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That's "us" in the royal sense, although "we" make no claim to royalty (much to the contrary rather). Here at Bahia-Online we -- okay, I -- seek to the best of my ability to give an outsider's inside view of Bahia (and more specifically Salvador), this particular inside/outsider having arrived from New York City in April of 1992 and having lived continuously in Bahia (that is, without having left Bahia) since May of 1992. I make no claims to be an expert on Bahia, or anything else for that matter, but I do write what I've seen with my own eyes, heard with my own ears, or have in some way experienced. If I'm not writing from first-hand knowledge then I'm generally presenting my own version of what has been imparted to me from knowledgable first-hand sources, or in the case of history going back more than one generation, gleaned from knowledgeable academic sources.
The impetus behind the website came of a desire to divulge what I believe is a beautiful (in its way) part of our planet (irrespective of myriad faults, failures, imperfections, and irritants) and its distinctive culture (that culture of which Bahia is palpably redolent, born of the struggle to in some essential sense prevail -- and not simply survive -- in the senzalas and quilombos of the region's past). From 2001 until 2005 Bahia-Online was run out of a back room in the central Salvador neighborhood of Barris (no space, but a great view out over the bay to the peninsula of Itapagipe and the islands of Maré and dos Frades beyond) . Then an epiphany: Pérola Negra (Black Pearl) -- a record store in Pelourinho -- was up for sale. Why not scrape and beg, borrow and buy the place and make it into something of a "headquarters" for Bahia-Online? With lots of great Bahian roots music... And great Brazilian music of all genres (or most anyway, no roqueiros)... Ergo Cana Brava Records! And paperwork and bills and accounting and taxes... Man, as much as I love the music, I miss the simplicity of life in that back room! Tougher rows to hoe there are, I know... I'm living in a society that has had and continues to have more than its fair share of them... Hence the point: If this particular Sparrow (which translates to "Pardal" in Portuguese, that's what I'm called here) or any of the content herein manages to get off the ground at all, that's because it's being hefted on the strong wings of innumerous unknown souls who've walked, worked, sung, suffered, danced, lived and died here in Bahia, people who in their own small but meaningful way have prevailed. P.S. Bahia-Online
/ Cana Brava's address is Rua João de Deus, 22. So who
was João de Deus (John of God)? He -- João
de Deus do Nascimento -- was a mulato and one of the leaders of Bahia's
1798 Tailor's Conspiracy (an uprising inspired by the French Revolution)...a
man whose desire for justice, equality, and the abolition of slavery
were to result in his hanging in 1799 in Salvador's Praça da
Piedade. |
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