Saturday, December 13, 2014

Getting Religion: Metá Metá with "Logun"



I'm pretty open to religious practices, and today's random selection of a song taught me about a religion that I didn't know about. Candomblé is a religion based in West African tradition and brought to Brazil by slaves. It is native to the Bahia region. It is often celebrated concurrently with Christianity, and in fact it was necessary for adherents to do so because those who practiced it were subject to persecution until the 1970s. The religion has no writings and is therefore passed through oral tradition. Adherents believe in a Supreme Being who is served by lesser gods called orishas or orixás, who also serve as individual tutelary gods to humans. Music and dance are valued quite highly in Candomblé as they are ways in which individuals can become possessed by the orishas.

Metá Metá is a Brazilian band from São Paulo with musical roots in the Candomblé religion. This song is called Logun and it's from album Metá Metá's album Metal Metal (released 2014). The album starts with a religious chant, then switches into songs dedicated to the orixás, or gods. Throughout the album are echoes of freeform jazz and punk rock, with cool vocals and passages of jazz saxophone and percussion. In other words, a holy melange that will once again make you marvel at the wonders of Brazilian music.

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