Check Bárbara Fálcon's interview with Nengo Vieira!

 BÁRBARA: How did you become interested in music?
NENGO:My father, my family already had a connection with art; especially with the music, very strong. And as the youngest, this stuck with me in a stronger way, right? I started playing around eight years old. BÁRBARA: Have you ever thought about doing anything else?
NENGO:Boy... That was spontaneous, right? It was a spontaneous search. And with music it was always that desire, that huge sea of ​​identification. I always liked it. I remember when I was little in 67/68, I would sit and listen to the 14 best songs of the week and make drums out of cardboard. I really traveled. While the other colleagues were traveling on other things. And that, for me, was the best thing I could do in my life, at that moment. Then I started playing when I was eight or so. I started playing the guitar and in that I accompanied my father, playing mandolin at home and my whole family was already involved with music. That phase of tropicalism, of Beatlemania, of the iê iê iê, young guard, of the movements of that time. At thirteen I decided to try out with a dance band, playing at dances. Playing bass, playing guitar.Then came the phase of making music. I started playing guitar with Chico Evangelista, with Zezé Mota, with Lazzo, Zelito Miranda, with carnival bands, like Novos Bárbaros. When it was around 81/82, I saw much less talented colleagues who were looking at a career with a band behind them. They were people who had a lot of willpower, but who you could see didn't have that much talent. Artistically speaking, he was not a very musical person. Then I got it into my head to do a show too, to put together a show. And that's when your father entered the story. We started to get involved, composing together. In my first composition phase. Then in 82 I participated in a project, this project together with your father, at Fundação Cultural and I did the show Balançante. I put together a repertoire, I put together a work, the project, the rehearsed show, with a poster, at ICBA. And it was a success.I think it was two days, with a lot of people. The cool, different crowd. They really liked the work. But at that time I felt that I made music with a lot of emotion. It was something, like a diamond that needs to be polished, you know? A lot of the emotion thing. BÁRBARA: Very intuitive.
NENGO:It's very intuitive and emotional. That's when I met Jair Soares, drummer. From then on everything changed. Jair started seeing in me and in my work, a work that had everything to bring together the band Studio 5; who accompanied Lazzo and who had made a recording (the compact Guarajuba). Gather these musicians and form a band, the band Studio 5, to support and support my work. Through my work, I connect all musicians. In 1983 there was a trip to Feira Nacional de Cultura, there in São Paulo. This one was Lazzo, it was me, Zelito Miranda, Jorge Papapá, a lot of people from that time. When São Paulo returned, back in March, there was a week of culture there at Cachoeira. There we met Edson Gomes. And at that time we already had a relationship with reggae. And in fact, my contact with reggae took place in 77, with Beto Marques, at his house.At that time I hadn't tried weed yet, right? I remember it like it was yesterday, it was with Rastaman Vibration. I didn't really like it at first, I found it very repetitive, you know? Without many elements that showed a lot of quality. Because Bob Marley's reggae, especially Bob Marley's reggae, is a very collective reggae. You don't see a quirk appearing very often, do you? You see the set appearing quite often. It really is a collective. And I was used to hearing more individual things, more of someone's virtuous side, Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Beatles. And Marley's work had everything. It had rhythm, it had melody, it had harmony. As if it were an orchestra of 15 people playing and everyone showed up: 3 backing vocals, brass, percussion, bass, drums, keyboards, everything together and the songs were all beautiful.So I didn't identify myself at first. And Beto was already traveling. I was researching, dying to do reggae, singing. It was a bit of a reggae sound, right? With very strong xote elements and it was more xote than reggae. Because reggae, despite being music that comes close to the melodic line of xote, has something peculiar about it because reggae comes from blues. It's more like blues and it's not regional music. Blues was a music that became universal and xote was not. Xote is a regional thing that is here in the northeast region of Brasil and in the music that expanded like this, with all the peculiarities that make it truly regional music. Then we did that reggae thing mixed with xote. I started getting involved in 79 to 80, when I started experimenting with weed. I started smoking and started listening to Marley more often, with the album Catch a fire.So from then on it was just reggae in my head and all that musical information that I already had before reggae. There was bossa nova, there was Beatles, there was samba, there was chorinho, there was Novos Baianos, there was Tropicalismo, all that music, all that diversity of music. Then reggae came and then I left that whole thing aside, all that information. And I saw something unique, visceral in Bob Marley's reggae and I identified with it in a full and complete way, that I didn't need to listen to other types of music. I listened to Marley in the morning, at night, at dawn. That's it, just Bob Marley. BÁRBARA: Why this identification?
NENGO:It's because in truth, I didn't see in Bob Marley's work what Marley said, what Marley said. I came to know the literal content of Marley long after the song. BÁRBARA: Did you know it was protest music?
NENGO:I knew it was something in relation to this black protest thing, the movement, but I didn't get into it. BÁRBARA: It wasn't the information, it was the music, right?
NENGO:It was the music, the musical elements that I absorbed in a way, an identification so deep, so great that it was all that satisfied me to hear. It suffocated completely, invaded with total plenitude. Then I went to live at Gantois, including with the boy Nelson Rocha, who at the time was doing radio. I did radio Itaparica. There was a program on the radio Transamérica, a rock program, Rock especial and he hosted it. And he was the person who listened to everything and listened to reggae too, but reggae as something else, and he felt uncomfortable at home. It was Bob Marley all day. I listened to it every day, but it didn't get boring. The more I listened, the more I wanted to listen. Gil the other day said in an interview that he listens to Bob Marley, sometimes all day and it doesn't get boring.And if Bob Marley hadn't existed, if God hadn't created Bob Marley, reggae wouldn't have had the spread it has in the world. BÁRBARA: Absolutely.
NENGO:This revolution, creating movements here in the entire Brasil, is not just in Bahia. In Brasil all in many places you see the dust of strong reggae. Swinging, right? So these are works that happen every few decades and look there. It's like Beatles rock. It came to be able to meet all those opinions formed about everything, education, the family system, you know? From the father, the son and the school. And Beatles comes to break it all up, topple the table. This was Bob Marley's work with the unification thing. Bob Marley's vision as a composer, his ideology, as a politician, of the unification of all the people. He said: “My father is white, my mother is black, I am neither on the white side nor on the black side, I am on the side of God, who created me.” BÁRBARA: When you listened to Marley at that time, did you already take these ideas into account as well?
NENGO:No, no, no. Not at first. In the beginning it was just the music. I came to value this side of him after I got more detailed information about how he lived, what he intended to do with music, what led him to make good music. He valued the lyrics more than the music and his music is of extreme quality. He combined the useful with the pleasant and it became something perfect, complete and not disposable. Jumped into eternity. Bob Marley is a milestone in the world's musical history, right? BÁRBARA: So this phase of discovering his ideas was something later on?
NENGO:It was much later. In the beginning it was the music. When I started doing reggae, I was already familiar with Edson Gomes too, right? Because I came to see in Edson, in the person of Edson, a great composer, with well-defined ideas, suitable for our reality and a singer of the people, who speaks the language of the people. When I went to Cachoeira, in 83, because of culture week, Edson was already a trained composer, a trained artist, he just didn't have a band. I already knew how to play reggae, I already knew the elements that reggae needed and how it behaved in music, the bass, the drums. I already had a band, a band support already defined. And then when Jair Soares saw Edson Gomes singing, him playing guitar and a vocal with him, he caught attention with the songs Viu, História do Brasil, Malandrinha, Samarina.Songs already polished as a composition and even more so as an arrangement, as a band. Then he came up with the idea of ​​doing a show here at Teatro Vila Velha. So we formed a band and invited Edson to make a special appearance. And then we created the show Negritude Reggae, in 83, which for me was a milestone. I don't know if in the other part of Brasil there was already someone or a work with a connection, with an identification, a definition so in-depth with reggae, with this language. Edson Gomes was already reggae at that time. We even invited him to be part of the band Studio 5, to be the band's singer. Edson Gomes already wanted this immediate reggae thing from me. In Studio 5 we were more of a reggae band than an eclectic band, because our style was reggae, but we played soul, funk, rock, salsa, blue.So there was this mix, with reggae being our biggest reference. And there was me, the one who listened to and absorbed reggae the most, who listened to Bob Marley the most, who kept researching, searching with that anxiety of wanting to make different music and within this process, naturally there was no homogeneity, within this group of people. Studio 5's work has never been a homogeneous work. The group did not survive for long. When Studio 5 ended, I started inviting people to replace those who left. I called it Sine Calmon, because Sine was already a fan, already studying Studio 5. The Studio 5 was already a musical reference for him. Both for him and Marcos Oliveira too. When we played in Cachoeira they were at the edge of the stage.At that time I already had a rented house in Alto das Pombas called 53, which was like a headquarters, it became the headquarters. In principle it was my house, which I lived with a figure, it didn't work out and I separated, I was alone. Then I started inviting people to rehearse there. There he rehearsed Edson Gomes, he rehearsed Studio 5, he rehearsed Sine, he rehearsed Jerônimo, until Raul Seixas came to the house one afternoon. . It was like a hostel, where people lived in a healthy environment, a supportive collective environment. If there was a plate of food, we shared it equally with everyone and we actually did that in practice. And this practicality was what supported us not only for today but also for the moment when we would found the group Remanescentes, with the proposal to evangelize people. Preach the word of God, in truth. That was the formation: Jair, Nengo Vieira, Tim Tim Gomes, Valéria, Marcos and Sine.According to Edson Gomes, Edson's story of how Tim Tim came into contact with the Bible, was when he was working there at Cachoeira, there at Tororó, he looked among the debris, the trash and some papers there, and found a Bible, Testemunha de Jeová's bible and took it home. And there he started to have the habit of reading at home with his family. Then Tim Tim started to awaken, with more interest, with more intensity, with more depth and he started to be like an evangelist of the Bible, right? And he lived at home, at 53 with us, he had the habit of waking up early, drinking tea, smoking one and getting inspired, reading the word. Hours on end reading the word, interpreting the texts and reading. That started to act like a lubricating oil in our hearts, so rusty with these displeasures here on earth.And we begin to see life in a different way, placing Jesus as our savior, our Lord in our lives and we begin to see the world with another vision, with another mind, right? With another dimension of things. From then on we found it convenient and providential to change the name of the band and the context of the lyrics. We took that repertoire, wrapped it up, threw it in the trash. And then Tim Tim came up with the name, suggesting Remanescentes, with a word that was taken from the Bible, which means the remainder, the rest. Remnant, meaning the surplus, the remainder that remained and in the word was given in Romanos 9:27, speaking in relation to Israel The biblical text says: “Even if your seed is like the sand of the sea, in great numbers, only the remnant will be saved”.So we thought we were the remaining seed, the seed that remained, that was good from this number of people who are from Israel, but because they are from Israel they are not all from God. So spiritually we interpret it like this. So we formed the group Remanescentes, with the aim of spreading, through reggae, the gospel of Jesus Cristo, the Bible, the message of God. Then we started rehearsing, forming another repertoire and as we already had a base of community, collective coexistence, sharing blankets, clothes, food, sharing everything, we became an alternative community group, where we made our homes our congregations, where we congregated. Then I started a family, that was in 88/89, then Sine came, then Marcos, Tim Tim, started having his children.I had a house in Cachoeira, Tim Tim had his house in São Félix, Sine had his house in Cachoeira, Marcos had his in Cachoeira. So these four houses served as the foundation as if they were four congregations. Four family groups. BÁRBARA: And you weren't based on any religion? Was it just reading the Bible?
NENGO:Just reading and I already had an opinion about this institutionalized congregation thing, right? We made it official and generalized the concept that they were a bunch of Pharisees and hypocrites, which exists a lot, but is not widespread. So from then on we had this commitment to evangelize and Remanescentes was seen as a group that preached the word. But at that time, because we were alternative, unrelated to congregations, we had some customs that clashed with these already established, official organizations. The customs, for example, we smoked weed and we thought smoking weed was something of God. And we fit into that biblical text that said: “And God created a seed-bearing herb, according to its kind”. Our society is a hypocritical society, in which there is an inversion of values. We know, right? One thing is permissible and another thing is not permissible.Smoking, they prohibit it. Cigarette use is harmful to your health, they promote it on television. Too much Coca-Cola, too much coffee, everything is drugs. There is the chemical element within that. Now weed is the scapegoat, paying for everything. Now drugs are something else. For me, the concept of drugs is something that goes far beyond weed. For me, weed is a narcotic. A numbing herb. If you take a herb that kills, one with me-no-one-can and eat it will kill you. You have to use it right, at the right time. BÁRBARA: Tell me something, you didn't have any connection with Rastafarianismo, did you?
NENGO:No. Quite the contrary, we fought. We fought because we saw Rastafarianismo as a men's religion, made by men. They idolize Hailê Salassiê, an Ethiopian emperor, who is a man. So we saw him as an idol like any other and a tremendous decoy. So in Cachoeira we really consolidated this spiritual vision, where we advanced a lot, we matured a lot spiritually and became young in other things, in terms of organization, in terms of leadership. We were a group where leadership was established in four elements: me, Tim Tim, Marcos and Sine. So there were four leaders, where from the moment we started to think that one was more right than the other, one with more reason than the other, consequently the tendency was to split. It's inevitable. So that's what happened to us.Until it split once and for all, everyone took their own direction and the group was split in two. I also lived with Tim Tim for a year, continuing as Remanescentes. But it wasn't the same group, the same people. Our work as Remanescentes was a work that despite Nengo Vieira being the composer of most of the songs, but the work that we managed to do for almost eight years was a very collective work. We all participated equally. We got along completely, wholeheartedly. All the components worked together. It was mine, yours, our job. Did you understand? It didn't matter that the songs were more by Nengo Vieira or Nengo Vieira was the oldest, or that Nengo Vieira is the guy who played with the most people, it didn't matter at all, it mattered what was ours. We were aware of that.Even though Marcos Oliveira sang two songs and Nengo Vieira was the composer of ten songs, the value of Nengo and Marcos was equal, understand? It was really our thing. We really fought about it and our lives were linked to it. Then, after the separation, Marcos and Sine founded Sojah, they stayed together for a while, like I spent a short time with Remanescentes. And then he divided the four parts. Marcos took his direction, Sine took his direction, Tim Tim took his direction and I took my direction. And it was actually a healthy thing for Remanescentes to become factionalized, because it proliferated more, gave more diversity, where individual values ​​could be shown more comprehensively, right? Because within the collective you adapt to the limited space. Because in truth, spiritually speaking, I felt God's hand weigh heavy and I felt that we were not prepared to deserve it.Because it was going to be a really big thing. Did you understand? So much so that Remanescentes served as a reference for what is happening within reggae today. Remanescentes was one of the main causes for this. Where it wasn't one job, it was several jobs together. Edson Gomes himself lived with us, Dionorina, Ubaldo, Geraldo Crystal. Here comes the boy from Adão Negro, Serginho, who got to know Sine too. And one thing triggered another. Not that one is better than the other, but one thing is conducive to the other. And we learn from each other. I didn't know how to compose, but I saw Edson compose, I learned to compose, through my time with Edson. And today is what it is. Each one with their own job. Sine has already recorded her third CD, I'm finishing my second, Tim Tim has already recorded his, Marcos has also recorded his and reggae music is increasing its movement every day.Despite it in a painful way, in an unequal way. It's music that came from abroad, with another language and arrived here and found cultural characteristics to develop, to talk about a reality of our land, our people and in truth, we need leaders. We need a leader, a bold leader, you know? From a leader who gets there and represents our struggle, represents our search, our will, our ideology, our desire, our music, which is suffocated in a certain way in the media, but which is not dead. Because our throats continue to sing, the ghettos continue to listen, the publicity work continues to be done, in a way that, in my view, I think is even a little erroneous. We are finding it very difficult, because reggae music has not yet entered the market, the media.It's on people's lips, there's an audience, but the media, the producers, the businesspeople, they're not giving it credit. They are still feeding axé music, country music, imported country, romantic music, cheesy music, these songs without content, without ideology, without identity. In the pagode it's the dance, that sensual thing and the rhythm of samba, samba is a very hot rhythm, very danceable, it's what is sustaining this parade and I don't know how long it will last. And money also supports these things a lot, even with high production, with television, with the media. But reggae, as Gil says, reggae is not dead, it is very much alive. And will remain alive.