“I play guitar samba/ I like coffee as much/ I like Coca-Cola… There are always two sides to the issue”says the lyrics Tum Tuma seemingly unlikely samba composed by Rita Lee and her life and music partner Roberto de Carvalho. The song is recorded on the album Santa Rita de Sampa (1997).
The singer and songwriter from São Paulo (1947-2023), called the Queen of Rock in Brazil, is the subject of Grêmio Recreativo Escola de Samba Mocidade Independente de Padre Miguel, which bears the title Rita Lee, the patron saint of freedom.
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If samba and rock may seem at first sight (or hearing) like water and oil, the invitation to everyone from Mocidade is about keeping everything well mixed.
“Enough more, Rita. Come to the samba temple to make a lot of people happy. Get these people to sing your songs with sharp, irreverent, good-humored, fun lyrics. Joyfully carnivalesque. Your “rockcarnival”. Dance. How you dance in the tribe. Desbaratina. Launch your perfume on the avenue”, says the synopsis through which the school presented the plot to its community.
According to Mocidade, Rita Lee was a “libertarian breath” and her “enrow rock” served as “a lysergic mockery [alucinante] that refreshed and changed the music scene in the country.”
The disruptive streak of the honoree from Padre Miguel’s school leaves the group in tune with other samba schools in parades that honor those who broke barriers and changed paradigms.
rock opera
Samba is not a musical genre that is completely foreign to Rita Lee, as shown Thump thump. Before this composition, she recorded with João Gilberto Joujoux and Balangandãsby Lamartine Babo. He also composed, with Roberto de Carvalho, the samba Brazil is with Salso sung with João Gilberto.
Rita also recorded Samba do Arnesto (Adoniran Barbosa and Alocin) with Demons da Garoa and even performed the carnival march Frou Frouwith Roberto de Carvalho. Furthermore, she really liked Carmem Miranda and can be heard imitating “the little notable” in I like you so much.
Regardless of the musical genre, Rita Lee’s attributes make her a good story, says Marcelo Misailidis, responsible for the choreography of the front committee of Mocidade Independente de Padre Miguel.
“She was a person who had a challenging stance. Someone very lucid and attentive to the issues that really mattered”, he describes to Agencia Brasil. “A fascinating woman”
Experienced at the Sambódromo in Rio de Janeiro, Marcelo Misailidis has a background in classical ballet and knows that a samba school parade can pay tribute to a rocker, as Marques de Sapucaí is the avenue where different artistic expressions intersect.
“Samba school parades are a great open-air opera. They follow all the narrative characteristics like an opera ─ like a huge spectacle with huge sets and gigantic casts. With all this density, the parades involve musical, artistic and scenographic work, [composição] clothing and dance.”
Santa Rita
Renato Lage and composer Roberto de Carvalho, widower of Rita Lee. Photo: roberto_de_carvalho/Instagram
The choice of Rita Lee as the plot of Padre Miguel’s Mocidade Independente was announced on May 22nd of last year, the Day of Saint Rita of Cássia, considered a saint of impossible cases. The parade is prepared by carnival artist Renato Lage, who has already won four carnivals in the special group of samba schools in Rio, three of them with Mocidade.
In total, 13 sambas were presented to the school. In eliminatory stages and with community participation, the samba chosen (in September) was the one signed by Jeffinho Rodrigues, Diego Nicolau, Xande de Pilares, Marquinho Índio, Richard Valença, Orlando Ambrósio, Renan Diniz, Lauro Silva, Cleiton Roberto and Cabeça do Ajax. The samba lyrics recommend “whoever breaks the norm wins the rule”.
The main interpreter on the avenue will be Igor Vianna. A newcomer to school, he follows his father Ney Vianna (1942-1989), who sang for Mocidade Independente de Padre Miguel in the 1970s and 1980s, and was champion with the school in the 1985 carnival in the “Ziriguidum 2001” parade.
Mocidade is the first group to parade on the second night of presentations by the schools of the special group of the Rio de Janeiro carnival (Monday, 16/2). The association won the carnivals of 1979, 1985, 1990, 1991, 1996 and 2017.
Musician Roberto de Carvalho, widower of Rita Lee, promises to be with his family on the avenue parading in Mocidade. Visiting the school at the time of preparations last year, he wished “everything to be perfect, in accordance with the mood I feel here at Mocidade de Padre Miguel”, as the school recorded and he replicated on his Instagram profile.
Discover the plots and order of parades of the Rio de Janeiro Special Group
1st day – Sunday (15/2)
- Academics from Niterói – From Alto do Mulungu Hope Arises: Lula, the Worker of Brazil;
- Empress Leopoldinense – Chameleon-like;
- Portela – The Mystery of the Prince of Bará;
- Mangueira First Station – Master Sacacá do Encanto Tucuju – the Guardian of the Black Amazon.
2nd day – Monday (16/2)
- Independent Youth of Father Miguel – Rita Lee, the Patron Saint of Liberty;
- Hummingbird of Nilópolis – Bembé do Mercado;
- Unidos do Viradouro – Up, Ciça;
- Unidos da Tijuca – Carolina Maria de Jesus.
3rd day – Tuesday (17/2)
- Tuiuti Paradise – Lonã Ifá Lukumi;
- Unidos de Vila Isabel – Macumbembê, Samborembá: I dreamed that a Sambista dreamed of Africa;
- Grande Rio Academics – The Mangrove Nation;
- Salgueiro Academics – The delirious carnival journey of the teacher who was not afraid of witches, cod or the wooden-legged pirate.
