ABSTRACT
“I like the roots but I prefer the fruits!”—exclaimed Caetano Veloso in an interview for the French newspaper Libération in the 1970s (Kopoul 1978: 15). When asked about racism in Brazil, the musician criticized the leftists of that time who, according to him, stated that Brazilian blacks should play samba, the globally known Brazilian “roots music,” instead of imitating James Brown or Bob Marley. His interjection echoes tensions that stimulated the twentieth-century Brazilian arts scene on different occasions—between the project of Mário de Andrade and the Antropofagia of Oswald de Andrade in the 1930s, between “authentic Brazilian music” and Tropicalismo late in the 1960s, or even between Movimento Armorial and manguebeat in the 1990s. Yet, to approach these ancient clashes in the era of globalization, I invite you to reflect about two emerging questions, taking Veloso’s assertion as the keynote.
