by Christina Sponias

Created on: May 24, 2009   Last Updated: May 26, 2009

When we study the music of Capoeira we look for the stories sung by the old masters, who used them as a way to express their deeper feelings. Their songs surpass the limits of reality, but can be understood, because they talk about the black slaves' daily lives.

Music must follow Capoeira's steps closely because it is an emotional expression, which works as a stimulus that gives energy to the dancers, who are pretending to dance while they are in fact fighting with each other in a camouflaged form.

Capoeira is in fact a game, but its original players were black slaves that had to hide their training through this dance and fight at the same time, because they were not allowed to learn how to defend themselves.

In the Capoeira game the Niger heroes are free like kings, surpassing the limits of slavery. Dancing and singing, they fight and triumph!

The most captivating songs, sung by the enchanting voices of the black people, which surpass in beauty, perfection and sonority the voices of the white singers of the world, come from the poor slaves of the XVI century.

They mixed the Indian, the African and the Portuguese language, giving them a new shape, and all their songs were made by beautiful phonetic poems without specific meaning. They gave to the Brazilian music a rhythm totally different from the European standards, discovering melodies that would bring joy and happiness to humanity forever.

In their songs they talk about the simple moments of daily life, using many onomatopoeic words that imitated the sounds of nature, the cry of a baby, the sound of their steps on dry leaves, and similar objects and thoughts.

Besides talking about historical facts and religious identities, as well as about the suffering of the black people, which would bring energy to the oppressed players that were fighting for justice, the themes of their songs were very simple, and only talked about irrelevant aspects of reality, which they transformed into very significant elements of life with their intuitive poetry and musical talent.

Even though they could not clearly talk about their fight in their songs, the black slaves had an intelligent code (that had to be very well hidden, because the cruel Portuguese had no compassion) which they used in order to inform their companions that the enemy was near. When they were singing with a lot of screeching in their voices, this was an alarm for their fellow slaves.

Everything was forbidden and dangerous for them

Today the Capoeira

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