Brazil: 4 songs for you to understand its musical variety

Brazil has a really diverse musical identity and what I bring here today is but the tip of the iceberg. Our art is huge and each artist brings about their unique point of view on life, love, politics and so much more.

Well, let's get to the list:

Quando bate aquela saudade - By Rubel

Rubel is a singer and songwriter and this song is his most proeminent work. It has a tradition: in the YouTube comments, people tell their love stories. Translate them and read them. I promise: it is worth it.

Many of the stories tell a similar tale: that Quando bate aquela Saudade was their relationship's song and although some of the comments are all about happy endings, most of them end on painful breakups and consequently in "Saudade". It is a Brazilian Portuguese word for when you miss someone so bad that it hurts. Observation: This is not a by-the-book definition of Saudade; this is just how I define it.

ILUSÃO "CRACOLÂNDIA" - By Alok, MC Hariel, MC Davi, MC Ryan SP, Salvador da Rima e Djay W

This is Funk. It can be hard to translate because it has a lot of slang that sometimes not even everybody here understands, and I'll explain a little bit about that. Brazil is a country extremely unequal. While there are super-rich and safe neighborhoods with high-quality education, there are also what we call favelas, communities with all kinds of difficulties, including police violence, intense drug dealing, lack of access to education... And, there, funk was born. It has its slang, style, dancing. If you want to know more about it, please, research!

Ilusão means illusion and Cracolândia is a place where many addicts are living on the street and using drugs together. This song is an appeal for the contemporary youth to not go down that path.

Índios - By Legião Urbana

Legião Urbana is a band of great success here. Many people love them, many think they're overrated, yet, almost, if not everybody, knows them.

This particular song speaks about our painful process of colonization and about our natives, called índios or indígenas.

Quem me dera, ao menos uma vez,

Que o mais simples fosse visto como o mais importante.

Mas nos deram espelhos, e vimos um mundo doente.

It means something like: "I wished that, at least once, the simple was seen as the most important. But they gave us mirrors, and we saw a sick world", and it refers to when the Portuguese, during the colonization process, gave to the natives useless items like mirrors in exchange of a tree called Pau-brasil that is now almost extinct thanks to its exploitation.

Você não existe - By Potyguara Bardo

Potyguara Bardo is an amazing Brazilian artist who has a lot of beautiful, meaningful songs. This one's lyrics go on quite a lot about spirituality and bring in a lot of insights into our relationship with reality.

"Você não existe" means, in English: you don't exist.

"Abrace a minha voz e faça dela sua

As falas que eu canto são tão minhas

Quanto são da Lua"

It means something like:

"Embrace my voice and make it yours

The lyrics I sing belong to me

As much as they belong to the moon"

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Brazil is a very complex country, with rich culture and history. We are a vast and diverse people, and it'd be an honor to bring more articles on my perspective of Brazilian art in general.

To be Brazilian is to be a survivor, mostly in times like these. But, I have to say: I would not choose to be born anywhere else, for here I can feel history being written down every day as new artists rise and speak their hearts up.