África Brasil (1976)

África Brasil is a studio album by Brazilian singer-songwriter and guitarist Jorge Ben. It was released in 1976 by Philips Records. The album was recorded in ten days at Phonogram Studios in Rio de Janeiro with a large ensemble of musicians, including Ben's backing band Admiral Jorge V. During these sessions, Ben adopted the electric guitar in place of the acoustic guitar that had been central to his earlier recordings.

Musically, the album blends MPB, samba-funk, samba-rock and soul with Afro-Brazilian percussion. Its lyrics include references to football, love, childhood and Afro-Brazilian cultural themes. Upon release, África Brasil received critical acclaim, with reviewers noting its blend of genres. Featured in the reference book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (2005), the album was ranked 22nd place in Rolling Stone's list of the 50 best albums of all time.

Background

Jorge Ben began his professional recording career with Philips Records in 1963, when the label released his debut album Samba Esquema Novo. The record blended Afro-Brazilian heritage with global African-American music. After the album's success, Philips encouraged Ben to record additional albums in a similar style, leading to the release of three albums within 18 months. The series' musical style was described by Robert Leaver as "a modern, urban take on samba infused with other Afro-Brazilian rhythms", which "made him popular with the youth". After leaving Philips in the mid-1960s, Ben briefly worked as an independent artist. His only album during this period, O Bidú: Silêncio no Brooklin, was released in 1967 by an independent label and had limited commercial impact. The record nevertheless renewed industry interest in Ben, and in 1969 he re-signed with Philips under the leadership of executive André Midani. From 1969 onwards, Ben released a series of albums for Philips throughout the 1970s.

Since the beginning of Ben's professional musical career, when he was already moving away from the bossa nova arrangements that were popular in the Brazilian music scene at the time, Ben incorporated strongly syncopated elements of Afro-Brazilian popular music into his work, blending them with influences from American funk and rhythm and blues. Ben's pre-África Brasil work had long been characterized by riff-driven structures, rhythmic precision, and the use of percussion to create distinctive, danceable grooves. Alongside the strong influence of African-American music on his early albums, his work began to gain more visibility and has been cited by critics as an early influence on what later became known as samba rock—a subgenre defined by the fusion of Black popular music from Brazil and the United States, which scholars have associated closely with Ben's work. After his 1974 album A Tábua de Esmeralda and his live collaboration with Gilberto Gil, Gil e Jorge (1975), Ben set aside the acoustic guitar in favor of the electric guitar.

Recording and production

África Brasil was recorded at Phonogram Studios in Rio de Janeiro over the course of ten days. According to Okayplayer journalist Greg Caz the album reflected musical directions that Jorge Ben had been developing in earlier work, describing it as "something Jorge had been building toward for some time". For the sessions, Ben assembled an expanded group of musicians at Philips' new 16-track studios in Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, including his band Admiral Jorge V, originally a four-member group, with fourteen additional instrumentalists and five backing vocalists. During the recording process, Ben decided to replace his acoustic guitar with an electric guitar, influenced by Dadi Carvalho, a former member of Novos Baianos. This change took place after a trip to London, where Carvalho acquired an Ibanez guitar that caught Ben's attention. They eventually swapped instruments: Ben kept Carvalho's guitar, while Carvalho received Ben's Fender Precision Bass.