Analysis Of Samba By Alma Guillermoprielo

Samba, written by Alma Guillermoprielo, is a fascinating account of the experiences Guillermoprielo went through during Carnival season in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. For one year, Alma Guillermoprieto lived in Manguiera, a village near Rio de Janeiro, to experience the samba lifestyle. Her exploration was to find the meaning, history, and spirituality that drives samba. In order to explore this new culture, Guillermoprieto joins a local samba school, Mangueira, to see first hand what samba is. After gaining the trust from the locals, Guillermoprieto is able to get first hand accounts of how samba started, the beliefs that drive samba, and the process behind Carnival. Perhaps one of the most popular music and dance styles ever to emerge from Brazil,

Guillermoprieto spent a year around the favelas, with that she was able to observe and hear stories that contradict what many imagine how drug lords (the malandros) interact within the community. Organized crime began in the favelas in 1889, with a lottery called the animal game. The game started with Baron Joao Batista, he used animals as symbols, similar to the game of bingo, he used the funds he received from the lottery to raise money for his zoo. After his death and the collapse of the zoo, the game lived on, “under the control of an emerging elite among the malandros” (Guillermoprieto, pg. 76). Once the government declared the animal game illegal, it was natural for these elite malandros to use this “underground” structured society as a means of prostitution rings, drug smuggling, gun dealing, and selling stolen goods. In the documentary, Favela Rising directed by Jeff Zimbalist and Matt Mochary, followed a man by the name of Anderson Sá, a former drug trafficker who establishes the movement AfroReggae. Throughout the movie Anderson talks about how disruptive and chaotic these drug lords are, stating “As long as we live in a war zone, our ideology won’t allow us to live passively, in comfort” (Anderson Sa). Anderson believed these drug lords are what ruins families, culture, and the image of the favelas. Being called malandra is not a burden, Dona Nininha explains malandra is a “good thing of course! A malandra is someone who does not let himself get stepped on” (Guillermoprieto, pg. 81). In the 1930s Manguira’s chief rival, Portela became the first school to be controlled by a malandro. The man in charge was Natal, and his passion for the samba schools and giving back to the community shows when he had “more than fifty streets paved, helped orphanages, churches, and hospitals. More than two hundred shacks built, sheltering the