Samba, Brazilianess, and the Expansion of Popular Citizenship in Rio de Janeiro,

1937-1945

Abstract
The purpose of this research is to investigate how popular music composers in
Rio de Janeiro dialogued and negotiated with the so-called Estado Novo, or New State
project led by president Getlio Vargas in Brazil. In that context, new audio and
recording technologies, in addition to the pursuit of an ideal Brazilianess that could
match with the revolution envisioned by Vargas government, opened a remarkable (even
though monitored) space to an unprecedented production and massification of different
popular culture manifestations, being samba the most powerful among them. The new
Brazil that Vargas was promising chose labor as the cornerstone of its political language;
samba, as the fundamental popular expression, produced by artists who were coming
from the marginalized areas of Rio, figures as a special source precisely for its tensional
character, in which praises for varguismo new labor ethos coexists with other rather
opposed values.
Focusing on the favelas (shantytowns) and poor neighborhoods around the city
central area, I intend to look for samba songs that carried interpretations and claims
related to the drastic changes promoted by Vargas, emphasizing the political dimension of
those artists actions and how their lyrics countered the model of civilization that Brazil
and Rios authorities were imposing.

Keywords
Citizenship Popular culture Rio de Janeiro Varguismo Samba