Criolo

Kleber Cavalcante Gomes, known to the world as Criolo, will be performing tomorrow in Central Park as part of Brasil Summerfest.  He's part of a stellar lineup of musicians that I can't stop writing about.  According to the wikipedia entry about him, he's from a São Paolo favela, the child of parents who originally arrived from a Northeast Brazilian state.  They say São Paolo is the Brazilian city most like New York, and of all the Brazilian rappers I've heard, Criolo would probably be the most urban and familiar to a New York audience.  That might be because he's been at this a long time:  he's been doing rap since 1989, and as Woody Allen once said, 80% of success is just showing up -- doing shows, recording, and generally putting yourself out there.  But Criolo was relatively unknown until around the year 2000, when his Brazilian show "Rinha dos MCs" (a kind of "battle of the bands" for Brazilian rap singers) became a big hit.  Hopefully this New York appearance will put him on the map internationally.

Now at age 36, although he fuses different styles, he's long since found his voice and his own sound that runs through everything he does.  His songs are all a bit different but have his own unique stamp, as is the case with many mature artists.  Bogotá is frenetic and funky, conjuring images of inner-city life, while Freguês da Meia Noite has echoes of Portuguese fado and Brazilian brega. 

Like most Brazilian musicians, Criolo has a strong sense of the place he's from which grounds his music and makes him trustable as a voice, even if you don't completely get the Portuguese.  His song Não Existe Amor Em SP ("There is no love in São Paolo"), compares his city to a bouquet of dead flowers, mixing anger, sadness, and a deep love for what he wants for his hometown: