MILES PARKS, HOST:
When you hear this...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COISINHA DO PAI")
BETH CARVALHO: (Singing in non-English language).
PARKS: ...Your mind might jump to Brazil. Today, samba is woven into the country's cultural identity. For the past three decades, Rio de Janeiro has marked the national day of samba in December with a remarkable tradition, the samba train, a musical journey that revisits the genre's early struggles and salutes the musicians who shape it. Julia Carneiro takes the ride.
JULIA CARNEIRO, BYLINE: It's 6 p.m. in Rio's Central Station. This platform is usually packed with people waiting for their trains to commute back home after work. But today, all the passengers are dancing to samba music, and every carriage has a different band playing.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARQUINHOS DE OSWALDO CRUZ: (Non-English language spoken).
CARNEIRO: Composer Marquinhos de Oswaldo Cruz takes his artistic name from the working-class Rio suburb of Oswaldo Cruz, and that's where we're going. This is the 30th edition of the samba train, the event he created to reenact a journey first taken around a century ago.
OSWALDO CRUZ: (Non-English language spoken).
CARNEIRO: He explains how Paulo da Portela, one of samba's great pioneers and the founder of Rio's first samba school, Portela, would take this train to escape police repression in the early 1900s. At the time, playing samba could land people in jail for vagrancy, a charge widely used to criminalize Black culture in the decades after slavery was abolished in Brazil.
OSWALDO CRUZ: (Non-English language spoken).
CARNEIRO: "The musicians bought their tickets, got on the train," he says, "and when the doors shut, they'd play all the way to Oswaldo Cruz, and the police couldn't get them." The samba train celebrates this history.
(CHEERING)
CARNEIRO: I'm in a carriage with the musicians from Salgueiro, one of Rio's traditional samba schools. It's completely packed, and the doors are about to close.
This first train leaves at 6:04, the exact time Paulo da Portela used to travel. Onboard are musicians from the velha guarda, the veteran sambistas who embody the tradition of samba. They're dressed in white trousers, shoes and hats and shirts in their school's colors. In this carriage, it's red and white for Salgueiro, and 57-year-old composer Liesbeth Monteiro is among them.
LIESBETH MONTEIRO: (Non-English language spoken).
CARNEIRO: "Samba is not music," she says. "It's resistance. It's memory. It's a legacy we uphold. Samba even makes us cry," she says, tears welling up as she speaks.
MONTEIRO: (Non-English language spoken).
CARNEIRO: Flor Morena is one of the passengers here, and she's worked for years in the company that runs these trains.
She says, this is really important to show the world how rich our culture is. People, come to Rio de Janeiro. Come have fun. It's amazing here.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #1: (Chanting in non-English language).
CARNEIRO: Next stop, Oswaldo Cruz. The musicians spill out of the carriages, playing percussion instruments like agogo, cuica and drums. They're followed by many locals from richer parts of Rio, who rarely come to these impoverished suburbs. Brazilian writer Bianca Ramoneda was ecstatic after her first samba train experience.
BIANCA RAMONEDA: I can be romantic, but I really believe that the train is a kind of bridge that puts together different parts of the city that need to communicate better.
CARNEIRO: Around the station, there is a buzz of people arriving and dozens of street vendors selling barbecues, tours, beer, caipirinhas. One of them is Dilce Souza. She has a big ice box full of beer. She says, that's all people want when they leave the train hot and thirsty.
DILCE SOUZA: (Non-English language spoken).
CARNEIRO: Dilce says, she and her family were born and raised in Oswaldo Cruz. In the past, the event was just for locals. But today, people come here from all over Brazil and beyond, so it means a lot to them.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
CARNEIRO: For blocks and blocks around Oswaldo Cruz, the party continues, with samba groups performing in bars and on stages on the street.
OSWALDO CRUZ: (Non-English language spoken).
CARNEIRO: As Marquinhos de Oswaldo Cruz takes the microphone, he reflects on Rio's history, describing how the city marginalized its Black population, often pushing communities to the suburbs.
OSWALDO CRUZ: (Non-English language spoken).
CARNEIRO: "But the whole of Brazil sings samba," he says, "from the richest to the poorest. We gave Brazil its own language, and that language is samba."
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #2: (Singing in non-English language).
CARNEIRO: For NPR News, I'm Julia Carneiro in Rio de Janeiro.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #2: (Non-English language spoken). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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