more Brega s/a
October 24th, 2009
above is a clip I snatched from the brega s/a documentary I posted about earlier this week. I chose this adrenaline filled clip for the excellent track that accompanys it, which I’m guessing must an example of the eletromelody genre, a faster and heavier version of normal tecnobrega. Interesting the images of the guys waving wads of cash around, is this a northern brazillian thing or specifically related to the tecnobrega parties. More tracks like this can be found on their myspace page. Brega s/a is an amazing documentary, with some real characters involved, from the recording artists to the street vendors selling the pirate CDs and DVDs on the streets. A subtitled version will be available soon.
here’s some more info about the film from the directors:
In the soundtrack of the movie, we used the songs that are played live by Principe Negro and Superpop, the biggest tecnobrega soundsystems of Amazonia. The tecnobrega soundsystems are huge and massive walls of loudspeakers complemented with state of the art lightining sets. Most of the tecnobrega parties occur in the poorest areas of Belem, the biggest city of Brazil’s northern region, in soccer fields, neighborhood associations, clubs and abandoned sheds at the docks of the city. The ticket costs around US$ 4,00 and the beer no more than US$ 2,00. The soundtrack of these parties is tecnobrega, a cross between Kraftwerk, jungle, reggaeton, rap and amazonian folk music. Most of the songs are made in home made studios built in the amazonian favelas, with cheap computers and pirate software. The music is rough and the lyrics, in general, are about love or the street gangs and dance crews of the city, known as the “equipes”, the equivalent of the L.A. and NY hip-hop “posses”. In the tecnobrega scene there’s no record labels or copyright laws. All the songs made by de DJs and the MCs are distributed straight to pirate record makers and street vendors. If a song is sold in the streets of Belem and becomes a success, the artist starts being booked for shows in the favela’s clubs and is payed by the “equipes” to make songs for them. A very desregulated market where the artist’s only goal is to make a successfull song, hit the jackpot and eventualy became rich. The trailer of the movie, in portuguese, can be viewed in high resolution at http://www.vimeo.com/1993239 . A subtitled version will be available soon.
