Samba

Samba is the most famous among the various forms of music that resulted from the amalgam of African and Portuguese music that took place in Brazil. Samba developed as a distinctive kind of music at the turn of the XX century, mainly in the state of Bahia. The migration of black population from Bahia to the capital Rio de Janeiro brought the samba to the metropolis. The first recordings of samba (Pelo Telefone, by Donga, in 1917) carried the new music outside the black guetos, but the real popularity of the samba only started with the compositions of one genial white musician, Noel Rosa. His habilities as a lyricist and satirist made the samba acceptable to the white middle class, while maintaining the essential characteristics of the music: its rhythm, its unique instrumentation and structure.