Transformation of central African patterns in the urban samba of Rio de Janeiro

1933-1978

Abstract

This paper intends to identify, through the bias of the musical analysis, transformations of central African patterns (time lines in particular) in the Brazilian southeast  urban Samba, in the context of the colonial process and its projection in the twentieth century. Understanding that the transatlantic routes designed by the slave trade  begin a connection between territories separated by the ocean through a forced, unequal and destabilizing coexistence of different groups, we hypothesize that diverse  peoples may have assimilated in their own way the musical practices of others, contributing to form the complex structures of what we now identify as Brazilian urban Samba.