Today on underground we are going to talk about a style of music that plays a huge part of one of the biggest and lively celebrations in the world, and that is Rio Samba form the Rio Carnival.

If your wondering what is the big fuss about Samba music and yet have no idea what Samba music is, well I got you cover. The origin of Samba music dates back to 1888; at that time slavery was abolished. Samba was created by Afro-Brazilians, which combines song, music, and dance which looks and sounds like a way to pay respect to not only to their ancestry, history, and culture but also to the gods and goddess in the African Pantheon.

The music and lyrics are about almost anything and are pick about a full year ahead of the next Rio Carnival, so every year is a new theme, sound and song altogether in one. The best way to understand this is to listen to last year winner and defending Rio Carnival Champion Samba school Beija-Flor:

Beija-Flor 2018

Beija-Flor 2019

The 2018 winning theme was about a troubled Brazil and used Mary Shelly Frankenstein as the central theme which was titled “Monsters are those who don’t know how to love- the abandoned children of the motherland who bore them.” This year’s central theme is titled ” Who has not seen will see The fables of the hummingbird.”

If you have time go and listen to all of this year Rio Carnival themes because I think the whole world will see Rio Carnival, but not listen to Rio Samba during the carnival due to either language barrier or assume they are singing “happy go lucky” songs and not sending out a message.