Max De Castro: Beyond Bossa Nova

Rio de Janeiro is the city in Brazil that people all over the world know. They know the cathedrals and the samba clubs, the curved white strip of Copacabana beach, the spread-armed statue of Cristo Redentor on the peak of Corcovado mountain. Sao Paulo, on the other hand, is the city that foreigners don't know. They don't know that it is in many ways Brazil's musical center, accounting for 57% of record sales in the country, vs. 13% for Rio. They don't know that, with a population of 17 million, it is not only far larger than Rio but also larger than Washington and New York City combined.

And most outsiders are almost certainly unaware that Sao Paulo is home to Max de Castro, 28, a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who just might be the most original musical talent to have come out of Brazil in three decades. That's no small statement. Music in Brazil is like sunlight: it's natural, it's elemental, it illuminates every building, every river bend, every aspect of life. "Dancing and music are in our blood," says William Nadir, 23, a Sao Paulo motorcycle deliveryman. "You can spot strangers by the stiff way they move their hips."

One can't think of Brazil without feeling certain rhythms. In the early 20th century, the country gave the world warmhearted samba and such performers as Carmen Miranda and Ary Barroso; in the 1950s and '60s it was soft-swaying bossa nova and Antonio Carlos (Tom) Jobim, Joao and Astrud Gilberto. Then, in the late 1960s and '70s, the Tropicalia movement marched in, armed with rock guitars and rebel lyrics and led by Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso and Gal Costa.

To this tradition, De Castro brings a sound that fluidly, intelligently and winningly blends disparate genres--samba, bossa nova, drum 'n' bass, hip-hop and soul--into futuristic music that echoes the past. On his debut album, Samba Raro (released last year on the Trama label), De Castro's lyrics, all in Portuguese, have an engaging, understated simplicity. The title song compares the movement of a beautiful woman to a samba (Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes made a similar comparison on their bossa-nova standard The Girl from Ipanema). Another song, Pra Voce Lembrar, tells the story of a man who breaks up with his lover during Carnaval. As the easygoing lyrics glide by, the focus for listeners is on De Castro's stuttering, intricate rhythms and his rich, involving melodies. "I tried to show that sometimes the melody and the rhythm are more important than just a few words," says De Castro. "That is one of the beautiful lessons of bossa nova that Tropicalia and other political movements just ignored."

Another key to Samba Raro's charm is that some of De Castro's songs mix in bits of Brazilian classics. For example, the gritty Afrosamba incorporates elements of Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell's 1966 song Canto de Ossanha. "The techno admirer likes Samba Raro because of the beats," says De Castro. "The soul fan loves my songs because of my soulful guitar, and the traditional Brazilian popular-music admirer catches the influences from Jorge Ben and Wilson Simonal that I put in." Yet De Castro doesn't use the past as a crutch. His originals, such as the elegiac Voce e Eu, are as strong as any of his sample-based compositions.