ABSTRACT
Carioca by default, Ataulfo Alves de Sousa was bom in the small town of Mirai in Minas Gerais, 500 kilometres from the state capital, Belo Horizonte, on 2 May 1909, one of seven children bom to Dona Matilde Alves de Sousa and her husband Severino, who passed on many of his musical skills to his son Ataulfo. Although Ataulfo became director of harmony for the carnival bloco ‘Fale Quem Quiser’, he played no major role in the creation of the ‘Deixa Falar’ samba school, unlike Bide and Ismael Silva. Self-referential elements in his work, although few in number, clearly illustrate the intellectual leanings of samba discourse in the 1930s and 1940s, as they hint at an aspiration towards a kind of metalanguage within the lyrics. As the regime became more authoritarian the discourse of samba became more patriotic, and hyperbole was increasingly employed.
