Research Statement

My research investigates Afro-Brazilian popular music with a concentration on Afrocentric community percussion ensembles known as Blocos Afro in Salvador, Brazil. This work forges critical bridges in ethnomusicology, Black studies, and Afro-diasporic discourses between the US and Brazil. Given the scant attention Blocos Afro since the 1990s—despite its importance in Brazil’s Black movement—this research updates Bloco Afro scholarship and contextualizes it within more recent debates in radical Black thought, such as anti-Blackness, Afropessimism, and ancestrality. My dissertation analyzes the critical role of percussion breaks (drum cadences) in genres of samba-afro and samba-reggae commonly performed among Blocos Afro with a focus on Ilê Aiyê (the first Bloco Afro founded in 1974) and Olodum (founded in 1979). Percussion breaks harbor much more significance than meets the ear.

In my dissertation, the first and second chapters outline my fieldwork methods, a summary of scholarship on Bloco Afro music, and a theoretical background of Afro-Brazilian and radical Black studies scholarship. The third chapter focuses on the first Bloco Afro Ilê Aiyê, their integral role in the Black movement in Brazil, and an analysis of rhythms and breaks in samba-afro performed during their annual Beleza Negra (Black Beauty) concert in 2023. The fourth and fifth chapters furnish another case study on Bloco Afro Olodum, supplemented by archival documents, interviews, and semi-professional recordings, to analyze the rhythms and breaks of samba-reggae by focusing on one of their concerts in January 2023. Both Ilê Aiyê and Olodum concerts consisted of over 100 percussion breaks. The sixth chapter concludes by calling for further valorization and ethical representation of Black arts and intellectual discourse in the Americas—especially weaving together shared Afro-diasporic arts, politics, and resistance. To conclude, I emphasize the role of percussion breaks to call attention to Black resistance, emblematic of what Cedric Robinson coined as the “Black Radical Tradition” (1983) and Fred Moten describes in In the Break (2003), but with an Afro-Brazilian twist on ancestrality.

My book project and publications will include and further develop my ethnographic fieldwork with Didá Banda Feminina and LGBTQIA+ Bloco Afro Mulherada. When complete, the book will contribute a new, interventional dimension of Bloco Afro percussion, incorporating intersectional angles of race, ancestrality, resistance, violence, gender, and sexuality in the context of Afro-Bahian music and ethnomusicology.

In the past two years, I have presented ten times in both the USA and Brazil on this research in a diverse spectrum of contexts and in both English and Portuguese. In September 2024, my short documentary “Blocos Afro and Black Resistance in Salvador, Brazil,” was accepted by the Rising Voices in Ethnomusicology journal issue for diversity and activism, a forthcoming fall 2024 issue. I submitted an article on Ilê Aiyê, the breaks, and Black resistance to the University of Michigan journal Music and Politics in August of 2024. Further, I am working on another article regarding my research with Didá Banda Feminina and Afrofuturism to submit to multi-media Black Studies journals this autumn.

Further, while academia talks a lot about decolonizing ethnographic research, I put these concepts to practice through rigorously applied fieldwork built on ethical exchanges. In addition to acquiring recordings, interviews, and archival documents, I worked diligently for the blocos in myriad ways, such as translating, writing international grants in English, and making videos. Although a substantial addition to my workload, the offer to work for my interlocuters paid dividends, including sharing online archives, inviting me to unique visits with international agents, and offering privy information.

In this vein of applied ethnomusicology, I am submitting a grant proposal to the Modern Endangered Archives Program grant (November 2024) to preserve and digitize Ilê Aiyê’s incredible library of documents, photos, audio recordings, digital recordings, and documents in Ilê Aiyê’s library archive—all of which are deteriorating in a facility that lacks climate control.

For my next research areas, I intend to delve deeper into Brazilian music and Afrofuturism, audiovisual ethnography, and ethical professional representation of musical cultures. For the former, I noticed many fascinating manifestations of Afrofuturism in Bahian popular music scenes during my fieldwork beyond Blocos Afro that would develop into cutting-edge research contributions. And for the latter, based on my success of ethically making 100+ recordings and using multiple cameras, devices, and editing software, I am fully equipped and excited to pursue this area that continues to evolve theoretically and technologically in myriad modes, including artificial intelligence.

There is no question about the worldwide fascination of Afro-Brazilian music. Recently, more Black Americans are visiting Salvador because of its reputation as a Black capital of the Americas, notorious and eclectic Afro-Brazilian Carnival celebrations, the AfroPunk Festival, and highly publicized visits by Beyoncé, Angela Bassett, and Naomi Campbell in 2023. However, there remains an immense history of Black Brazilian music, culture, and theoretical discourse that yearns to be shared in ethnomusicology, Lusophone studies, and the world. With this broader perspective, perhaps Americans can see more clearly and think more critically about race and anti-Blackness—knowing that we are not alone in these struggles.