Reggae in the Bahian recôncavo: Notes on music and identity!

Reggae, the musical rhythm that developed in Jamaica, emerges when one of the native musical forms, mento, allows itself to be influenced by rhythm'n blues. With the inclusion of ska and its evolution into rock steady, all the elements that would give rise to the rhythm and also the movement were subsequently incorporated. From the 1960s onward, industrialization and urbanization processes in Jamaica caused an important migratory flow for the formation and projection of reggae. In this context, the figure of Jamaican Bob Marley assumes fundamental importance in the propagation of the rasta message throughout the world. Considered the greatest idol of reggae in Jamaica and also in Brazil, Marley even visited the Bahian capital in 1980.

The appearance of reggae music in Salvador, however, occurred well before the illustrious visit, already in the 1970s. Reggae was cited by Caetano Veloso in 1972 on the LP Transa, whose arrangements were made by Jards Macalé, and sung by Gilberto Gil in 1979 in a version of No woman no cry by Bob Marley. The rhythm gained form and special colors in the work of Chico Evangelista & Jorge Alfredo and later with Lazzo Matumbi, who recorded the single Guarajuba accompanied by the musicians of the band Studio 5. In the 1980s names such as Nengo Vieira, Remanescentes, Terceiro Mundo, Dionorina, Geraldo Cristal and Ubaldo Warú emerged. But the first Bahian to explore the genre and rastafari positioning in the media was the Cachoeira native Edson Gomes, on his LP Reggae Resistência, in 1988. At that time, while the axé industry was just crawling, he sold 100,000 records throughout the Northeast. Ten years later, in 1998, Sine Calmon set Fogo na Babilônia during the Salvador carnival. From then on, as a sign of the times, a generation of Cachoeira reggae artists has been diversifying the local scene.

There is no way to pinpoint the exact moment reggae arrived in Cachoeira — a bucolic Afro-Baroque city of the Recôncavo — but it was more or less in the 1970s that bands of the genre began to form in the city. Built on the banks of the Paraguaçú River, the city of Cachoeira is well known for its mansions, built with the capital of the golden ages of sugar cane and tobacco. Cachoeira also had river commerce as one of its main economic activities. Cultural tradition and religiosity are strong traits of its people, who also embraced music as a form of expression. Its popular manifestations almost always bring music and do not incorporate only regional rhythms, since besides samba (Tia Ciata, the patron of Rio de Janeiro samba schools, was from Cachoeira), another African rhythm also found in the blackest city of the Bahian interior immediate welcome.

In the realm of popular music, the process of integrating the average taste of peripheral countries to pre-established standards promoted initially only by the major record factories, radio, cinema, television and soon by the modern industry aimed at urban leisure (sound equipment, jukeboxes, sound and video recording tapes, electronic musical instruments, mass spectacles, etc.), began to operate in Brazil since the end of World War II. In the case at hand, the rhythm appears in Cachoeira when the "Brazilian miracle" reaches the Bahian Recôncavo with petrochemical technology implanted in place of the old sugar cane fields, bringing with it communication technologies and innovations from the phonographic industry.

Reggae made in the Recôncavo follows the most traditional style of the Jamaican genre, known as "roots reggae" or "root reggae"; with 4/4 time, bass upfront in a low tone, varied melodic exploration and maximum incorporation of drums. Besides ethnic empathy, it found in Cachoeira good reasons to flourish: economic stagnation, social lethargy and a strong popular creative vein.

This concern so clearly evidenced through the most traditional way of making reggae reinforces the myth cultivated in various Bahian environments, that in the Recôncavo, more specifically in Cachoeira, lies the essence of Brazilian reggae. The black and musical homeland whose ethos enabled the emergence of many artists, among them, Caetano Veloso, from the neighboring city of Santo Amaro.

The use of Afro-American music and contemporary communication technologies led to the development of Jamaican reggae, its appropriation and reinvention with the emergence of Afro-Bahian blocos. Poet/anthropologist Antonio Risério states that reggae played an important role in bringing together the stars of Brazilian popular music and the sound of afoxés. For him, the Jamaican artistic wave had a structural, rhythmic kinship with afoxés. Risério argues that Jamaica's sweet music is structurally very close to certain Brazilian musical manifestations, such as xote and ijexá. In this context, the projection of Jamaican reggae is strongly linked to the process of "re-Africanization" of the Bahian carnival and the emergence of "Bahian blackitude" (expression of poet Waly Salomão).

For Paul Gilroy, music and cultural and social practices of African origin in the black diaspora are bearers of a better world and a savage critique of capitalism and the West. In this context, reggae would be one of the most important expressions for certain populations. Or, in some well-defined situations, the appropriate expression for the socio-cultural level and characteristics of some communities in their effort of identity reconstruction. All the elements mentioned suggest some determination for the adoption of reggae by this population, but whatever the most important element of identification for them, reggae became an aesthetic reference, a platform for mobilization, an important social phenomenon.

The first Cachoeira group to aesthetically assume a "rasta" stance was Remanescentes, formed in 1986 and which had musician Nengo Vieira as one of its leaders. The presence of Nengo Vieira, a Cachoeira musician known as one of the precursors of reggae music in the Recôncavo, appears in the testimonies I collected as an actor of fundamental importance in the history of Bahian reggae. In the 1980s, his house in Alto das Pombas, in the Federação neighborhood, was a meeting point for musicians fond of the rhythm. The group Remanescentes was formed there and Edson Gomes, Sine Calmon, Gerônimo, Lazzo and by extension even Raul Seixas also rehearsed there.

After the group's founding, Nengo Vieira, Sine Calmon, Marco Oliveira and Tim Tim Gomes returned to live in Cachoeira and worked together for almost ten years. Reading, coexistence, stance and life choice, including the deliberate choice of city of residence, all made up the scenography of musicians devoted to smoking and worship of Jesus. Remanescentes was an alternative community group that, according to its former members, aimed to bring the message of the gospel through reggae. They adopted rastafari aesthetics, but had their own form of religion.

Although they had dreads and smoked ganja, Remanescentes interpreted the Bible within Protestant molds and had Jesus Christ as their idol. The group, which had entrepreneur Wesley Rangel as one of its admirers, even recorded a record at WR studios.

Their presence and influence were responsible for the artistic dynamism and musical "explosion" in the region and influenced young people from the capital. Currently there are about eight reggae artists/bands created in the city: Edson Gomes, Tim Tim Gomes, Eddie Brown, Nengo Vieira & Tribo d'Abraão, Sine Calmon & Morrão Fumegante, Dystorção, Jah Live and Só as Cabeças. In recent years, some of these musicians migrated to Salvador to promote their work. From 1996 onward Pelourinho became one of the circuits for these performances. The bars Novo Tempo and Babilônia and the Hotel Pelourinho were stages where Cachoeira artists Sine Calmon, Edson Gomes, Nengo Vieira and Marco Oliveira performed until 1998. With the end of the activities of the band Os Remanescentes, its four leaders formed other bands.

It was around that time that some Salvador musicians worked with these artists. Through interviews with musicians from emerging Salvador bands (Adão Negro and Diamba) the hypothesis was confirmed that Cachoeira reggae would be a major reference and source of inspiration for their respective work. Some of these musicians even worked with the Cachoeira reggae artists and consider them their masters.

From cradle of samba to center of reggae, Cachoeira witnessed the rehearsal of a generation of musicians who sought in rasta authenticity the aesthetic and social reconstruction of the Afro people of the Recôncavo. Political-existential identity with the rasta message brought together middle-class and poor youth around the Jamaican rhythm, which was acculturated in the Recôncavo. Besides the historical-cultural context, the very appropriate ethnic space and the similarities — Jamaica and Cachoeira recreate themselves among local reggae fans in a culture where music is in everything: it is strong in religion, central in processions and trance rituals of candomblé, alive in festivities and moreover, there, especially for poor youth to make a living, speak of their problems and seek upward mobility in the stagnation of a stagnant economy.

Finally, the aesthetic appropriation of reggae like that of rock is done by those who consider themselves close to or within the circle of those who feel identified, and occurs, among other things, through accessibility and similarity with those who, excluded, take the path of music as a ride to the world of mass culture and citizenship.