On the 19th July 1987, one of the most striking black voices in Brazil was went silent. Clementina de Jesus, the “Rainha Quelé”, died of a stroke.
The genealogy of twentieth-century Brazilian music had its matriarchal figure in Clementina, because in her voice echoed the singing of all the black Brazilians who suffered slavery; the synthesis of Afro-Brazilian identity; the genesis of Rio's urban samba; the transition from rural to urban and how traditional roots were projected onto a modern Brazil.
Clementina de Jesus da Silva was born in 1901 in the small town of Valença, in the coffee valley of Rio de Janeiro. A region marked by coffee farms, the Brazilian black gold, produced from the black blood of so many Africans and Afro-descendants in slavery.
Daughter of a capoeira and guitar playing father and a mother who taught her songs in her ancestral African language, Clementina grew up with music and music grew up with Clementina.
Whilst still a child, her family moved to Rio de Janeiro and Clementina lived the typical life of the city's poor peripheries, the birthplace of samba. She worked for years as a maid and in 1963 her striking voice is 'discovered' by the composer Herminio Bello de Carvalho who invited her to sing in a historic concert, the "Rosa de Ouro". From that moment on, Clementina's voice, with a strong and unique timbre, radiated throughout Brazil.
Singing jongos, slave work songs, religious songs, Clementina became a famous singer, but she was consecrated with the ‘Partido Alto’, one of the sub-genres of samba in Brazil. ‘Partido Alto’ is a very popular and communitarian form of samba. Its structure is simple, and it consists of a chorus, usually formed by one or two lines, sung collectively after each stanza. These stanzas are practically narratives or anecdotes of everyday life. A ‘partideiro’ or ‘partideira’ is a person who composes the verse of the stanza and their poetic qualities are tested in improvisation.
It was this genre that consecrated Clementina as its Queen.
In 1970, the composer Elton Medeiros payed homage to her with the ‘partido’ Clementina cadê você? (Clementina where are you?). The samba says:
She was a fishman at the party
of the Famous Cartolinha
She was a star in the ‘caxambus’
And today here she is a queen.
Clementina de Jesus
It is indeed ‘partideira’
Takes improvised verse
In a first class partido.
Candeia, another master in the history of samba, also payed his tribute to the queen with the samba P.C.J. Partido Clementina de Jesus, eternalized in the voice of Clara Nunes.
And Clementina indeed carried the aura of a queen. Her matriarchal presence and the ancestry of her voice gave her nobility and royalty. Clementina's voice rescued the dignity brutally taken from all black people through slavery and racism. All of the black voices silenced and violated in the history of Brazil are recorded in the voice of Clementina. That is why her timbre is so particular and unique. Her voice was strong and sensitive, hopeful and suffering, joyful and bitter. With violence and racism against Afro-descendants still present in Brazil in 2020, we miss the Queen's voice: “Clementina, cadê você?”
