(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHICA CHICA BOOM CHIC")
CARMEN MIRANDA: (Singing) Boom, chica boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom. You don't make sense.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The United States has had a long love affair with Brazilian music from Carmen Miranda in the 1940s...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHICA CHICA BOOM CHIC")
MIRANDA: (Singing) A'chic, a'chic, a'chica boom.
MARTÍNEZ: ...To Billie Eilish today as she explores classic bossa nova.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BILLIE BOSSA NOVA")
BILLIE EILISH: (Singing) You really make a strong impression.
MARTÍNEZ: The singer-songwriter Roge was already a star in Brazil when he moved to Los Angeles in 2018 after the far-right President Jair Bolsonaro was elected. Last year, Roge released the album "Curyman," hailed as a modern Brazilian classic. Today, he releases "Curyman II," and critic Will Hermes considers the album one of this year's best.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROGE SONG, "100% SAMBA")
WILL HERMES, BYLINE: He was born Roger Jose Cury in Rio de Janeiro. Curyman is his nickname, and his new album is Chapter 2 in a trilogy about Roge himself and his country's history. The first single, titled "Samba 100%," is about how the signature Brazilian music style emigrated there from Angola and then kept traveling to become a soundtrack for the world.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "100% SAMBA")
ROGE: (Singing in Portuguese).
HERMES: "Curyman II" is a very Brazilian record, sung in Portuguese, full of high-pitched cavaquinho guitars and squealing cuica drums. But the album is also a dialogue between cultures. Like the first "Curyman" album, Roge collaborated with producer Arthur Verocai, whose 1972 debut is a Brazilian music touchstone elaborately orchestrated and full of American flavors. "Curyman II" is full of those flavors, too, like "Old Diamond West," which sounds like it could've been borrowed from the soundtrack of an old cowboy film.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROGE'S "OLD DIAMOND WEST")
HERMES: Roge made "Curyman II" with an international group of musicians who understand old-school Brazilian funk and soul just as well as they do the American brand. And Roge also connects the dots between the shared legacies of both countries, slavery, immigration and the postcolonial struggle for independence that gave birth to so much of our music and our cultures. And that story is an ongoing one that Roge makes very groovy.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "A RA")
ROGE: (Singing in Portuguese).
MARTÍNEZ: The album is "Curyman II." It's by Roge. Our critic Will Hermes writes the Substack newsletter New Music + Old Music, and he's the author of the biography "Lou Reed: The King Of New York."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "A RA")
ROGE: (Singing in Portuguese). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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