358. Jorge Ben - Africa/Brasil (1976)













Track Listing

1. Ponta de Lança Africano (Umbabarauma)
2. Hermes Trimegisto Escreveu
3. O Filósofo
4. Meus Filhos, Meu Tesouro
5. O Plebeu
6. Taj Mahal
7. Xica da Silva
8. História de Jorge
9. Camisa 10 da Gávea
10. Cavaleiro Do Cavalo Imaculado
11. África Brasil (Zumbi)

Review

Finally the spate of awful albums is over. Praise the lord! Or as they would say in Brasil, Saravá! Speaking of Brasil here is a pretty good what would one call it... "samba-funk-rock" album. Only from Brasil could you have some Samba-Funk-Rock dealing with Hermetic Philosophy, spewing some pretty uninformed statements about the Emerald Tablet and Hermes Trismegistus. It's a great track and it probably won't annoy any of you because it's not a subject that you study for your PhD and you probably never had big confrontations with Brasilian "mystics" on Portuguese language online forums. Lucky you.

That said this is a really fun album, and the lyrics are worth learning Portuguese for, you'll laugh at some of them but other are actually quite good. Ben has a particular talent to stick sentences where only a couple of words would fit, and a particular case of this is Xica da Silva.

You can always count on Brasil to give you a fresh take on whatever music trend is going on and this is no exception. So if you are ever looking for something new in the world of funk you could do no better than this. Do get it.

Track Highlights

1. África Brasil (Zumbi)
2. Meus Filhos, Meu Tesouro
3. Xica Da Silva
4. História De Jorge

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Jorge Ben filed a plagiarism lawsuit against British rock singer Rod Stewart for his use of the melody of "Taj Mahal" in the hit song "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" As a result of the lawsuit, Stewart agreed to donate all his royalties from the song to UNICEF.

Taj Mahal... it sounds better on the album: