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Samba - TV Tropes

  • ️Mon May 30 2022

Samba (trope)

Roda de Samba by Carybé

Samba is a Brazilian music genre coming from Afro-Brazilians in Rio de Janeiro in the early 20th century, albeit it has precursors from Afro-Brazilian dance circles in Bahia first registered around the mid 19th century. It was influenced by traditional African music and Brazilian folklore and traditions. Samba is an important national symbol for Brazil and a major cultural phenomenon.

Samba as it is traditionally known first became a musical genre in the 1910s but had notable differences with modern samba. It developed closer to its modern form in the 1920s. It was initially hated by the upper-classes due to its working class and Afro-Brazilian origins, but it eventually was welcomed by all Brazilian classes and became a symbol of Brazilian identity. The genre became popularized in the United States and other countries in the 1940s and 50s by performers such as Carmen Miranda.

The genre is known for its fun, laid-back, and danceable sound. Percussion is the basis of samba, using African rhythms on a variety of percussion instruments, including the tamborim, surdo, pandeiro, ganzá, agogô, reco-reco and cuíca. Other common instruments include the cavaquinho and the classical guitar.

Samba eventually developed into many subgenres, the most famous being Bossa Nova, which combines samba with jazz influences. Other notable subgenres include samba rock, pagode, samba-canção ("song samba", the subgenre that bossa nova emerged from), samba-jazz, samba de breque, samba de enredo, and samba de partido-alto. It's also an important influence on música popular brasileira (MPB), the broader form of popular music in Brazil that combines influences from samba and traditional Brazilian music with foreign genres, such as pop, rock, and jazz.

Samba also refers to a dance, which also was created by Afro-Brazilians. It was heavily influenced by traditional African dances of the Congo and Angola. During parades such as Carnival, dancers often wear vibrant and revealing outfits with large feather headdresses, although they only wear these outfits during parades, not during most occasions or in the street Carnival blocks (but in foreign fiction, samba dancers will always dress like this while dancing). The dance is known for its risqué movements. There are many styles of samba, the most common being samba no pé.

Samba is closely associated with Brazilian Carnival, as it is one of the signature dances and musics of the festival alongside Frevo, Axé and Maracatu — in specific, the music style is inherent to the samba parades in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo and is used by several famous popular Carnival marches. Carnival parades often has many attractive women wearing signature samba outfits and dancing the samba no pé in parades while the music plays.

In non-Brazilian works set in Brazil, samba or bossa nova will probably be playing in the background. As It's Always Carnival in Rio de Janeiro in fiction, expect to see and hear the samba alongside attractive samba dancers, despite only paraders being the ones to do that.

Has nothing to do with Mushroom Samba, although the Trope Namer was likely referencing the music genre.

Samba demonstrates these tropes:

  • Ms. Fanservice: Female samba dancers during Carnival parades wear very revealing outfits, and the dance can often (though far from always) be sexual in nature.
  • Regional Riff: Samba instruments are often used to demonstrate that a work is set in Brazil, especially the cuica, the friction drum that kind of sounds like a grunting animal.
  • Serious Business: Samba absolutely consumes Rio de Janeiro during Carnaval, and has become a highly organized activity centering around the "samba schools" (escolas de samba)—neighborhood organizations that put together annual shows that compete in parades. A street in Rio (called the Sambadrome) has been set aside for these parades, complete with permanent bleachers, and the samba schools are organized into a league pyramid, much like Association Football, complete with a promotion-relegation system between leagues. A second tier school that gets promoted to the top tier gets a huge financial windfall from it. The top tier league competition is is closely watched, and the rivalry between the two most decorated schools, Portela and Mangueira, is fierce. There's a dark side, though, since it's an open secret that many schools rely on organized crime syndicates for financing.

Notable samba artists include:

Other examples of samba music:

Films - Animated

  • The Incredibles: A samba song, titled "Off to Work" on the soundtrack album, plays during Bob Parr's second visit to Nomanisan Island. This probably has nothing to do with Brazil (the film is deliberately vague about the island's location), but instead conveys Bob's impression of the island as a tropical paradise.
  • In the "Aquarela do Brasil" short from Saludos Amigos, Jose Carioca teaches Donald Duck about the samba, demonstrating a samba tune and how to perform the accompanying dance.

Films - Live Action

  • Black Orpheus. While it's considered the Genre Popularizer for Bossa Nova, the soundtrack also features quite a bit of samba, and is partly focused on a fictional samba school called Babilonia, which most of the main characters belong to, as they prepare to march in a Carnaval parade.

Live-Action TV

  • My Wife and Kids: "Samba Story" revolves around Jay convincing Michael to take Samba lessons with her. The conflict brews when they both grow jealous from watching each other perform the dance's sensual moves with their respective teachers, though the two make up by doing a duet together at the end of the episode. However, the rhythm and movements of the "samba" are closer to other Latin American rhythms than to the actual samba.

Music

Video Games