Sérgio Mendes is the biggest globalizer of Brazilian music: In the 1960, with support from his mentor, the legendary Antonio Carlos Jobim, Sérgio Mendes started to translate Burt Bacharach and the Beatles into Samba and Bossa Nova. Global success followed, establishing Sérgio Mendes as the easy to access symbol of the laid back Copacabana sound.
Mendes recently resurfaced with another Will.I.Am produced album with revisited classics and new songs. In the current May/June issue of German music magazine “Spex” Sérgio Mendes gets asked to give comments on a couple of tracks played to him blindfold. After commenting on songs like “Fool On The Hill” by The Beatles, “Estrela Da Terra” by Dori Caymmi and Nouvelle Vague´s “A Forest”, MC Gringo´s “Perninha Depilada” is played. Here´s his comments:
SM: “This is baile funk, right? Funk is very popular in Brazil these days. The kids dance to this music all night long and freak out to this beat. I dont understand though what the guy is singing. Is he a foreigner?”
Spex: It might be his Swabian-German accent. MC Gringo is a German from Stuttgart who performs on bailes in Rio and he raps in Portugese. In this track he´s talking about a recent summer trend on the beaches of Rio – it´s about women that dont shave their leg hair but color them with peroxide.
SM: “Pardon me? I think I heard of this MC Gringo. The lyrics are nonsense of course, we dont have to talk about this. In many of the baile funk tracks people talk crap. Wordplays, jokes. I wouldnt consider it lyrical.”
Spex: You dont like baile funk?
SM: “The rhythm is great. It´s in my blood, it´s a lot of fun, because it comes from Samba. I think baile funk is much more interesting than techno, trance and all those new electronic music styles with their simple machine rhythms. On my new album I also use a beat that is inspired by baile funk, it´s on “Look Of Love”. Fergie from BEP is singing on this song. It´s the same beat, it´s the pulse of baile funk, the only difference is that it´s played life from my band, it´s not sampled”
Spex: Would you consider to work on one of your upcoming albums with a German artists such as MC Gringo?
SM: “I already do: On my new album there´s a cameo by the German trumpet player Till Brönner. His solo is magnificent!”
Spex: No, we actually mean if could you think of using German lyrics on one of your albums? You work with Italian and Spanish on your new release, you also work with a Japanese singer.
SM: “A song in German? Why not. As long as it feels right. To only sing in Portugese and English is getting a bit boring. For my next album I would like to work with Chinese for the first time. I never went to China and there´s so many interesting instruments! I also would like to work with Russians. But most of all I would like to perfom in Russia. Imagine that: I never played in Russia in my whole life!”
