Chico Science + 20: Coexistencialismo versus Canibalismo no Manguebeat

This article examines the repercussions of Recife’s “Manguebeat” musical and cultural scene regionally, nationally, and internationally twenty years after the movement’s explosive takeoff. It also compares and contrasts mangue with the poetry of the first generation of Brazilian modernismo, especially in regard to Oswald de Andrade’s notion of anthropophagy and Mario de Andrade’s concept of simultaneity. The manifestos of each movement express similar concerns, such as destabilizing the hierarchies of center and periphery, primitivism, and the subversion of official histories, among others. More than modernism, however, mangue goes beyond basic binaries that oppose the national to the global (or north against south) to offer a more collectivist and universal worldview even more critical of social exclusion, violence, and unsustainable development within Brazil and without.