Music Video: Tribalistas - Passe em casa

I have only been to Brazil once.  I got a wicked sunburn, and I was mugged by a gang of knife-wielding kids.  Fortunately, though, I was still able to come home with some beautiful photographs and a CD that I picked up in the Rio de Janiero airport by the "blink and you might have missed them" Brazilian group Tribalistas.

Coming out way back in 2002, Tribalistas' one and only album was a wonderful blend of Latin-influenced guitars and percussion matched to velvety smooth Portuguese-language vocals.  Their song Passe em casa is a perfect sample of what this album has to offer.

Music Video: AfroReggae - Tempo Sem Medida

AfroReggae is one of those bands that, as a non-Portuguese speaker, you would come to think of as being a pleasant enough purveyor of fairly traditional reggae from Brazil.  Dig a little below the surface, though, and you find that AfroReggae is a very political group of young artists striving for bottom up social and political change.  Formed by former drug trafficker Anderson Sá as Grupo Cultural AfroReggae, the band AfroReggae is a project to wean the poor children of the Brazilian favelas away from the deadly world of drugs and gangsterism through education - particularly music education.  As you can hear from the track Tempo Sem Medida, AfroReggae can lay down a pretty solid groove, while also serving to educate the world about life in some of the world's most dangerous slums.

The Just Discovered File: Mallu Magalhaes

This is my first installment of hopefully many that I am calling "The Just Discovered File". It will be a quick blurb noting an artist that I have somehow stumbled across whom I find interesting and exciting.

Anyway, my first entry in the "File" is Mallu Magalhaes from Brazil. At the ripe old age of 17, this innovative songwriter is already on her second album (both albums are called "Mallu Magalhaes"), and is taking Brazil by storm.

Her music is a mix of folk, rock, reggae, and any number of other styles you can mention. But what pulls them all together is her compelling yet vulnerable voice, fun lyrics in both Portuguese and English, and incredibly catchy tunes.

So far, she's not on iTunes or Amazon in the U.S.. You can find her on Amazon.de and Amazon.fr though, if you're willing to pay for shipping (which, by the way, is a couple of Euros cheaper from France).