Photo: Copyright Sam Webb/BBC
Interviewer: Marcos Moret
2002 was the year that Brazilian drum 'n' bass came to prominence. Tracks such as Carolinha Carol Bela (DJ Marky and XRS),
Sambassim (DJ Patife and Fernanda Porto), and Easy Boom (Drumagick), have been blowing up dancefloors from Sao Paulo to
Shoreditch, and have played an important part in drum 'n' bass' resurgence of late.
Ady Harley has been key to making this
happen; it was he who introduced Sao Paulo's Patife and Marky to the people at UK drum 'n' bass label V Recordings, and it was
the record label at which he worked (SambaLoco) that put out their earliest CDs. Now as European Director of Trama
(SambaLoco's parent label), he's busy bringing the cream of funky new Brazilian music to a wider audience. Last year
'The New Samba Revue', showcasing four superb Brazilian recording artists – Patricia Marx, Jair Oliveira, Wilson
Simoninha, and Max de Castro – toured Europe, including a great show at London's Cargo in October. What's more, he's behind
the Brazilian-influenced club night 'Jinga!' at the Fortress Studios in London (alongside Gilles Peterson and Far Out's
Joe Davis), and he has a monthly show on Radio 1Xtra showcasing the best of South American music.
We caught up with him and talked about
these projects and got his unique perspective on the Brazilian music scene.
What lead to your interest in Brazilian music?
I was studying at university, and I had to do some research for a project in some favelas in Rio called Acari and Vigario
Geral. So I went out there and ended up staying for a year and half, and I was in touch with a lot of
Brazilian bands, and a lot of people who have come out of that favela. It was quite an amazing time. At the same time the
Brazilian drum 'n' bass thing was beginning to form itself - talking about ’95. My Visa had run out, and the federal police
turned up to my flat in Rio, and said, “look mate, your Visa has run out, you
have 24 hours to leave Brazil’. So within an hour I was at the Rio bus station, on a 26-hour bus journey to Paraguay,
because that’s the nearest border. You get stamped on the way out,
stamped on the way in, and you get another 6 months. But on the way back, I thought, “I’ve never been to Sao Paulo”, so I
took the 20-hour bus journey there. I came across this pedestrian street with a whole bunch of galleries and this big 5-story
shopping mall, with loads of drum 'n' bass record shops. I’d always been into drum 'n' bass and hardcore - I’d been
DJing that kind of thing anyway before I went to Brazil. I went into one shop, started chatting to the guy behind the
counter, and it turned out to be DJ Marky - Marco Antonio Da Silva as he was then. I was supposed to be getting the next bus
to Rio, but he said, “no, no, you’ve got to stay for a few days, stay at my house” - you know, really hospitable. And then
within a few hours the whole of the East side – the jungle massive from Sao Paulo – came down to this record shop. And that
night I did a bit of MCing for them (I’d never really MCd before) - they were loving it! Patife was there aswell - that’s
how I got to know those boys. That was my first contact with Brazil. During that year and a half I’d go back to Sao Paulo
a lot to hang out with those guys. I came back to the UK and finished my course, and then went back to Brazil and spent
2 ½ years living there, and then that’s when it
started getting a lot more serious. I brought Marky and Patife over here, linking them up with the Movement guys – Bryan G,
and the V Recordings lot – and that all went really well. And at the same time I started working for Sambaloco, which had
just started in 97/98, as well as Trama. That’s when I met Bruno E - one of the oldest producers of dance music in Sao
Paulo. He’s been producing since the late 80s.
Tell us about the drum 'n' bass scene in Sao Paulo
The thing about Sao Paulo is that it’s a huge city, and there are a lot of different kinds of people there – races,
nationalities – very cosmopolitan. The whole Sao Paulo club scene was very much centred around the rich neighbourhood
called Jardins, which means gardens. It’s a nice area just south of the centre where they have really glitzy clubs playing
house and techno. You would walk in and everyone was white. And you’re like “hold on a minute, we’re in Brazil, a country
where the whole population is either black or has some part black blood in them”, so it was quite weird. The East side in
the ghettos and favelas is where the whole jungle/drum 'n' bass thing started over there, with a lot of amazing DJs, like
Marky and Patife, and talented producers like XRS, Drumagick and Madzoo. They had a really real thing going on - it was
very ‘roots’ with people having an amazing love for music, being really dedicated to that music, working really hard,
whether they were DJs or producers or people like Bruno who were setting up record labels. And those two scenes were very
much apart, not only musically but also socially and maybe even racially. As Sambaloco grew, and as Bruno’s involvement
in the whole scene grew, and my involvement, and the guys like Marky, Patife, Drumagick, XRS, Madzoo, the two scenes
started to merge together, which was kind of amazing. All those guys are now residents in the nice clubs.
What else is happening in Brazilian music at the moment?
There are loads of scenes that are really coming through with really good quality music. Brazilian rappers have always been
really good. The production, I always thought, left a bit to be desired, until a few years ago. Now the production is
wicked, and they’re all beginning to hook up with various producers. For example, Madlib was in Sao Paulo a few weeks ago
and hooked up with some of the hip hop guys and did some tracks. And Fab Five Freddy was in Brazil - he just did a five-page
feature in Vibe magazine, and so it’s really beginning to bubble up. Next year we’re going to be putting out various hip
hop guys - Rappin’ Hood, Fabio Luiz, and DJ Marcelinho (lil' Marcelo) are definitely ones to look out for. All that crew are going to be
touring next year (including all over Europe) with full a Brazilian hip hop package - DJs, MCs, break dancers. The hip hop
scene is massive in Brazil - people like Racionais MCs, whose last album sold over a million copies in Brazil. And that’s
an independent label - their label, their management. None of the radio stations even touched them because to go on radio
in Brazil you have to pay for it, which is daft, a bit like the States.
Do you think there’s much awareness of broken beat and nu jazz stuff out there - Bugz In the Attic, Compost?
Yeah, definitely, there’s a lot more going on in that nu jazz side, as well as soulful house. That’s kind of intertwined.
A lot of broken beats with Portuguese vocals, a load of soulful house coming out from various producers.
What’s the record industry like out there?
The whole situation is beginning to change now, because the independent scene in Brazil is really beginning to grow. The
majors – the Big 5 – have always controlled a huge market share of Brazilian record sales. In the UK you’ve got 23% of
record sales coming from independents, and that’s what’s amazing about the UK, whatever scene it is, whether it’s rock
or hip hop - there are mushrooming record labels that manage to get up on their feet, start selling, and some of them grow.
And you’ve got big independent record labels aswell. That’s never really been the case in Brazil - 99% of the record sales
are with the majors. They really dominate and monopolise it. And that’s symptomatic of any industry in Brazil - you’ve
got big players, mostly international and multinational companies, which monopolize the market, like any third world country.
The biggest independent right now is Trama, the parent label of Sambaloco and the new label Nova Vida. And apart from
Trama, there are others like ST2, YBrazil, and Tropic Records. Then you’ve got the hip hop scene – a lot of Brazilian hip hop comes out on independent record labels, and
that’s just beginning to flourish, which is a really good thing. Not only from the musical point of view but also culturally
and socially - generally it’s a really good thing that people aren’t necessarily slaves to the big record labels, who
at the end of the day aren’t going to support the credible music that’s coming out of Brazil, the new forms. They’re not
going to take risks, they’re going to go for the Brazilian equivalent of Robbie Williams or Britney Spears. Brazilian
music has always been really rich, but in the 1980s especially (and you could say in the 1990s also) nothing happened in
music in Brazil. In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s it was really rich, with music not only being released in
Brazil and getting the support of the record labels, but also going outside of Brazil. Everyone knows Jobim, [working with]
with Sinatra and Getz in the sixties. In the seventies you had the Tropicalia movement, and people started to hear about
Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa and those types of people. But in the 1980s there was just nothing going on - even if you look at
some of the credible artists like Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Gal Costa. Because the pressure from the record labels to produce
something that was just smash and grab, short-term, “lets make as much money as we can before the dollar drops even more”,
was just so great that it affected the creative output of these amazing artists. But that’s all changed now anyway, so the
independent scene’s really grown, across all types of music. It’s a really exciting time for Brazilian music.
How do people manage to get hold of records over there?
The thing about Brazilians is that they’ll always find a way. There’s a Brazilian phrase which is 'jeitinho brasileiro' which
means ‘The little Brazilian way’. That means that whatever anyone throws at you, you’ll find a way to get round it.
Whether it’s fixing a car, getting with the girl that you’re madly in love with, putting out your first release, DJing at a
club, or getting hold of records that come from the other side of the world, you’ll find a way. You’ve got these record
shops and somehow they manage to get these containers of records. And it’s expensive - you end up paying like £10 for a 12”,
which in Brazil is a hell of a lot of money. They buy those records, they collect those records, and they’re mad about
music and records generally. Like one guy I know is a DJ called Colorao and he lives in this simple little house – you
could call it a shack – but one of the three rooms where he and his family live is just full of records. And god knows
how much it’s cost him or how much sacrifice he’s had to put in to have that room full of records.
So what's the SambaLoco label about?
Bruno E came up with the idea of creating an outlet so that people producing drum 'n' bass and breakbeat could start releasing
their records, because there wasn’t any other outlets. The ethos was to have all this young talent start putting out music.
And it’s kind of grown from there, so since it’s started we’ve put out 2 DJ Marky compilations, 2 Patife compilations, an
XRS album, a Drumagick album. Unfortunately none of these have seen the light of day outside Brazil. But that’s all
changing now. Everything SambaLoco does is now going to get released internationally - Europe, Japan, and the States.
Sambaloco have done really well in the first 4 years; we’ve clocked up about 200,000 in sales which is pretty much off the
back of drum 'n' bass and breakbeat, which is quite amazing. I don’t think there’s many drum 'n' bass labels that can say they
have those sales in 1 territory [Brazil]. SambaLoco started as an independent label and did really well for itself before,
but then it just made sense to become part of Trama, make the most of Trama’s distribution, network, and all that.
What are you guys working on at the moment?
We’re working hard on the new label - Nova Vida, which means ‘New Life’. And that’s all about soulful house and broken
beats. And there’s a lot of amazing material right now.
We’ve got our first release in January on Nova Vida. It’s a 12” single, a Patricia Marx track, which has been remixed by
various Nova Vida producers like Madzoo, Bruno, and Anderson Soarez - the no.1 pure house DJ in Brazil.
We’re going to be doing a whole bunch of tours next year, we’ve got loads of albums to put out, loads of 12”s to put out
both on Nova Vida and SambaLoco, we’ve got a huge SambaLoco compilation coming out in March which is called ‘SambaLoco
Brazilian Drum 'n' Bass Classics’. That’s got Easy Boom on it, Patife tunes, XRS tunes, just loads of tunes, a lot of which
no-one’s even heard here - purely Brazilian, by a Brazilian
record label, with only Brazilian-produced tracks on it. I think that’s a first. With that compilation we’re going to be doing
a tour all over Europe, and that’s going to be Madzoo, Bruno, and myself. And we’re going to have Fernanda Porto (who sang
Sambassim) doing a live PA on the tour aswell so that should be wicked. Oh, and the Ed Motta album’s coming out in the new
year.
So talk about Jinga! and The New Samba Revue
The New Samba Revue (view photos
here) is a tour we did with the first three releases we did on Trama; with Patricia Marx, Jair Oliveira,
Wilson Simoninha, and Max de Castro, plus Madzoo was djing. It’s a showcase, a snapshot of what Trama is about. It was a good
tour, we did 10 or 11 different countries, 25 dates, around Europe - UK, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Turin, Lisbon, Barcelona,
all over the place. We’re going to do another one in October next year. The idea behind The New Samba Revue is that every
year we’re going to do a month-long tour around Europe, featuring 3 up-and-coming artists from Brazil. Jinga! Is a monthly
night we do in Old Street, which is a partnership between myself, Joe Davis, and Gilles Peterson. It came about because
me and Joe wanted to do a night together. We had a chat with Gilles, and he said, yeah, we need to do something special,
slightly different, you know? It’s different in the sense that we all come with our own thing. Gilles comes with his
Gilles-ness, Joe’s got his label (Far Out Records), and his whole history of someone who’s been going to Brazil for 15
years, put out a lot of fantastic music from Brazil aswell. Then you’ve got my thing, which is more the new generation
of musicians coming out. Jinga!’s not only about the Brazilian stuff though. There’s a definite influence there, but you’ve
got the Straight No Chaser guys upstairs, and what I play or Gilles plays or Joe plays is not just Brazilian by any means.
There’s a lot of Brazilian influences but the whole idea is that it’s completely open. You don’t know what you’re going to
hear next, that’s the ethos behind the whole thing. Just a nice atmosphere, a nice bunch of people in a hot sweaty
place, just getting down to some nice music.
Tell us about your show on Radio 1Xtra
It’s a Latin American show, but due to my obsession with Brazilian music it’s bound to have quite a strong Brazilian slant.
Every show has a half hour mix from a guest, and then another half hour of really old school classics where we dig into
the vaults and old Latin music. We’ve also had interviews with Bebel Gilberto, with Anderson Soares. We’ve got the guys
from 4Hero doing an exclusively Latin mix for us which should be really exciting. We’ve got Suv from Reprazent who’s just
finished a mix for the show aswell. Patife’s finished a mix for the show. It’s an amazing thing to have the show on a
station like 1Xtra, where the focus, no doubt, is more what people traditionally associate with black music like hip hop,
RnB, and drum 'n' bass. I think the fact there’s a Latin American show just shows how open-minded they are and how clued-up
they are about what they want to do with their station.
Who are your favourite bands, djs, musicians, singers at the moment - what are you pumping on your walkman?
Right now Peven Everett is doing it for me. I’m listening to a lot of Brazilian hip hop at the moment. I like the Bugz In
The Attic people – checked them recently at the Ocean in Hackney and I was gobsmacked. There’s loads going on isn’t there?
That’s an amazing thing. I don’t think it was like this a few years ago - it’s a really special time.
We asked Ady what websites, organisations, and shops he recommends for people wanting to find out more about the music.
Here’s what he told us:
For Brazilian drum 'n' bass there are two websites, where you can hear a lot of dub plates online -
dnbonline.com.br and
drumbass.com.br.
For Brazilian house check
rraurl.com.
A great radio station is 97fm.com.br
, where you can listen to Marky (Saturdays), Patife (Sundays), Anderson Soares (Tuesdays), and XRS (Wednesdays).
Obviously check out trama.com.
The Sambaloco and Nova Vida websites are being worked on – check them out from February
for loads of downloads. Amazon stock all Trama releases on import. For current, non-import price CD releases, the best
web site to check is
Sterns Music. For vinyl sales of SambaLoco Records
and Nova Vida, probably the most direct and quickest site is tunes.co.uk. I also think Mr. Bongo
(44 Poland Street, London W1V,
mrbongo.com) is a great shop. Check out
redbullmusicacademy.com which is a wicked event - the website contains lots of information about Sao
Paulo. With regard to organisations, Brazilian Contemporary Arts has been promoting Brazilian arts and Culture in the UK for the
past 25 years - see
brazilian.org.uk
Recent Trama Releases
Links to Amazon.co.uk for your purchasing convenience.
- Max De Castro 'Orchestra Klaxon' Buy
- Patricia Marx 'Respirar' Buy
- Jair Oliveira 'Outro' Buy
Forthcoming 12" releases 2003
January
- Patricia Marx 'Despertar' remixes (Nova Vida)
- Technozoide 'Esfera' (SambaLoco)
March
- Jair Oliveira 'Bom Dia Anjo' remixes (Nova Vida)
- Drumagick 'Cambraia' (SambaLoco)
April
- 4Hero & Patricia Marx 'Submerso' (Nova Vida)
- Fernanda Porto 'Sambassim/So Tinha de Ser com Voce' 2003 remixes (SambaLoco)
Forthcoming CD releases 2003
January - Baden Powell (Trama)
March - MadZoo presents Technozoide (SambaLoco)
March - Cesar Mariano (Trama)
April - Nova Vida Compilation 1 (Nova Vida)
April - Otto (Trama)
Plus later in the year albums from - Tom Ze, Ed Motta, Fabio Luiz, Silvera, Fernanda Porto.
