Boi-Bumba In Brazil

Question 1: The “Boi-Bumba” in Brazil blends Indigenous, African and European culture into one big festival every year and is a nationally celebrated occasion. Citizens gather to enjoy a three hour show with food, drinks and entertainment in an arena with 35,000 people. The Boi Bumba tradition dates back to the colonial days and represents the “kidnapping, death and resurrection of an ox.” The plot that is mainly told includes a “Portuguese master and his wife, a slave and his pregnant wife and other Afro-Brazilians and native slaves.” The slave, Pai Francisco, is told to of killed the ox in order to give the tongue of it to his wife, but his master orders him to bring the ox back to life, which he accomplishes and as a result people celebrate
the resurrection of the ox. This whole plot is represented each year at the Boi Bumba festival with numerous characters and giant puppets. The ox is the main character of the show and he is killed but then resurrected while the performers sing “toadas.” During the performance of this classic story, bands play various instruments including the zabumba, pandeiros, maracas, pifanos, guitar and sanfona. All of these instruments add to the tri-cultural atmosphere of this festival since the instruments originate from various countries.
This festival is most popular in Parintins, which is a city that also celebrates the “Amazon River's natural environment and caboclo culture.” Caboclo culture is the mix of indigenous and
Afro-Brazilian traditions.

Question 2: Rock nacional began in Argentina during the 50s in a time of political conflict. As rock nacional grew more popular in the 60s, young people began to use rock nacional as a way to create a “culture of resistance” in response to the political change that was occurring in the country at the time. The origin of this resistance began with Juan Peron, an Argentine political leader who sought for social justice for the poor, which was met with criticism from the upper classes. After Peron was removed from power, the country entered internal political conflict for almost twenty years. Peron then came back to power in 1973, but died that year, leaving his wife in power only for her to be overthrown by the military. The next eight years in Argentina were known as the “Dirty War,” during this time the government arrested, exiled and killed their opposition. Young people began to rebel against the government and became activists. It was during this time that rock nacional began to really express political matters. The band Seru Giran featured “musical poetics of political engagement” in their “La grase de las capitales” album that released in 1979. Led by Charly Garcia, the band offered listeners at the time “a sense of solace.” In order to fight potential censorship of their music, the band used lyrics with “cryptic meanings that escaped the uninitiated.” However, members of the movement could interpret these lyrics as “political critique.”
One of the most popular songs of the rock nacional genre is “Los sobrevivientes” by Seru Giran. This song portrays the “alienation of Argentine youth” who had “no safe place to live.” The song was composed by Charly Garcia who was the face of the band. The lyrics tell the tale of the people who were suffering during the time of the political instability. The lyrics include “we are blind from seeing,” “we are fed up with fleeing in the city” and “we’ll never have a home.” This song captures the overall feeling of the people who were experiencing this hardship and what they had to go through. The instruments used for this song were keyboards, electric guitar, electric bass and drums.

Question 4: The Jamaican born genre “Ska” began as a genre formed by urban youth, the goal of this music was to give the people of Jamaica a genre to dance to.
The urban youth at this time also wanted a modern sounding music, since the “country mento” played at the time was not very popular. Building off of American R&B, the Jamaican youths created a “shuffle beat” based dance genre in which guitar and piano stabs were heard on the off beats, which was never heard previously. Due to poor economic environment at the time the music was hard to be heard, since there were no records stores and only a select few of Jamaicans had record players. It was even hard for local ska bands to play at clubs since they didn't have proper technological equipment. However, ska began to take off with the invention of the sound system. The sound system consisted of “one or two turntables, a powerful amplifier and speakers.” Deejays also became popular around this time by hyping up the crowd and talking over the instrumental tracks. During these performances, armed thugs were on stage in order to protect the sound equipment. Large groups of people began to watch these performances in urban areas which began to increase the popularity of
ska.
Ska is argued to be the “beginnings of the Jamaican popular music scene” as the genre transformed from being strictly urban youth performances to actual songs being recorded in studios. In the 60s a “lively local record scene emerged,” music producers began recording artists like Toots and the Maytals, Jimmy Cliff and Bob Marley. Ska also laid the foundation for the genre “rock steady” while later formed in reggae. From the shantytowns of Jamaica to large sold out venues across the world, reggae is now enjoyed across the globe and without ska, reggae may of never been created. Ska/reggae constructed a national identity for Jamaica by making an innovative musical genre which united the people of Jamaica together.