In my childhood, radio was part of a ritual at home. My mother woke up early to prepare the lunch box that Dad would take to work and the first thing she always did was turn on the AM radio. It was a combination of music, news and other entertainment programs. This happened from Monday to Saturday.
It was through these radio programs that I build up part of my musical repertoire and I came to know the voice of Clara Nunes.
It was in one of these morning rituals that we woke up on April 2, 1983, a Saturday, with the dramatic news of the death of who was considered one of the most brilliant and enlightened voices in Brazilian music. The “warrior Clara”, as she was also called, did not resist the struggle she had been fighting since March 5 of that same year when she was hospitalized for an ordinary varicose vein surgery. An allergic reaction led to cardiac arrest and a state of coma. For 28 days Brazil anxiously prayed, begged God, pilgrimage to the hospital where she was hospitalized, for the artist to recover.
Her samba ‘Guerreira’ is perhaps the best way to introduce who Clara Nunes was:
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Se vocês querem saber quem eu sou Eu sou a tal mineira Filha de Angola, de Ketu e Nagô Não sou de brincadeira Canto pelos sete cantos Não temo quebrantos Porque eu sou guerreira Dentro do samba eu nasci Me criei, me converti E ninguém vai tombar a minha bandeira ... Eu sambo pela noite inteira Até amanhã de manhã Sou a mineira guerreira Filha de Ogum com Iansã |
if you want to know who I am I'm the girl from Minas Gerais Daughter of Angola, Ketu and Nagô I'm not kidding I sing around the seven corners I don't fear evil eyes because I am warrior Within the samba I was born, was raised, and converted And no one will drop my flag. ... I dance samba all night Until early morning I'm the warrior from Minas Daughter of Ogun with Iansã
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Clara Nunes was the one who best incorporated the mestizaje of Brazil into music. In her voice echoed the songs of the slaves and the liturgical expressions of Umbanda and Candomblé. Each song that found life in her voice received a bath of incarnated spirituality and became the song of a race, of a people.
It is an inglorious task to try to select the best that there was in Clara Nunes, because she was totally in each of the songs she recorded and was always a sublime whole.
Her music reflects the individual soul and at the same time the sense of community and society. Her “Canto das Três raças” is in a way a summary of the colonial oppression that continues to repeat itself in the history of Brazil.
I have never seen such a perfect embodiment of music in a voice as Clara did with Chico Buarque's ‘Morena de Angola’. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBVpMd0eMZU).
But the same could be said for more than 300 other recordings of her.
That Saturday, April 2, I woke up and saw that my mother was crying because of Clara Nunes' death. It was the first time I remember seeing my mother crying. That day Brazil cried. Her wake was attended by 50 thousand people in the court of the Escola de Samba Portela, her samba community.
Today, almost 40 years after that date, I myself still have tears in my eyes when I hear Clara's voice in “Contos de Areia” (), saying
| Adeus, meu amor Não me espera Porque eu já vou me embora Pro reino que esconde os tesouros De minha senhora |
Bye my Love don't wait for me because I'm already leaving To the kingdom that hides the treasures of my lady. |
In December of that same year it was my mother herself who left us and went to the “kingdom that hides treasures of my lady”. Listening to the radio in the mornings was not the same thing afterwards. But, it's still Clara Nunes who reminds me that “Sometimes it's good to cry” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwPP-w2o68k)
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Quero recordar aquela velha casa Quantas flores no meu jardim Quero recordar... Não importam essas lágrimas Às vezes faz bem chorar
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I want to remember that old house how many flowers in my garden I want to remember... Never mind these tears sometimes it feels good to cry |
Dr Vinicius Mariano de Carvalho is director of the King’s Brazil Institute.
