Tropicália

1932 · São Paulo

A composer trained in the European avant-garde who became central to São Paulo's experimental and Tropicalist scene, Rogério Duprat was the arranger who gave Tropicália its orchestral and electroacoustic edge, scoring the strings, brass, and collage that frame its key records.

1936 · Salvador

From Irará in the Bahian backlands, Tom Zé arrived in Salvador to study composition and became the most formally experimental of the Tropicalists, treating the song as a machine to be taken apart.

1939 · Rio de Janeiro

A Rio singer-guitarist with a swinging samba-rock feel all his own, Jorge Ben was embraced by the Tropicalists as a kindred spirit, and his swinging rhythmic vocabulary fed the movement's groove.

1941 · Salvador

José Carlos Capinam, known simply as Capinan, was a Bahian poet whose lyrics gave several Tropicalist songs their literary weight, working closely with Gil and the wider Salvador group.

1942 · Rio de Janeiro

Once called the muse of bossa nova for hosting its formative gatherings in her Copacabana apartment, Nara Leão became a bridge figure who lent the new movement her credibility by joining the 1968 collective album.

1942 · Salvador

Born in Santo Amaro da Purificação in the Bahian Recôncavo, Caetano Veloso moved to Salvador as a student and became the chief theorist of Tropicália, the movement that fused Brazilian song with electric rock, concrete poetry, and the cannibalist idea of devouring foreign culture.

1942 · Salvador

Gilberto Gil grew up between Salvador and the Bahian interior, where the accordion-driven baião of Luiz Gonzaga shaped his ear before he met Caetano Veloso at university.

1944 · Rio de Janeiro

A poet and journalist from Teresina in Piauí, Torquato Neto was the lyricist who wrote some of Tropicália's sharpest words, including verses for Gil and Caetano on the 1968 collective album.

1945 · Salvador

A Salvador native, Gal Costa was the voice of the Bahian group, capable of crystalline restraint and, on the Tropicalist records, of feral electric abandon.

1946 · Salvador

Caetano Veloso's younger sister and a member of the Bahian circle in Salvador, Maria Bethânia made her name in Rio with a dramatic, declamatory delivery distinct from the Tropicalist palette.

1966 · São Paulo

Formed in São Paulo by the brothers Arnaldo Baptista and Sérgio Dias with singer Rita Lee, Os Mutantes were the electric engine of Tropicália, building homemade fuzz and tape effects into a Brazilian psychedelia all their own.

1967 · São Paulo

Caetano Veloso's 'Alegria, Alegria', performed with an electric backing band at the 1967 TV Record festival in São Paulo, scandalized purists by importing rock instrumentation into a Brazilian song contest.

1967 · São Paulo

Gilberto Gil's 'Domingo no Parque', sung at the 1967 TV Record festival with Os Mutantes, layers a jealous Sunday-fair tragedy over a propulsive berimbau-and-guitar arrangement.

1968 · São Paulo

Caetano Veloso's self-titled 1968 debut album distills his Tropicalist program into solo form, pairing Rogério Duprat's adventurous arrangements with songs that move from electric provocation to plainspoken tenderness.

1968 · São Paulo

Gilberto Gil's 1968 self-titled album, sometimes known by the opening track 'Frevo Rasgado', sets his Northeastern roots against psychedelic arrangement and Rogério Duprat's orchestrations.

1968 · São Paulo

The debut album by Os Mutantes, released in 1968, is the loudest and most playful artifact of Tropicália's psychedelic wing, full of tape manipulation, distorted guitar, and surreal humor.

1968 · São Paulo

Caetano Veloso's song 'Tropicália' gave the movement its name, sweeping monuments, slogans, and pop debris of modern Brazil into a single cataloguing rush.

1968 · São Paulo

Borrowing a slogan from the May 1968 Paris uprising, Caetano Veloso's 'É Proibido Proibir' was the song he sang at the São Paulo round of the 1968 International Song Festival (FIC), at TUCA, where it triggered a furious clash with the booing crowd.

1968-07 · São Paulo

Released in 1968, this collective album is Tropicália's manifesto in record form, gathering Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Os Mutantes, Tom Zé, Nara Leão, and the arranger Rogério Duprat into a single statement.

1969 · São Paulo

Recorded in the shadow of imprisonment and impending exile, Caetano Veloso's second self-titled album from 1969 is darker and more fragmented than its predecessor, made as the dictatorship tightened its grip.

1971 · London

Made during his exile in England, Caetano Veloso's 1971 self-titled album is a quieter, displaced record, much of it sung in English and shaped by the loneliness of a foreign city.

1971 · London

Gilberto Gil's 1971 self-titled album, recorded in London during his exile, folds the rock, folk, and reggae he was hearing in England into his Brazilian songwriting.

1963 · Salvador

In the early 1960s a group of young Bahians, Caetano Veloso, his sister Maria Bethânia, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, and Tom Zé, found one another in Salvador around the university and its arts scene.

1967-09-30 · São Paulo

Held at the Teatro Record in São Paulo and broadcast by TV Record, the third Festival de Música Popular Brasileira ran from late September to October 21, 1967, and became the launchpad of Tropicália.

1968 · São Paulo

At the São Paulo round of the 1968 International Song Festival (FIC), held at TUCA, Caetano Veloso performed 'É Proibido Proibir' with Os Mutantes and, met with hostile booing, delivered a furious harangue against the crowd that became legendary.

1968-12-13 · Rio de Janeiro

On December 13, 1968, the Brazilian military government issued Institutional Act No.

1968-12-27 · São Paulo

On December 27, 1968, two weeks after AI-5, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil were arrested without trial in São Paulo and held for months.

1969 · London

After their release and a period of house arrest, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil left Brazil in 1969 for exile in London, where they would live for roughly three years.

1972 · Salvador

In 1972, judging the political climate marginally safer, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil returned to Brazil from London, carrying the rock, reggae, and studio ideas absorbed abroad.

1967 · São Paulo

The Teatro Record in São Paulo, a studio-theater of the Rede Record television network, was the stage on which the broadcast música popular festivals of the late 1960s unfolded before live audiences and cameras.