Seu

Brazil is not a quiet place. Like her New-World brothers Jamaica and Cuba before, Brazil today is producing some of the world's most innovative music. Rio De Janeiro's teeming favelas, are to today the kind of musical greenhouse that Kingston's shantytowns were in 1970's - generating styles and innovations that promise to shape global musical trends for years to come.

At the crest of this wave is the Afro-Rio groovie from the future, Seu Jorge, and his unlikely mix of eerie samba-folk come funk come soul. After rising from the slums to the top of the Brazilian pop scene in the late 90's as part of the band Farofa Carioca, Seu split off to pursue his own projects - in both music and acting.

Those who remember Fernando Meirelles's 2002 film "City of God" might remember him as a pacifist-turned-slum-gang leader Knockout Ned. In Wes Anderson's recent “The Life Aquatic”, Seu played a sailor with a penchant for Bowie covers - sung in Portuguese.

Seu's recent solo album Cru, co-produced by former Beastie Boys collaborator Mario Caldato, has won respect and awe around the world. Seu is coming to Nagoya for his most interesting show in Japan, where a native audience drawn by his recent stardom will have the unusual chance to kick it with our area's uniquely rich Brazilian community, who, lord knows, will dance better than any of us native Japanese or English speakers...