On December 31, 2009, revelers in São Luis, the reggae capital of Brazil (highlighted in our current issue) were treated to the steamy beats of hometown heroes Tribo de Jah under a full moon. Flanked by towering radiola speakers on three sides, the band has been playing New Year’s Eve in São Luis on and off for nearly 25 years. Indeed, Tribo de Jah’s unlikely success captures the ‘power to the people’ spirit of roots reggae at its core. 

Formed in 1985 after the fall of the military dictatorship, five of the six members met while working at the School for the Blind, where they were also busy crafting their own instruments and playing in local clubs. (Four members are completely blind and one has only partial vision.) The quintet began their career covering the highly danceable lambada tunes that were popular at the time. Concurrently, Fauzi Beydoun was making waves as the first DJ to host a reggae program on the air. While the sound was initially frowned upon as “ghetto culture,” the social, political and spiritual messages of the music took root. Beydoun soon joined forces with the band and lent vocals to their sound. Together they began crafting a Brazilian take on Jamaican rhythms. In 1995, this small band from the country’s poorest state found themselves performing at the most important venue of their genre, the Reggae Sunsplash Festival in Jamaica.

Today the band is still bringing reggae’s message of peace, love, and jah (God) to the masses. In 2008, they released two new CDs: the English language Love to the World, Peace to the People  and The Babylon Inside, largely in Portuguese for their Brazilian fans. They have plans for a third companion CD featuring dub versions of the songs.

Watch Tribo de Jah perform the song Garota Dreadlock (dreadlocked girl) from their 2008 album Rafazendo.

For more on the São Luis scene, check out “The Reggae Capital of Brazil” on page 20 of Afar’s December 2009/January 2010 issue.

Sergio Dias Baptista fronts the steaming Os Mutantes

That’s great news for fans of all kinds of music–bossa nova, samba, acid rock, freak-folk, prog–although in the fractured Os Mutantes approach, those styles and more get chopped up and reassembled in a frenzied collage.

For the new CD, Haih or Amortecedor, co-founder and long-time leader Sergio Luis Baptista assembled a new lineup and brought in Tropicalia “golden age” peers Tom Ze and Jorge Ben as songwriting collaborators. The result is a mash up of electric and acoustic guitars, psychedelic keyboards and effects, boisterous horns and reeds, sawing strings, rock drums and Latin percussion, found sounds, and alternately sensitive, hysterical, and comic vocals. A movie pitch would read: hilarity ensues.

Os Mutantes was once a best-kept-secret among alt-rock and acid-folk musicians (Kurt Cobain, Flaming Lips, Devendra Banhart, Beck) and savvy scavengers of world music: David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label issued a crucial compilation, Everything Is Possible! The Best of Os Mutantes, in 1999.

Now these musical mutants are poised for a broader international breakthrough. The band launched a U.S. tour on August 28, and Haih or Amortecedor, issued by the high-profile indie label ANTI-, arrives in stores September 1.

Download an MP3 of “Anagrama,” from Haih or Amortecedor, from Stereogum.

Watch Os Mutantes perform “Virginia” in London from 2006: