Samba chula enquanto world music - politicas publicas e produção fonográfica no samba de roda do Recôncavo Baiano

Abstract

The granting of the title of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity for the samba de roda of the Recôncavo Baiano in 2005, by the Unesco, is part of a context in which public policies to promote culture in Brazil began to take as a priority the encouragement of diversity of musical expressions, the territorial development of actions and the safeguarding of the immaterial Brazilian patrimony. Especially in the decade of 2005-2015, these policies and their developments, under the seal of financial support from state and federal public bodies and institutions, have encouraged the process of professionalization of artists, groups and songs of samba de roda, through the production of music and international promotion of these even within the emblematic market niche of world music. In this ethnomusicological work, sound reflexes of this "patrimonialization" of the samba de roda are observed, taking as an example the recent musical trajectory of the group Samba Chula de São Braz - perhaps one of the most representative in the popular music scene of the Recôncavo Baiano since the decade of 2000. However, a question hangs in the air: "If the radio does not play and the television does not pass, how is it heritage?" This question is asked by Dona "Jelita" (in memoriam), master sambadeira of the group Samba de Saubara, Bahia, died in 2016. Her questioning reflects only part of the uncertainties experienced by sambadores and sambadeiras of many communities of the present Recôncavo in front of the process of professionalization of samba de roda and the existence of this tradition as a whole. In this sense, I make considerations about the role played by current Brazilian Ethnomusicology as essential for directing and scaling the scope of cultural policies in Bahia and Brazil, for the sake of sambadores and sambadeiras.