Consider This from NPR - Rodrigo Amarante Throws a Musical Tantrum in Latest Album, 'Drama'

Episode Date: July 23, 2021

Starting over can be scary. But not for Rodrigo Amarante. After an established musical career in Brazil, he made the jump to the U.S., where his relative anonymity was a source of creative energy — and an opportunity to reinvent himself. Amarante's second solo album, Drama, is about rejecting traditional forms of masculinity and embracing imperfections — then releasing them as a beautiful symphony of chaos and, well, drama. Hear Rodrigo Amarante's live performance of the song "Tara" from his new album.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Wait, so first of all, how many stone steps did I just climb up to get to you right now? A hundred and eight. Are you serious? What a way. I got my workout in already then. We're on the balcony of musician Rodrigo Amarante at his hillside home in the northeastern part of Los Angeles. Wait, wait, wait. So what happens when you forget something in your house and you have to go back up?

I work on my Brazilian butt. Amirante, who's originally from Brazil, has had an eclectic musical career that began in his home country with a rock band called Los Hermanos. To a big 20-plus piece samba band called Orquestra Imperial. And then he made the jump to the U.S. He was the frontman for the indie band Little Joy for a few years. But what he's probably best known for here in the States is the theme song for the Netflix show Narcos.

Amirante is candid about how hard it is to start over, to move to a new country where you're the new guy on the scene. I was, you know, somewhat known in Brazil for my music. So when I'm here, no one knew who I was, you know. What did that feel like? Still, a lot of people don't know who I am. What does that feel like as someone who feels known in Brazil? It felt wonderful because it was... You liked being anonymous.

Yeah, but not only for the sake of, like, not being recognized or something like that, in terms of the challenge of writing, you know. Consider this. For some artists, anonymity can be a creative force. For Rodrigo Amirante, being on a stage in front of unfamiliar faces offered an opportunity to recast himself. All of a sudden, I have to conquer a room of strangers with my music, right? And that's treasure. That's punk. It's Consider This from NPR.

I'm Elsa Chang. It's Friday, July 23rd. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com.

T's and C's apply. Investigations into police use of force and misconduct were secret in California until now. We've sifted through hours of interrogation tape to find out who does the system of police accountability really serve and who does it protect? Listen now to every episode of the new podcast on our watch from NPR and KQED. It's Consider This from NPR. Rodrigo Amarante finished his latest album, Drama, right here in his charming home tucked among the trees in East Los Angeles. Birds regularly visit his deck to bathe in the little baths that Amarante hung around the perimeter.

You know, the morning doves, they know me already. They know that I'm not a threat, so they don't fly away if I come and put more water. But he's not committed to this home or even to Los Angeles being his forever home. I'm eager to set roots somewhere, but I'm not sure if it's here. And I'll probably be talking about it from here for another decade. How long have you lived in L.A.? I think 13 years now, something like that.

13 years. And in this house for nine. I read that you felt LA allowed you to quote unquote start over. What did you mean by that? What were you starting over from? So starting over in the sense that I'm not coming from a place, I'm not playing for my fans. All of a sudden I have to conquer a room of strangers with my music, right? And that's treasure, that's punk. That wasn't daunting? No, that's, I mean, that's what I wanted.

It puts the music to test. And I'm starting to write in this language that I'm learning as I go, you know? The whole challenge is perfect, you know? Performance is danger. So then when you first moved here, I'm just curious, if someone were to ask you, what does L.A. represent to you at that beginning point? I grew up moving around because of my dad's job. But the way my dad would sell the idea of moving, he was very clever, good salesman. And so he would include me in the decision. But he would present it in a way where,

you know, look, we might be going to a place that you at first are not going to like. They're going to feel, oh, this is worse in one way or another. But here's the opportunity to meet different people. And in the worst case scenario, you're going to maybe realize that the place where you're from is really the most wonderful place. But he was like, you know what, chances are that's not going to happen because, you know, different flavors, different people, different, you know, this is a discovery. And being a foreigner in that sense, not a foreigner in the national sense but it's a very valuable experience to be new to a place yeah we all know the feeling you know but when you

actually move somewhere it's different than visiting visiting you get this like hypersensitivity right but when you're actually living there you go through especially if language is involved it can be very hard you know when I first came my English wasn't very good and so I felt like I didn't get the sense of humor that was presented to me I felt like I couldn't transmit my sense of humor therefore I had the feeling that people thought I was dumb or not interesting and that's a process that a foreigner lives through. And it's painful, but I feel very rich and important. It was to me, you know. Well, I'm curious how perceptions of where you belong have evolved as you moved through life. Like you've called this latest album Drama. Tell me why you chose that name.

It was a name that came, I was writing this string arrangement and I didn't, at the time I was like, why am I writing this thing? But it was just feeling right, which ended up being the introduction of the record. And I was sent to this memory of me being a kid. It was the moment where my dad, and I must have been eight or seven, where my dad, who's a wonderful father, but brought me outside, and it was the moment of ritual of turning from boy to man. So he shaved my head, but I was sent to that moment and understood that drama was what I was supposed to get rid of to become a man in this fallacy

that is repeated and that my father was passing on to me. And so that's when things shifted. And I thought, you know what? I am going to throw a musical tantrum I'm gonna be the drama I wasn't supposed to be you know so in a way I'm responding to a haircut that happened 35 years ago And so then I started writing arrangements for 16 violins and horns and playing harpsichord and writing these songs that bring out my desperation at times, you know, my doubt and not to worship those things, but in a way to reject that idea that, that was passed on to me, you know, the demand is this way because it controls it. It's efficient, you know, hair is feeling right. That's why people in the military have to have a short haircut. They're devoid of any emotional, the symbol of emotional touch, you know, this thing. And so my bangs had to go. Tell me more about this memory. When your father

says it's time to cut your hair for you to become a man, what were the thoughts that went through your head? So I felt ashamed that I felt ugly. You were ashamed that you felt ugly. Because I understood that I wasn't supposed to... Have vanity? Well, I could have a certain type of vanity. You know, maybe the vanity of muscles. But the truth is, the next day, I felt ugly.

But that feeling, you know, I knew I wasn't supposed to care about being pretty. But I did. And so I think that is what stayed with me. The concept of manliness that your father had as a person who is not concerned with being pretty. Do you agree with that concept of masculinity today? No, of course not. That's why I wrote this record and called it drama, because I'm responding to that. I'm rejecting that idea.

Well, yes, I noticed that so much of your music is in multiple languages, like this album. Sometimes you speak in Portuguese, sometimes you speak in English. Was that in a way to capture all the different homes you've had, all these different aspects of who you've become? Well, I guess in Latin cultures and in Brazil, we understand sorrow, melancholy, as something actually nourishing, something fulfilling. In Portuguese, we famously have the word saudade, which means longing, but we use it not as a verb, but as a noun. So it's something you have. It's a thing. And so, in contrast, it seems to me that Americans have a little bit more of a hard time dealing with melancholy and sorrow. In America, in the Declaration of Independence, it's a right, the right to pursue happiness. And so happiness maybe subconsciously becomes a right.

And when you're not happy, you have that feeling that a right is taken away from you, you know. And so to answer your question, when I'm writing this song, for example, Tara, I'm savoring the sorrow. But because I'm crystallizing it, I'm gaining distance from it and looking at it as a gift, you know. You know, that suffering or that pain is a measure of the happiness that's on the other side. And so it feels good to write that in Portuguese. When do you reach for English when you're writing song phrases, you think? When do you reach most? English and Portuguese have very different music in it. English is more interestingly percussive than Portuguese. Portuguese seems more melodic.

Like my name in English, it's Rodrigo. And in Portuguese, Rodrigo. Oh, yeah. I like that a lot better. I don't know. Yeah, it's very different. So that's just to say the prosody, which is that in between words and melody, the marriage of the two, maybe I'll hear a piece of a melody that's coming out that I'm developing, and that sounds like English. You've told me that when you came here to the United States that you had to learn this whole new language

and sometimes when you're communicating with people, some aspects of your emotion and your humor don't get transmitted to the people you're talking to. Does that happen when you're performing in front of an English-speaking crowd, that there's a part of you that doesn't get transmitted? I can't remember who said that, but someone said learning a new language is like having another personality. And it's an exaggeration, but I can relate. Because language exposes so many things about the culture, you know, that you can see reflected.

So, yes, if I'm performing, but in a way, it's not important. Because music lovers listen to music in all kinds of languages. And there's something beautiful about it, too. If you don't understand the words, you have more space in all kinds of languages. And there's something beautiful about it too. If you don't understand the words, you have more space in that mirror to project. You can invent something that's there, you know, and you can occupy that space and make it your own. Sometimes I ask like, and I will ask you, do you want me to sing in Portuguese or in English? And I don't know if people feel uptight with the question, but they keep saying it doesn't matter. I was like, it must matter. And then I can say, well, my words don't matter. But I know what they mean, you know,

there's something in each one of them, you know. And with that, Amirante invited us into his living room. He sat us down, picked up a well-worn white guitar named Butter. Butter, you know, it has the marks of my labor. And it's the guitar I play the most. And treated us to our first live music performance since the beginning of the pandemic. It was his first too. Oh yeah. So because we talked about it, what language do you want to hear? How about Portuguese? All right. More room for imagination. Exactly, because I don't understand a word.

You know you understand it in a non-verbal way. So this song is called Tara. Tara. You can find Rodrigo Amarante's full performance of this song in our show notes. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.