both sides. On the top drum head, the player uses a mallet, called pirulito, to get a booming sound and on the bottom, the player uses a thin stick, called bacalhau, which plays higher pitched notes.
SW: Sounds like quite a meal!
JCV: Haha. To explain: pirulito means lollipop and bacalhau means codfish.
SW: Two great tastes that taste great together.
JCV: They do on the zabumba anyway.
SW: The xote is a duple meter dance, which means it has two beats per rhythmic cycle. The simplest version of the pattern is this.
SW: You can hear the mallet playing a muted stroke on the first beat and then two open strokes evenly distributed across the second beat. If we count it, it’s like this:
JCV: The bacalhau, in this simplified version, plays offbeats, or on the “and” of the beat.
SW: Putting them together, it sounds like this.
JCV: There are some variations, which include adding an extra open stroke leading into the second beat.
SW: Or adding additional bacalhau hits.
JCV: One thing most players do is make the final open stroke a little louder to give the rhythm a bit of propulsion.
SW: Another important quality of the xote is its particular rhythmic feel. It’s played in what, in North American popular music, would be called a “shuffle feel,” where that “and” does not evenly divide the beat, but comes a little later. Those of you who have listened to a lot of jazz and R&B would probably have heard the term “swing.”
JCV: [singing: “It don’t mean a thing.”]
SW: That is what’s happening here.
SW: In addition to the specific drum hits that make up the xote rhythm, this feel, this swing, is an important element.
JCV: Let’s listen to a bit of the classic xote “Numa Sala de Reboco” written by Zé Marcolino and (who else?) Luiz Gonzaga. This is a live recording from 1972. You can really hear that zabumba beat:
Audio: Luiz Gonzaga, “Numa Sala de Reboco” (Youtube) (Spotify)
SW: Could you hear that zabumba beat?
JCV: I could.
SW: That’s good. Do you want to play that part on top of it just to make it abundantly clear what’s going on?
JCV: Sure.
SW: So, what about the triangle?
JCV: Well, the main thing to keep in mind is that the triangle plays eighth notes, each note of the 1 + 2 + that make up this genre’s meter.
SW: Of course, those notes are not evenly spaced, because of the swing that this genre has.
JCV: Right.
SW: I also noticed that the notes sound different. It’s not just four identical hits on the triangle.
JCV: No. I’m closing and opening my grip on the triangle as I play to get the two-ish different sounds. The first, second, and fourth hits are made with a closed hand. They sound short and don’t ring out.
JCV: For the third hit, I open my hand to get that open sound.
JCV: When I put it all together, it creates this kind of wave effect.
SW: It highlights the swing and gives this rhythmic loop a bit of propulsion. The louder, more resonant note, happens on the second beat, but it gets cut off by the closed fourth hit. Together, all of that keeps us moving forward.
JCV: Exactly. The xote is a relaxed rhythm, but it’s still a dance rhythm. It still needs that forward momentum, or else everyone will just sit down.
SW: Can’t have that.
SW: Julinho Mendes talked a little bit about how he would approach playing this song on the accordion:
JM: Eu acho que o xote padrão, básico, tanto do ponto de vista didático quanto do ponto de vista de ser uma coisa bem conhecida é Sala de Reboco. Por exemplo, se eu for ensinar a um aluno [demonstrate]. Aí uma variação dessa introdução é justamente o uso do fole com o bellow shake, o resfolego [demonstrate]. Aí o sanfoneiro vez ou outra faz uma variação… [demonstrates with bellow shake]. Essa coisa do uso do fole depende de mil circunstâncias mas a principal é se o instrumento não for muito bom, é muito cansativo e muito complicado fazer isso. Tem muito vazamento de ar. Tem mil complicações que atrapalha o processo.
[I think the standard, basic xote, both from a didactic point of view and in the sense of being very well known is “Sala de Reboco.” For example, if I’m going to teach a student (demonstrates). One variation of this introduction is precisely the use of the bellows with the bellow shake, the resfolengo. So the accordionist once in a while plays a variation (demonstrates with bellow shake). The question of using the bellows depends on a thousand circumstances, but the main one is that if the instrument is not good, it’s very tiring and complicated to do. There is this emptying of the air. There are a thousand little complications that mess up the technique.]**
SW: The bellowshake that Julinho is describing is a really important technique that was pioneered by Luiz Gonzaga, as we mentioned last time. It involves moving the bellows back and forth rapidly to create an additional rhythmic layer. It almost has the effect of making the instrument sound like it’s breathing. But as Julinho mentioned, it’s hard to do and, on a poor quality instrument, it can be impossible. But a xote is slow enough that it allows a lot of space and the bellowshake becomes an important element of accordion performance in this song form.
JCV: Let’s explain what this song is about.
SW: Actually, this is really interesting.
JCV: The title is “Numa Sala de Reboco,” which translates to something like “In a Plaster Room.”
SW: But the word reboco in this case, doesn’t seem to refer to plaster, but to a different kind of construction.
JCV: Yes, in rural parts of the Northeast it has been traditionally common to construct homes out of rammed earth—basically, mud. People build a frame out of sticks and then layer wet soil into the frame a little bit at a time. The sun bakes and hardens the mud, creating a strong structure.
SW: The more common term for this type of house is casa de taipa. Some of you may have seen the film Eu, Tu, Eles or (Me, You, Them in English). This is the kind of home that you see built in that film.
JCV: Oh, yeah. I haven’t seen that.
SW: You not having seen any films is like me not having been to Pernambuco.
JCV: You mean you’re going to give me a hard time about it until I see them?
SW: Basically, yeah.
JCV: Okay, I’ll put it on the list.
SW: Well, I recommend it to everyone. It’s go great music. They dance to xote at one point.
JCV: And build a casa de taipa.
SW: Man, we are off track.
JCV: No we’re not. The sala de reboco of the title actually seems to be referring to this kind of rammed earth construction.
SW: Oh right, yeah. Julinho explained this beautifully:
JM: A música Sala de Reboco, ela descreve uma coisa que é e foi uma tradição por muito tempo também. Você construir uma casa, que a gente chama aqui de taipa, é uma casa de barro, rudimentar, você casava e não era uma pessoa rica, você construía sua casa. É uma casa de construção fácil, vamos dizer assim, e relativamente durável. Aí você fazia as paredes de barro e o piso também era de barro, mas pra ele ficar organizado e bonito, você tinha que apilar com alguma coisa pesada ou melhor, você botava ali tudo certinho e marcava um forró na sua casa, na sala da sua casa. Pro pessoal dançar naquela sala e pisar o chão. Então era uma sala de reboco, piso rebocado. Então “todo tempo quanto houver pra mim é pouco pra dançar com meu benzinho numa sala de reboco”, era nesse momento que rolava a safadeza aí, na sala de reboco de noite, candeeiro aceso, o cara tá ali tocando, o sanfoneiro tá ali tocando e todo mundo tá dançando às vezes até pra ajudar, o cara tá cansado e tá dançando ali pra ajudar a pisar o chão e ele ficar plano e bem condensado e ali alguém já começava alguma safadeza, claro. Mas essa tradição foi muito corrente de se fazer um forró pra pisar o chão da casa. Aí tinha o forró no quarto, o forró na sala, forró na cozinha, o forró no terreiro [backyard] se você fosse uma casa mais de rico assim. Então coisas interessantes de uma tradição que obviamente não existe mais, não existe mais casa de taipa, mas muita gente passa despercebido na letra dessa música e na história que ela trás, da sala de reboco.
[The song “Sala de Reboco” describes something that was a tradition for a long time as well. You are building a kind of house that we call casa de taipa. It’s a mud house, rudimentary. You got married, you were not rich, you built your own house. It’s an easy kind of house to build, let’s say, and relatively durable. So you made the walls of mud and the floor was also made of mud, but to be neat and pretty, you have to pound it with something heavy, or even better, you put everything in order and set up a forró in your house, in the main room of your house, for the people to dance in that room and step on the ground. So it was a sala de reboco, an earthen floor living room. So, “whatever time I have is not enough to dance with my sweetheart in an earthen floor living room.” It was this moment when the naughtiness was happening there, in the earthen floor living room at night, the lantern lit, the people there playing, the accordionist playing, and everyone dancing, sometimes only to help. The guy is tired and is dancing to help pound the floor flat and tightly packed. And someone gets up to some naughtiness, of course. But this tradition was very common, to have a forró to pound the floor of the house. So, you had a forró in the bedroom, in the living room, in the kitchen, and in the backyard if you were a little wealthier. So, interesting things about a tradition that doesn’t exist anymore, there aren’t so much earthen houses anymore, but most people don’t even realize what this lyric means and the history that it brings, about the earthen floor houses.]**
SW: This is a beautiful example of the ways that the social uses of the music sneak into popular recordings.
JCV: Exactly. Having a forró to compact the floors of your home might not be so common anymore, but there is still this trace evidence of the practice in the song lyrics.
SW: But that practice is not so much the topic of the song. It’s really just a nice description of him dancing with his sweetheart.
JCV: He says, “Any amount of time is not enough / To dance with my love in a sala de reboco” and describes their whispered conversations that are hidden by the sound of the accordion.
SW: Effectively, the song, like many xotes, is about dancing the xote, though he actually doesn’t say the name of the genre at any point.
JCV: Which is rare. Usually there will be some kind of remark about the genre being played.
Xote in Popular Music
JCV: Of all of the forró sub-genres, the xote has really persisted and found a foothold in present-day forró and present-day forró-derived genres.
SW: Let’s break down a few examples.
JCV: Okay.
SW: We can see the diversity of interpretations that this “barn dance” has inspired and look for some common trends.
JCV: How about we start with a performance by Alceu Valença?
SW: Sounds good! Alceu Valença is a singer and composer from the interior of Pernambuco.
JCV: He’s primarily associated with the genre of MPB.
SW: Which means, literally Música Popular Brasileira (or Brazilian Popular Music).
JCV: It’s a complex term that we’ll get into in another episode, but for our purposes today, think of it as a genre of popular recorded music that takes inspiration from Brazilian music traditions—in this case forró, but it also could be candomblé or maracatu or a host of other things—and mixes those traditions with contemporary recording techniques, instruments, and foreign genres.
SW: Alceu Valença is associated with a group of northeasterners that had a lot of success recording MPB grounded in regional traditions starting primarily in the mid to late 1970s.
JCV: Yeah, they picked up on Luiz Gonzaga, but also on stuff like the Beatles.
SW: Okay. So here is Jorge de Altinho’s song “Petrolina - Juazeiro,” sung by Alceu Valença.
Audio: Alceu Valença, “Petrolina - Juazeiro” (YouTube) (Spotify)
SW: Hopefully everyone could hear that swing that is typical of the xote.
JCV: One difference is that the zabumba is supplemented by a drum set.
SW: Yes, and the electric bass follows the rhythm and the accents of the zabumba. as well.
JCV: The triangle and accordion are in full effect too.
SW: Yes. This recording is from 1998, a full two-decades after the song was written and many decades after Luiz Gonzaga brought the xote to national attention in the 1940s. And yet, so many of the characteristics are still recognizable, even if they are supplemented with instruments and sounds typical of a 1990s recording studio.
JCV: The lyrics are quite poignant. The title “Petrolina - Juazeiro” refers to two cities that sit on the opposite sides of the River São Francisco, which separates the states of Pernambuco and Bahia in the interior of the Northeast.
SW: The singer looks back with saudade on his childhood, when he crossed the bridge everyday from Petrolina to Juazeiro with great joy.
JCV: He sings, “In both of them I find something beautiful / I like Juazeiro and I adore Petrolina.”
SW: And at the end, he inverts it: “I like Petrolina and I adore Juazeiro.”
JCV: This really highlights the way that forró has come to signify an idea of the Brazilian Northeast as a totality.
SW: Yes, something like half a million people live in the two cities and their economic and cultural lives are very much intertwined, despite the fact that people are from different states.
JCV: A couple of fun facts about these cities: the singer Geraldo Azevedo is from Petrolina, as is Zé Manoel, who we heard from in episode 4. And Juazeiro is the home town of João Gilberto and Ivete Sangalo.
SW: And if you decide to watch Eu, Tu, Eles, you’ll hear this song at one of the forrós that the characters attend.
JCV: Okay, I’ll watch it! Geez.
SW: I mean, only if you want.
JCV: Let’s move on to a song written by the singer Anastácia and her husband, the master accordion player and composer Dominguinhos.
SW: Yes! Are you talking about “Eu Só Quero Um Xodó”?
JCV: I am.
SW: Woohoo! The couple wrote the song in the 1970s and it’s been recorded dozens, maybe hundreds, of times. Let’s listen to a version by Dominguinhos himself that was, also, coincidentally, recorded in 1998.
Audio: Dominguinhos, “Eu Só Quero Um Xodó” (YouTube) (Spotify)
SW: I mean, if I were you, the listener, I would turn us off and go listen to more of that.
JCV: Wait, they can listen afterwards.
JCV: Okay, good idea.
JCV: So, the first thing I want to point out in this recording is just how much Dominguinhos and his band straighten the rhythm.
SW: If you focus in on the triangle, you can hear it how it’s not swung anymore. It lacks that bounciness.
SW: This goes to show that these attributes we’re pointing out about these various sub-genres are not set in stone.
JCV: Definitely. No one would ever accuse Dominguinhos of not being an authentic representative of the forró tradition.
SW: Far from it!
JCV: But he doesn’t play the xote as if it’s a set in stone dance genre. He treats it as a living tradition.
SW: The lyrics sort of combine the notion of saudade with romance.
JCV: The title means “All I Want is a Sweetheart.”
SW: Xodó is an informal word that expresses a kind of loving intimacy.
JCV: Hence my translating it as “sweetheart.”
SW: Right, yeah, sorry. It’s a popular term in the Brazilian Northeast that was adopted from an African language.
JCV: So, by putting that term in the title, Anastácia and Dominguinhos situate the listener in that particular geography.
SW: Dominguinhos sings, “I just want a love / That ends my suffering / A sweetheart for me just as I am / That brings joy to my life.”
JCV: I mean, who doesn’t want that?
JCV: Next up is another love song. One that takes advantage of the xote rhythm to have some fun with the great metaphor for love.
SW: Love as a sickness!
JCV: Love as the heart, dummy.
SW: Oh, right.
JCV: This is the singer Elba Ramalho singing “Bate Coração” composed by Cecéu.
Audio: Elba Ramalho, “Bate Coração” (YouTube) (Spotify)
SW: Elba Ramalho is often classified in the same school of MPB as Alceu Valença.
JCV: In fact, they have performed together a lot.
SW: She’s from the interior of Paraíba, a couple hundred miles west of where Alceu Valença grew up.
JCV: But the point is that this is an MPB interpretation of a xote.
SW: Yeah, it seems to have a kind of rock back beat.
JCV: It would even be reasonable if you told me that you didn’t recognize the xote right away.
SW: But have a listen to what the bass guitar does.
JCV: Oh yeah, it’s totally playing that zabumba beat.
SW: One thing that is very present here is the xote swing.
JCV: For sure, and I think that the lyrics are also a subtle reference to the xote.
SW: Oh, that’s interesting. How so?
JCV: Well, the song is called “Bate Coração.”
SW: Or, “Beat, My Heart.”
JCV: And the refrain lyrics are “Oi, tum, tum, bate coração / Oi, tum, coração pode bater / Oi, tum, tum, tum, bate coração / Que eu morro de amor com muito prazer.”
SW: Aha. I see where you are going. A lot of this is vocables, or nonsense syllables.
JCV: Yeah. It translates to “Oi, tum, tum, beat, my heart / Oi, tum, my heart, you can beat / Oi, tum, tum, beat my heart / Because I’ll die of love with great pleasure.”
SW: I told you that love as a sickness is the classic metaphor.
JCV: You did, that’s true.
SW: But I see what you mean. The “tum tum” is both the beating of the heart and the beating of the zabumba.
JCV: And it’s not 100% explicit. The “tums” don’t match up with the zabumba rhythms, but it’s evocative of them.
SW: Cool!
JCV: And if you are still not convinced that this is an MPB version of a xote.
SW: I am, though.
JCV: Not you, Schuyler! I’m talking to everybody else.
SW: Oh right, yeah.
JCV: If you aren’t convinced, here’s what it sounds like in a more traditional forró setting, sung by the composer herself, Cecéu.
Audio: Cecéu, “Bate Coração” (YouTube) (Spotify)
SW: Let’s fast forward a couple of decades to hear what people are doing with the xote nowadays.
JCV: Okay, great. I want to highlight an accordion player and singer from the state of Sergipe named Mestrinho, here is his 2017 recording of the song “Te Faço Um Cafuné.”
Audio: Mestrinho, “Te Faço um Cafuné” (YouTube) (Spotify)
SW: This is such a gorgeous song.
JCV: I agree.
SW: It was written by Zezum, the longtime triangle player in Dominguinhos’s group.
JCV: It offers a slightly different view of the intimacy of xote.
SW: Right. It’s set in this domestic world. The singer promises “I’ll caress you when you go to sleep / give you coffee when you wake up / I’ll put food in your mouth and quench your thirst / I’ll set up my hammock and rock you.”
JCV: The gentle swing of the xote here is repurposed for this kind of lazy, hammock swinging.
SW: The arrangement has drums, and bass, and electric guitar, but the accordion is the star of the show.
JCV: He even offers a little “chora sanfona,” or “cry accordion” right as the band kicks in.
SW: Later in the song, he teases us with a kind of rock refrain before bringing the xote back.
JCV: Like Dominiguinhos, Mestrinho is considered one of the great sanfoneiros of his generation. He’s extremely well respected as a traditional player, but can also play in this hybrid zone.
SW: Speaking of which, let’s end with something a little different.
JCV: Okay, what’s that?
SW: Well, we’ve done well so far to highlight contributions to xote performance and composition by northeasterners.
JCV: As it should be! I mean, just kidding, I’m not that much of a purist.
SW: Haha. Well I would like to listen to a singer from São Paulo that has actually collaborated with Mestrinho quite a bit.
JCV: I bet you’re talking about Mariana Aydar.
SW: You are correct!
JCV: She actually recorded a version of “Te Faço Um Cafuné” in 2017 as well.
SW: Totally, but I want to play something else.
JCV: Oh. Okay, what’s it going to be?
SW: This is the song “Condução” sung by Mariana Aydar. Check it out.
Audio: Mariana Aydar, “Condução” (YouTube) (Spotify)
JCV: Oh wow, that is different!
SW: Yeah, I kind of love it.
JCV: Me too, I think. It has that xote swing, but it also has all of these synthesizers and drum machine sounds mixed in with the triangle.
SW: Totally. But the standard xote rhythm is a bit disguised. There are some drum hits that anticipate the beat more like the baião that we’ll discuss in a couple of weeks.
JCV: But melodically, it’s somewhat in line with a xote. The rhythm of the vocal seems inspired by the other xotes we’ve heard, but the melody itself is processed through more of a popular music lens.
SW: I actually really wanted to highlight the lyrics.
JCV: Okay!
SW: It plays on some of the traditional xote themes we’ve highlighted. The title “Condução” refers to the act of leading the dance.
JCV: Exactly. Let’s see, the verse starts “Pode dançar colado, mas não faça o tarado / Se eu quero só aquele dois pra lá e dois pra cá / Não venha com a gentileza de um otário / Risadinha, esfregadinha, se eu não quero chamegar.”
SW: Which means, “You can dance close, but don’t be a pervert / If I want just the two steps this way and two steps that way / Don’t come over here like a jerk / laughing and touching me if I don’t want to flirt.”
JCV: She’s laying out the limits of the behavior that she'll accept on the dance floor.
SW: Those limits are typically unwritten, which can lead to a lot of bad behavior. This is making the idea of consent very explicit.
JCV: As it should be. She’s open to dancing and having a good time, and, who knows, something else, in the future, but it’s going to be her decision.
SW: The chorus is literally, “Let me lead, let me lead / Boy or girl, let me lead.”
JCV: It makes a connection between gendered roles on the dance floor and how they resonate into potential romantic entanglements. The lyrics, like the accompaniment, draw on the traditional tropes and ideas of xote, but bring them into a different time and social context.
SW: And traditionalists might have a problem with this, I’m guessing.
JCV: It’s true. Mariana Aydar is from São Paulo and there are those who resist labelling her a forrozeira, preferring to categorize her as a popular musician that draws on forró ideas.
SW: This is one of those things that I’m not really positioned to weigh in on, but it’s good to know that the debate exists. Just as a listening experience, I enjoy this song and I find its arrangement and lyrics interesting to think through.
JCV: Although this is a good song, it’s probably not an example of pushing the forró tradition. That's why I'm calling it "xote-inspired". I don't even know if she's ever even been to a casa de taipa/sala de reboco or the sertão. It definitely brings elements of xote, but her positionality and experiences are different from those who live and breathe this tradition.
SW: Well said. You know, believe it or not, we’re done talking about xote for the day.
JCV: There are thousands of songs that we could highlight, but yeah, I think you’re right. We should wrap it up.
SW: The next dance genre of the forró world that we’re planning to tackle is xaxado.
JCV: Yes, that episode will be out soon. I hope you all find it interesting.
SW: Thanks, as always, Juliana.
JCV: Thanks Schuyler. Esse foi massa.
Credits
Audio: Sammy Bananas, “Transcontinental Baião (Carioca Remix)”
SW: Massa is written, produced and edited by Juliana Cantarelli Vita and me, Schuyler Whelden. Very special thanks to João Paulo Rechi Vita and Julinho Mendes. For episode transcripts and links to further reading, please visit our website, essefoimassa.com. That’s E-S-S-E-F-O-I-M-A-S-S-A dot com. You can email us at essefoimassa@gmail.com. Follow us @essefoimassa on Instagram and Twitter. Our intro music is by Som da Massa and our outro music is by Sammy Bananas. Please join us in two weeks as we continue our discussion of forró with the dance rhythm called xaxado. Until then, esse foi massa.
*Photo by
**Translations of Julinho Mendes voiced by João Paulo Rechi Vita.
