So much of the most famous Brazilian music is about either love, Brazil, or a love of Brazil. This isn't meant to be reductive—Brazilians have a deep sense of pride in their homeland, and they’ve found myriad poetic ways to express it in song. “100% Samba,” the lead single off of Rogê’s Curyman II LP, could easily be construed simply as one such celebration: An ecstatic cuica buzzes alongside Rogê’s acoustic guitar and gigantic bass from BADBADNOTGOOD’s Chester Hansen as Rogê proclaims how samba thrives on the vigor of the Brazilian people who developed and maintained its essence. But the track isn’t just a straightforward declaration of pride; he also acknowledges samba’s roots in Africa and how enslaved people in Brazil then forged its sound. The vibrant, expressive songs on Curyman II return often to this theme: how Brazil's unique cultural identity is a product of its diverse ethnic populations.
Rogê (née Roger José Cury) got his start in Rio’s spirited Lapa neighborhood, where he was a fixture at samba-centric nightclubs. Here, he met collaborators like The Life Aquatic star Seu Jorge, with whom he released an exceptional EP in 2020, and sambeiro Arlindo Cruz, with whom he would go on to garner a Latin Grammy nomination. He released six other solo albums of music that mixes samba with Música Popular Brasileira (MPB; Brazilian pop music) while living in Rio, earning him the status of a local legend. But like Carioca luminaries Sérgio Mendes and Antônio Carlos Jobim before him, Rogê saw life in Los Angeles as an opportunity to get his samba heard by more than just Brazilians, and moved there in 2019, partly at the behest of Jorge. When Menahan Street Band’s Thomas Brenneck launched his Diamond West label, he made Rogê's 2023 album, Curyman, its inaugural release, and served as its producer. While the albums’ titles are a play on Rogê’s last name, they’re also a reference to “O Vento” (“The Wind”) by bossa nova founding father Dorival Caymmi, which tells of the wind that propels boats that bring fisherman a lucrative catch of the curimã fish. Rogê ends Curyman covering this song, and begins Curyman II interpolating it. The song’s central metaphor—about the winds of change that can guide or challenge us—powers Rogê’s latest collection as he deepens his focus on sharing authentically Brazilian music with the world, while also tackling Brazil’s history and colonial past.
“A Revolta Dos Malês” provides a retelling of the biggest slave revolt in Brazil’s history. Backed by tribal percussion and a sage flute, Rogê is joined by a chorus of female singers and husky-voiced drummer Stephane San Juan who onomatopoeically drive home the triumph of the slaves who rebelled against the imposition of Catholicism in 1835. Rogê’s music bears the influence of these Afro-Brazilian communities; and, more broadly, it’s because of their fight that the faith, culture, and music of Candomblé and Islam are still prominent in Brazil today. “Rio De Janeiro e Janeiro” (with horns from Menahan Street Band’s Leon Michels and Dave Guy) lists the indigenous names of many Rio locales that sound downright gorgeous when pronounced: “Glória, Urca, Paquetá/Vista Alegre, Humaitá/Ipanema, Arpoador/Ramos, Jacarepaguá”—a testament to the beauty of Brazilian Portuguese.
There are also moments of sheer ginga, or the free-flowing Brazilian spirit, on Curyman II. The keyboard-driven “O Topo Do Coqueiro” feels like the cobblestoned sidewalks of Lapa and the sun-soaked boardwalk of Ipanema, while “A Força” toasts the power of love (what else?) and salutes the central deities of Candomblé. The string arrangements throughout Curyman II were composed and orchestrated by one of the last living scions of bossa nova and Brazilian jazz, Arthur Verocai. It’s not their first collaboration together; Verocai also wrote the string arrangements for the first Curyman album. And last year, on the first-ever U.S. tour of Verocai's 1972 self-titled crate-digger classic, Rogê was beside the composer, playing acoustic guitar and singing alongside a 30-piece orchestra. It’s heartening to see such a significant artist playing a pivotal role in Rogê’s reach towards new audiences, and it marks another important aspect of the legacy of which Rogê is a part—a resilient and diverse heritage that he carried with him from the corner clubs in Rio, and one that lights up all corners of his work as a solo artist today.
