The Index on Censorship interviews Brazilian pop musician Chico Buarque on the censorship his music has faced over the years. The interviewer asks Buarque about his experience facing censorship beginning with the repressive Brazilian dictatorship of the 60’s and 70’s. They discuss how this affected both the music scene theatre scenes. The Index on Censorship is a magazine based in London that advocates for freedom of expression.
Chico Buarque is a Brazilian musician and playwright who saw much success in the 60’s and 70’s thanks to the rise of the genre of music known as MPB, or Música popular brasileira. In the interview, he talks about how his and others music faced censorship and harassment by the repressive Brazilian regime and how that censorship had died down due to the democratization of the country. This source gives incredibly valuable context to censorship of Brazilian pop music in the 1970’s, from one of the artists most famous for defying that censorship.
“Q. What happened to Brazilian music when censorship was introduced in 1968?
CB. The only outlet for the song-writer now was technical improvement. Like most of my contemporaries, I began to study music. When an artist feels that his attempts at direct contact with the public are being frustrated, he turns to technical improvement in self-defence. It’s a kind of private escape; a consequence, not a cause.
An exaggerated formalism came into music and theatre, without any commitment to the public. We were dejected and disillusioned by the failure of the CPC and other experiments, and we were denied free communication with our audiences. Fortunately, the advent of television gave a boost to music, especially by sponsoring music festivals, like the one organised by TV Record in Sao Paulo.” (Buarque, 48)
Buarque, Chico. “Confrontation with music” In Index on Censorship, 47-49, London: Index on Censorship, 1979, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03064227908532946.