The prophetic image of a new musical direction in Brazil hit the public at the beginning of the 1990s. Using a parabolic antenna stuck into the mud as a symbol of the Mangue Beat movement, the North-Eastern bands Chico Science, Nação Zumbi and Mundo Livre S/A pointed the way beyond a dilemma which had marked Brazilian culture for most of that century: in order to maintain a musical dialogue with other countries was it necessary for a Brazilian to abandon his musical roots? By mixing regional rhythms such as maracatu, the ciranda and the embolada and imported styles such as hip-hop, funk and hardcore - and by plugging the traditional cavaquinho (banjo) into an amplifier - the "mangue boys" did not leave any room for doubt about their answer.

The need to link roots and antennas together is clear to many Brazilian musicians working now - but it was not always so obvious. At the end of the 1950s, the Bossa Nova of João Gilberto and Tom Jobim, Brazil's musical visiting card in the world scene, was accused of distorting traditional samba by allowing in the influence of American jazz. A decade later, the Tropicália movement of Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Tom Zé tried to overcome this musical polarization, intervening critically in the culture of the country. Musically, they were in tune with the international pop music of the time - but they did not abandon Brazilian rhythms and other regional influences. That is to say, their antennas picked up the sounds of the world but they did not abandon the most characteristic roots of Brazilian culture.

The irreverent Raul Seixa, an icon in Brazilian rock, jeered at the innovative ideas of the tropicalists by declaring ironically in 1976 "This business of ´looking for roots` is stupid. The only roots that I know are carrots and mandioc". The views of most Brazilian bands and musicians in the 1980s were not much different. The Brazilian rock and pop that dominated the music scene at the time was, with rare exceptions, only heard in Brazil. When it comes down to it, why should badly disguised copies of 80s British rock with Portuguese lyrics interest the public in other countries?

A new aesthetic vision grew during the 1990s, recognisable in various musical styles of the period. Within the so-called "MPB" ( a mainstream tendency in popular Brazilian music), for example, a generation of composers and musicians ( not necessarily stars) such as Lenine, Chico César, Zeca Baleiro or the bands Pedro Luis and Parede, developed - two decades later - what the tropicalists had begun. These artists saw that the best way to be heard round the world was to value the best of what you had locally. Following this principle, everything is valid. You can mix rhythms from the North-East with drum n` bass and other electronic music styles, inject hip-hop and rap into the traditional Brazilian percussive beat.

If, in the decades before, the idea of preserving the roots of Brazilian music was ignored or rubbished in the name of ´modernity`, the 1990s saw this point of view being questioned. A clear example of work which values the roots of Brazilian music and culture, without falling into academic folkloric research, is the São Paulo group A Barca, that has travelled the country since 1998 to rescue rhythms and recreate dance styles from traditional celebrations, such as the jongo, the carimbó, the coco, and the samba de roda - amongst others. Other musicians who are doing similar work are the Casa de Farinha group from Brasilia and the singer / composer from Minas Gerais, Consuelo de Castro.

Over the last few years, this desire to find and play music that is not played on radios and TVs and which is not part of the mainstream musical industry has stimulated the collection and organisation of Brazilian roots music, allowing audiences in the big urban centres to get to know and appreciate it. The most ambitious such project is " The Music of Brazil" (2000), developed and carried out by the anthropologist Hermano Vianna, who criss-crossed the country for a year researching and recording material that resulted in a series of TV specials and a box of four CDs ( Abril Music) that captured the sounds and images of more than a hundred groups and bands of many musical styles from c. eighty cities and towns all over Brazil. Hermano managed to record the coco of Alagoas, the cururu of Mato Grosso, the sambada of Pernambuco and the batuque of Amapá, amongst a host of sounds and rhythms unknown to the rest of the country.

´Music of Brazil` was organized by theme, but the musician Benjamin Taubkin applied a geographical focus to his project "A Musical Map of Brazil" , which he produced for the cultural institute Itau Cultural in 2001. Seventy-eight musicians and groups were selected from around one thousand seven hundred who submitted from work from ten Brazilian regions. The box of ten CDs, with two or three tracks for each group, has helped promote the work of some of the most innovative artists in the Brazilian musical scene, such as the ´body percussion` group Barbatuques from São Paulo, the black music group Berimbrown from Minas Gerais, Pio Lobato, the guitarist from Pará, the group Lacertae from Sergipe, and Suely Mesquita, the composer from Rio - amongst many others.

Another project worth mentioning is "Bahia - Singular and Plural", coordinated by the ethnomusicologist Fred Dantas. The first results of the project can be found in a collection of six CDs with ninety-two folk music tracks from Bahia State. There are more collections to follow. This work will make more readily available some of the rich traditional music of Bahia, such as work songs, sambas de roda, reisados, folias, washing songs, and other precious examples of truly popular music from the state. Initiatives like this will produce valuable archive material, in both written research and recordings, which can be accessed by musicians everywhere in their work.

While less extensive, the "Organic - Synthetic" project is also an important review of Brazilian roots music. In a double - CD compilation produced for Muquifo Records, the São Paulo producer Dudu Marote has put together tracks from twenty four of the most creative and innovative electronic musicians working in Brazil at the moment, covering styles from hip hop to the most contemporary of MPB. It includes musicians such as the rapper Nega Gizza, the composer Jupiter Apple, DJ Dolores from Recife, Anvil X from Belo Horizonte and Flu from Porto Alegre, as well as veteran musicians from this area. Electronic music has developed rapidly, with an impressive variety. For some time, it has moved beyond the initial phase of ´trendiness` in São Paulo and Rio nightclubs to cover the whole country. Evidence of this is the growth of DJ associations and cooperatives in many regions, such as Pragatecno, which calls itself an ´e-music nucleus in the North -East` and brings together DJs from various cities, or Zootek, a pioneer cooperative of electronic bands, based in Curitiba.

Though it is not really a systematic collection of roots music, the series " Brazilian Music of this century through its creators and interpreters" provides a rich panorama of our popular music in the 20th Century. Produced by Pelão for SESC São Paulo, it brings together the recordings and interviews originally collected by Fernando Faro for his series of TV programmes. So far, the project has produced seventy-five CDs and six books, covering composers, singers and instrumentalists from various urban musical styles, from ´roots samba` to MPB. It also has some regional music.

There are many other examples of such work going on at the moment, covering everything from black music to pop to instrumental music. They all confirm the same view: that the Brazilian musicians who is aware of international musical tendencies knows that roots and antennas are both equally valuable sources of inspiration.

Carlos Calado is a journalist and music critic. He is the author of the books " Tropicália - the History of a Musical Revolution" and "The Divine Comedy of the Mutants", amongst others.