by Zox

Seu Jorge is touring the States to promote his freshly released CD Cru, (Portuguese for Raw) on Wrasse Records. Speaking with him by phone, I asked Seu Jorge about the translation of the Bowie songs in the film Life Aquatic, in which he plays a Brazilian sailor who sings samba versions of those songs on his acoustic guitar.

A Brazilian group whose name in English means None of Us had translated one of the songs; however, the rest of the tunes were adapted to Portuguese by Seu Jorge. Since I was speaking to him through translator Sofia Zutautas, I wondered how he was able to transpose the lyrics from English to his native Brazilian tongue. The lyrical content in his Portuguese versions is actually about the different characters in Life Aquatic, only retaining the spirit of the numbers and signature vocal hooks. "Cha cha cha Change" and "Is there life on Mars?" are both sung in English while the rest of songs are in Portuguese. Seu Jorge cites Manu Chow as his bilingual influence.

Seu Jorge was exposed to a wide variety of disparate strains of music growing up in favela in the seedy outskirts of Rio. A favela is a special kind of social condition perpetuated by the Brazilian government to insure a large source of cheap labor. Seu Jorge was one of a multitude of abandoned orphans that band together with criminals, drug addicts and prostitutes to form a community geared toward survival yet resulting in chaos. He thanks the powers that be that he landed a staring role in City of God and parleyed that into a ticket out of the favela. He began working at 10, always selected for the jobs he had. When asked whether he intends to concentrate on music or direct his attention to his film career, he explained that there seems to be a divine source guiding his life from out of the favela to movies, recording and performing. That is why things have worked up to this point, so making plans to become an Elvis-style actor/singer seems antithetical to his whole methodology.

Seu Jorge, on stage at the 9-27 Knitting Factory gig with a dead-cool swagger, good looks, talent and charisma, seems to be riding the musical wave into the future. He and his band showed virtuosity in numerous Brazilian roots styles conjuring up Macumba, Lucumi, Umbana, and Samba, Bossa Nova and Carnivale rhythms. At one point a pretty girl dressed in Brazilian yellow and green emerged from the audience to the stage and danced a wild Samba, soon joined by Seu Jorge, who was no match for the beaming spinner. However, when he spoke to the crowd in Portuguese, most of them knew exactly what he was saying.