Nacao Zumbi (pronounced Nass-Ow-Zoom-Bee) is a band in its own right, like New Order. I use New Order as a parallel because both bands lost an influential lead singer who, it was believed, was about to make music with his band that would take them on to a world stage. The singer in NZ's case was a man called Chico Science, who died in 1997.
The band, Chico Science & Nacao Zumbi, were basically an accidental clash of two groups: a punk band called Loustal, and an Afro-Brazilian drumming/roots organisation called Lamento Negro. The bands had a jam in which they discovered that regional styles of drum-based music used variously in carnival parades and other folk celebrations sounded amazing when buffering the sound of a four-piece rock band. These styles, Maracatu, Embolada, Baiao, Coco and Ciranda, were regional sounds taken for granted and were, to a large degree, neglected and undervalued parts of the culture of Pernambuco state.
The band that formed from this, together with another local group called Mundo Livre SA ('Free World Ltd') wrote a manifesto in 1991 which compared the dried-out mangroves of the region to the moribund music scene, comparing their reinvigoration with the way the band itself had taken music forms that had been carried on by a few loving locals. The manifesto was called "Caranguejos Com Cerebro", or 'Crabs With Brains' and can be found on the internet in English with little difficulty.
It speaks of ramming parabolic antennae into the mud of the mangrove and communicating with the world, so a computer 'Bit' speaking from the 'Mangue' saw to it that the music form was christened 'Mangue-Bit', which was later altered to 'Mangue-Beat'. Anyway ... after a kerfuffle over the new sound coming out of Recife and its sister city Olinda, CSNZ were signed to Sony Brazil. Their debut album, Da Lama Ao Caos (From Mud To Chaos) and the follow-up, AfroCiberDelia, both showcase the marriage of archaic regional beats and modern electronic music with the confrontational politics of the band.
Chico Science's car came off the road in a pre-carnival accident in 1997, and doom-mongerers in Brazil forecast the group's demise. Their response was to write a second manifesto "Quanto Vale Uma Vida" ('How Much One Life Is Worth') and the band has since released a trio of albums on two labels.
The live spectacle is something anyone who visits not just Recife or Olinda but any city in Brazil would be urged not to miss. While the mainstream press in the UK seems set on covering Mutantes and indeed any Brazilian music whose heyday was over 20 years ago, if you see Nacao Zumbi play live, you would be taking up a chance to see a band who are in their prime right NOW. As well as that, you'll know what the fuss is about when they are booked to play the Barbican in May 2031, and you'll have the night of your life.
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