When my brother first started coming to Rio frequently around he was recommended by his drum professor in the U.S. someone to study with in Rio named Miguel. Miguel is famous fpr being a master at the repinique, which is the drum that leads the samba school during Carnival. My brother would make the trek out to Miguel's house in Cidade de Deus, the same place where the movie City of God was filmed. Sometimes they would practice at Miguel's girlfriend, Portela's, house. Portela soon became very fond of my brother and started calling herself his "mãe preta" or black mom. Portela has three daughters whim all live next door to one another. I became united with the whole family two years ago on New Year's Eve where we all celebrated among the masses of people on Copacabana beach. That is when I met Jonathan, one of Portela's grandsons. We became fast friends and talk online often.
About two months before Vans and I left on our trip, Jona told me that he was going to have a big 18th birthday party and asked if I could come.I wasn't sure of our plans because we only had a ticket into Fortaleza and out of Buenos Aires, but I told him I would do my best to make it to Rio in time. It turned out that because it was raining so much in Salvador we arrived to Rio before we had planned and were able to attend the party. After the two hour bus ride in the rain to Anil, the town in which Jona lives, we made it. Jone was so delighted! We had a great time dancing to samba and watching the local boys put on a show dancing to funk. Funk is a type of music that originated in the favelas (the slums) at the baile funks and is now popular among the upper class Cariocas. Funk is kind of like Brazilian rap with a common beat that plays in every song. The lyrics are really crude and the dance is like freaking but choreographed. (For more info see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funk_carioca). Funk is pretty funny to watch... Vans is obsessed! The young boys at the party has choreographed full routines and did some really incredible things with their stomach muscles. See videos of some of their dances below.
Jona invited us to come back to his neighbor-hood two weeks later for a concert by Bom Gosto. He offered for us to stay the night at his house since it would be too dangerous for us to go back to the city in the wee hours of the morning alone (my dad had accompanied us to/from the birthday party). Although Vans and I had gotten very little sleep the night before, we rallied and made it out there. We started the night eating at a local festa that reminded Vans of a carnival. Drinking beer to merely stay awake, we held out until 1am when the band finally took the stage.
Once they began to play the concert was awesome and well worth the trip! I was pleasantly surprised because we got to be in VIP with plenty of room to dance. After the show Vandria's new favorite music began to play.... baile funk!!! The next day we had Jona make us a CD full of the new songs we have discovered, both samba and funk. Thanks to one of his DJ friends we were finally able to discover the name of the anthem of our summer (winter) "Stereo Love" by Edward Maya & Vika Jigulina (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Z3YrHJ1sU). This song has literrally been playing EVERYWHERE.
Our last night in Rio, Jona came out to Lapa to join us for our Wednesday weekly tradition of Grupo Revelação. The show tonight was AMAZING! It's like they knew it was our last night in Rio. They played such a long set and performed all of our favorite songs. We didn't want the night to end after the band was done, so we stayed a bit and danced to a little funk!
After a while we had to leave as the music starts to get very repetitive. As we were leaving the club Jona pointed out the tãtã (hand held base drum) player (who happens to be Vans favorite musician of the group). So excited to see her boyfriend in person Vans ran up to him and asked to take a photo. Such a perfect way to end the perfect last night of the perfect trip to Rio!
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