The dualistic representation of forró in academic writings and the occurring diversity

Abstract

This essay deals of a incongruity between the diversity of practices occurring in forró music and its discursive representation by scholars. Popular music that Luiz Gonzaga launched in the 1940s under the nickname of baião, forró music multiplied throughout its history, to encompass a variety of sounds and meanings crossed by different discourses. From the 1990s, the emergence of forró bands in line with spectacular pop music causes reactions among the forró agents that were already historically established. In the midst of such reactions, the category "traditional forró" emerges as opposed to what is now called "electronic forró". In addition to populating the everyday life of businessmen, musicians, journalists, publics and even song lyrics,
the long-lived bipolarization of the forró, instead of being problematized by the academics of the human sciences, ended up being naturalized in their works. The current article, based on ethnomusicological research that includes bibliographical review and ethnographic fieldwork, analyzes the dichotomous representation of forró music in academic discourse, while emphasizing a musical diversity that unmasks the dichotomous view, proposing, in short, an approach Which takes into account the multiple musical practices that occur.