By FERNANDA CANAVEZ*
Despite all the prejudice, forró was recognized as a national cultural manifestation of Brazil, in a law sanctioned by President Lula in 2010.
“Forró is brave.” This is how the conversation with forró singer Diana do Sertão began during the soundcheck for the show she performed last March at Clube dos Democráticos, a traditional venue in the Rio neighborhood of Lapa.[1] Diana was born in Sousa, Paraíba, and her path to becoming an artist led her to São Paulo.
Like many forrozeiros, he began his career as a child, having emerged with his participation in The Tropicals, a band led by accordionist Flávio José, also from Paraíba. In 1985, the group performed with Luiz Gonzaga, the king of baião, who was enchanted by Diana's performance. “Girl, you're going far,” said Gonzagão, stating that the singer would be on the cover of an LP if she lived in the capital of São Paulo.
This episode was decisive for the artist to find the opportunities that would lead her, years later, to São Bernardo do Campo, where she was welcomed into the home of metalworkers. The similarity of Diana's trajectory with that of many Brazilians is no mere coincidence, a fact that the biography of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva does not allow us to forget.
Known as a migrant genre, the history of forró is intertwined with that of thousands of people from the Northeast who left their homeland for the urban centers of the Southeast due to the economic crisis and, in particular, the lack of public policies that could combat it. The 1950 census counted 173 people from the Northeast in the city of São Paulo, with a massive presence of people from Pernambuco and Alagoas.
In 1953, then-president Getúlio Vargas invested in emergency activities to minimize the effects of the drought in the Northeast, in an attempt to contain the galloping exodus, as reported by journalists Carlos Marcelo and Rosualdo Rodrigues in The bellows roared! A story of forró (Zahar).
Gonzagão used to say that forró is a dance for northeastern workers, attesting to the importance of this space for northeasterners to reconnect with memories of their land and for peers to meet.[2] In Rio de Janeiro, forró events attracted thousands of workers in the 1970s, employed in the construction sector for the construction of the subway and the Rio-Niterói bridge. The lyrics of The subway, by Os Três do Nordeste, created in the same decade, is an important record:
Because in the city
We don't have time for love
And work teaches me
Fulfill my destiny inside a subway
It's with the pickaxe, it's with the shovel
It's with the shovel, it's with the pickaxe
I'm going to hit with the hammer
For our love.
At the time, forró dances were called gafieiras, a maneuver to distance themselves from the stigma that fell on practices typical of regions of the Brazilian Northeast. The story is told by forró dancer Marcus Lucenna, one of those responsible for maintaining the Luiz Gonzaga Center of Northeastern Traditions, popularly known as Feira de São Cristóvão, an important gastronomic center and preservation of Northeastern culture in the capital of Rio de Janeiro.
Alongside his fellow forró dancers, Marcus fought against the attacks of government officials and businesspeople eager to transform the Fair into a mall: “We northeasterners invented this Fair so that we could be ourselves within it.”[3]
The spaces in dispute in the city were not the only ones marked by the persecution of forró. Flávio José tells the true ordeal to which musicians were subjected in the search for radio stations that could play their music, the main means of dissemination before the expansion of access to Internet. According to the accordionist, there was a systematic refusal to play forrós by FM radio stations, since the genre was seen as synonymous with illiteracy.[4] Regional terms and expressions – and, ultimately, popular wisdom itself – were seen as deviations from the standard norm and, as such, should be rejected.
Prejudice has followed forró since its naming as such. According to Sergipe researcher Hernany Donato, the corruption of forrobodó goes back to several meanings, always associated with the idea of dance, musical band and literature produced by marginalized people. The forro researcher draws attention, however, to the meaning rescued by the Rio de Janeiro samba singer Nei Lopes,[5] responsible for associating the origin of the term with the Bantu trunk, marked as it is by a semantic diversity that includes characteristics that make up the aforementioned trunk.
“For the first time [the word] forrobodó, which was once vehemently linked to several European countries, has its inscription related to African influences, and why not say Afro-Brazilian, given that the soiree, the dance, is held by the most needy part of the population”.[6] With the rescue made by Nei Lopes, it is possible to give visibility to the racialization of prejudice directed at the Northeasterner[7] and, consequently, to forró.
Most of the time, when appointed by the elites, forró seems to only be left with the predicates of confusion and marginalization. When arriving in the Southeast in the big[8] of northeastern migrants, forró is considered of lesser value by the southeastern elites, who have been largely and always guided – with an emphasis on the global North and not on the Brazilian “north” – by the desire for European attributes, looking at the Eiffel Tower with their backs turned to the wonderful bonfires of São João in the city of Caruaru, Pernambuco.
Despite all the prejudice, forró was recognized as a national cultural manifestation of Brazil, in a law sanctioned by President Lula in 2010. In addition to the importance of forró's symbolic and historical value, the milestone is a nod to the need for public policies that can preserve such heritage. A little over ten years later, in 2021, the National Institute of Artistic Heritage (IPHAN) recognized the traditional matrices of forró as cultural heritage of Brazil.
Forró is truly brave, just like the working class that crossed the country in search of material conditions of existence. Just like the mandacaru that blooms in the drought,[9] makes history in the construction of Brazil through multiple inventions: from forró to the position of President of the Republic, including important episodes of resistance, whether in the union movement or on the radio.
The wisdom and courage that come from the big guy rescue important chapters of this story, to which we must always return, with our hearts warmed by the bonfires of São João and the confidence that resistance paves the way until the sign that rain arrives in the backlands.
*Fernanda Canavêz é professor at the Institute of Psychology of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ).
Notes
[1] The interview is part of the podcast research process The backyard speaks – season It’s a good thing that forró exists, an initiative by Quintal das criações conceived by producer Taty Maria. There are eight episodes dedicated to the forró scene, focusing on the city of Rio de Janeiro. To follow updates on the project: @quintaldascriacoes
[2] National Archives. The origin of forró, 1977. Available at https://youtu.be/JDz3-c91wAw?si=E8DLB7W8cUbDyXOJ.
[3] Lucenna, M. The adventures of the singer of the four corners at the court of King Louis. New York: Routledge, 2019, p. 243.
[4] Free Idea with Flavio José, 2017. Available at https://youtu.be/vs8iY_2jKks?si=09RYSlhkqkwq1vW-
[5] Lopes, N. New Bantu Dictionary of Brazil. Rio de Janeiro: Pallas, 2012.
[6] Moura, HD Forrobodó: an Afro-Brazilian literary expression. Doctoral thesis, Postgraduate Program in Sociology, Federal University of Sergipe, 2024, p. 10.
[7] Oliveira, L.M.M. “The most sophisticated regional development in the country”: the invention of Brazil and the racialization of the Northeastern population. Undergraduate course completion monograph, Institute of Psychology, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, 2024.
[8] Matulão is a bag widely used by migrants from the Northeast, a term that appears in countless verses of forrós, as exemplified in the lyrics of Macaw's Perch, by Luiz Gonzaga and Gui de Morais: https://youtu.be/0cH5inr4HZ8?si=DqpAj2QTKjxYcGwQ.
[9] By allusion to the verses of The girls' xote, by Luiz Gonzaga and Zé Dantas. Available here.
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