17.09.2024
Text: Güven Yalın
10 articles of the Rodrigo Amarante dictionary
One of the exciting events of the 34th Akbank Jazz Festival will take place at Babylon on October 11. Ahead of Rodrigo Amarante's solo performance, we take a look back at some of the highlights of the Brazilian musician's career, which is full of interesting moments at every stop.
Cavalo
Rodrigo Amarante has continued his career with collaborations since the late 1990s. He released his first solo album, Cavalo, in his home country in late 2013 and internationally in 2014 on the Easy Sound label. Selected as the third-best global music album of the year by the well-established music magazine MOJO, Cavalo is a collection that Amarante largely recorded on his own. but it also features contributions from fellow musicians such as Rodrigo Barba, Fabrizio Moretti, and Devendra Banhart.
Devendra Banhart
Devendra Banhart has been a key figure in the psychedelic folk movement of the 2000s. The Venezuelan musician has also played an important role in Amarante’s career. The two first got together in California in 2007 to record the track “Rosa” for Banhart's Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon album. Their partnership has since led to numerous collaborations both in the studio and on stage. Banhart is also the creator of the band Little Joy, of which Amarante is a member.
Little Joy
Amarante met The Strokes’ drummer Fabrizio Moretti and songwriter Binki Shapiro while recording with Devendra Banhart in California in 2007. Together, they formed the supergroup Little Joy, and their only album was released in 2008. Produced by Noah Georgeson, the album quickly garnered attention for its blend of indie rock and bossa nova, and some of its tracks got featured in TV series and commercials. It was also a favorite of the inspirational writer Nick Hornby in 2008.
Memory
“I believe memory is like a coloring book,” Rodrigo Amarante says, summarizing the essence of his second album, Drama. This colorful collection of introspective songs is in a sense an attempt to encapsulate the warmth of the land where he was born and raised. On Drama, Amarante interprets Tropicália traditions through the lens of a contemporary composer and tracks like “Maré,” “Tango,” and “I Can't Wait” stand out as highlights in his discography.
Narcos
The song that got Amarante to worldwide fame is undoubtedly “Tuyo,” which he composed as the theme for the hit Netflix series Narcos. Amarante wrote the song, while imagining what Pablo Escobar’s mother might have listened to during her son’s childhood. This bolero beauty, which became a modern classic due to the series’ success, also earned Amarante a nomination for a Primetime Emmy Award.
Orquestra Imperial
Orquestra Imperial is a big band formed in 2002 with the goal of interpreting Gafieira Samba music. Over the years, the lineup has featured notable members such as Moreno Veloso, Caetano Veloso's son; Thalma de Freitas, who is also an actor; and the legendary percussionist Wilson das Neves, who passed away in 2017. The inclusion of Rodrigo Amarante, already popular in his home country with his band Los Hermanos, helped make Orquestra Imperial recognizable to alternative music enthusiasts. In fact, many publications attribute the band’s success to Amarante’s presence.
Roots
Amarante has lived in various parts of the world since his childhood, and he writes songs with the aim of preserving the legacy of his predecessors and carrying it into the future. In an NPR interview, he described his experience of reconnecting with his cultural roots: “We become blind to so many things where we’re from, they just get erased. When you move around, then everything is present again.”
Ska
Formed in Rio de Janeiro in 1997, Los Hermanos represents the expansion of Amarante’s diverse musical journey into ska and alternative rock. Joining the band as a guitarist shortly after its formation, Amarante soon became its main composer. With four albums released between 1999 and 2005, Los Hermanos has become one of the most notable stories in Brazilian music. The band’s return from its “long hiatus” is still widely anticipated.
Tom Zé
Throughout his career, Amarante has had the opportunity to work with some of the icons of Brazilian music, including Gal Costa and Gilberto Gil. His path also crossed with Tom Zé, a pioneer of the Tropicália movement of the 1960s. The track “NYC Subway Poetry Department” from Zé’s 2012 album Tropicália Lixo Lógico is a duet between the two. Zé and Amarante also performed together in Brazil following the album’s release. Let’s also remember that Amarante includes a rendition of the Tom Zé classic “Augusta, Angélica e Consolação” in some of his performances.
Worldly
Rodrigo Amarante describes himself as a “traveler” and “worldly” musician, and he writes songs in multiple languages. In addition to his native Portuguese, he has composed songs in Spanish, English, and French, and some tracks on the album Cavalo even include Japanese phrases. In a 2016 interview with Hooligan Mag, Amarante explained that his multilingual approach is about choosing the language that best suits the story he wants to tell.