Grupo Cogumelo – Um Grito De Esperança / Robô Dançante

Another example of Brazilian Electro 80's. Little is known about the origin of this record, but, due to the musical aesthetics and the musical cycle it fits, it is very likely that it was done in 1984, at a time when the media popularized the expression "Break Dance" - a term that brings together different urban dances like (NYC) B-Boyng/B-Girling and (West Coast Funk dances) Popping and Locking.

This record appeared in the wake of the success of "Breakdance" in the world, at a time when there were many films and documentaries related to Hip-Hop Culture and Urban Dances scene - "Wild Style", "Flash Dance", "Beat Street", "Breakin'" and "Breaking & Entering" are some examples. In contrast, movies that portrayed the daily life of American ghettos in the 1980s - such as Mario Ven Peebles' movies like "Exterminator 2", "South Bronx Heroes" and "Delivery Boys" - began to include aspects of Hip-Hop Culture in their scenes and sequences and had the "Break" as their showcase.

It is worth remembering that this phenomenon occurs when the video clip becomes a great visibility mechanism for artists to publicize their works. Therefore, these films were being broadcast around the world at the same time that music videos such as "Buffalo Gals", by Malcolm Mclaren and "All Night Long", by Lionel Ritchie also crossed the border between countries presenting the novelties of Hip-Hop Culture. That, until the beginning of the 1980s, only known in the geographical space of the Bronx: Breaking, Scratch, Graffiti and Rapping. In parallel, this record appeared following the path traced by records such as Villa Box, Black Juniors, Truke, Electric Boogies, Sasha and Buffalo Girls: creating in Brazil a music market for the "Breakdance" scene.

A small parenthesis: I have been involved in this research for much of my life. You can see that and I made these releases on the discogs and left reviews here a few years ago. The nickname "rodrigobreak" emerged on the Napster, later touring Soulseek, Sound Scapee, Electro Empire, Electro Knights Crew and old sites that shared Electro music when the internet was still in its infancy. However, in recent years, some brazilian dee jays have emerged who believe themselves "Connoisseurs of Synthesized Brazilian Hits "and they are saying that they discovered these records, which are pioneers in the search for "Brazilian Electro". However, until mid-2013, very few people in Brazil were interested in these records - and these records remained neglected in Brazilian record stores for many years.. In fact, I find it very presumptuous who claims to have discovered a record, after all, before this person (or this person's friends) discovered such a record, other people from other generations, and adept at other musical styles, already knew that record, right? :)

The Villa Box record, for example, I met through a former record collector in São Paulo, who happened to be a DJ and B-Boy .He had a spectacular collection of records around 2000/2001, which ranged from Old School Rap, Boogie / Electro Funk 80's, Breaks 70's (from Soul / Funk) and also Brazilian Grooves - at a time when there was little information on the internet and people really had to pan and get their hands dirty if they really wanted to know records. He threw a party and played that Villa Box record with an accelerated pitch - so I identified an Electro correspondent in Brazil.

At that time, one of the few options for listening to an Electro set in Brazil was to attend parties that promoted battles between Breaking crews. There was a certain atmosphere of rescue and nostalgia for the Hip-Hop spirit of the 1980s at the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the new millennium. In a way, people were shocked by the deaths of famous gangster rappers like 2 Pac and Notorious BIG and, above all, of the recurring fights between West Coast and East Coast people. Gradually, compilations of "Old School Hip-Hop" began to appear in the phonographic market with the premise of showing the positive legacy of the Block Parties, Electro 80's and Golden Era stages through a musical education.

Following this perspective, a memorable event emerged in São Paulo in 1999 that brought together pioneers of Hip-Hop Culture such as Afrika Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force and Grand Master Flash. The following year, this event continued to be a meeting point for dancers from the five regions of Brazil and, in that event, I saw the show by Kabala - who was an artist from Brasilia, capital of Brazil, who had released a rare CD at that time that made a rescue of the Electro 80's sound. The following year, the same event promoted a Black Juniors show, which, at that time, only had a remaining member of the first formation, Mc Frank Bruno.

A little later, around 2003/2004, I got the records for Truke, Electro Boogies and Buffalo Girls. Incidentally, one of the members of the Buffalo Girls group worked in a clothing store in a shopping mall in São Paulo and the store manager frequented the same record store that I liked to go to at the time. Interestingly, he was surprised to see the Buffalo Girls record for sale at the record store we met and made the following comment: he said that his store employee - one of the Buffalo Girls' members - was always saying he had a dance group in the 1980s and that he had released a record in 1984. He didn't believe her story, but he nevertheless believed it only when he saw the record on the record store wall.

About Sasha's record, this one I met at another record store in São Paulo, which happened to close 15 years ago. The record store owner had 7 copies of this record - he gave a copy of that record as a gift to shoppers who visited his store more often. I got a copy, but I confess that I thought for a while that it was an other american version of "World Famous" (by Malcolm Mclaren &World Famous Supreme Team). Only after I realized that it was a Brazilian version sung in english. Anyway, at that time there was no discogs to track this type of information. :)

About the Grupo Cogumelo record, I met this one more recently, around 2012/2013. For some years, it was a really obscure record and unknown to many people. I believe that this record was made in São Paulo, because, in one of the verses of the song, an old school (São Paulo) b-boy, known on the streets in the 1980s as "João Break" is mentioned. Although a person from another country can look at this scene of Brazilian Electro from the perspective of someone who is seeing an exotic scene full of unknown gems, there is not a variety of records and sound possibilities that permeate this musical scene. Basically, these few Electro records that were made in Brazil in 1984 have similar aesthetics. They sound like the material from Celluloid Records in New York, reminiscent of some Grandmixer DST productions. They have the typical "Breakdance Electro Beats" made using an drum machine DX-Oberheim. Nobody used the (Roland-TR) 808 drum machine in Brazil at that time and, therefore, these records sound somewhat similar to some records made in New York in the 1983-1984 biennium.