Rio, Streets and Sambas

the construction of Rio de Janeiro as a musical city

Abstract

This article seeks to analyze the process of constitution of Rio de Janeiro as a musical city. More precisely, its composition in the territory as a city in the Global South was produced from multiple social processes over time, engendering a society that is both cosmopolitan and unequal. The article presents the image of a social kaleidoscope, representative of a spontaneous movement by which the population would mix and relate, among themselves and externally, in different ways in multiple flows over time, considering that social relations are in permanent transformation. The initiatives would be taken through the gaps that existed within the repressive and exclusionary policies on the popular segments of the black majority, that is, individuals belonging to these strata would participate in joint social life, collectively building their social ties, their identity in common, expressing their conceptions of the world and consolidating themselves as an active social group through cultural manifestations, festivals, musical and artistic environments in general, although limited to restricted periods and environments.

Based on a methodology of historical review of the formation of the city and some experiences of important social actors for samba, I intend to highlight the spaces of sociability common to the population, such as streets, avenues and squares, as well as places of a private nature, such as residences and taverns, which, in a conflicting manner, would enable the construction of internal sociability networks and the reterritorialization of musical spaces. I also try to point out how this internal cohesion overflowed beyond social groups restricted to a local sphere, from intense social relations and cultural circularity, thus spreading the “musical vocation” of the city of Rio de Janeiro as an external modern production to cultural colonial power.