Downloaded from YTS.MX
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
[playing]
There’s a word in English that I love: "serendipity." That’s the story of my life.
Sérgio did the, he did the gumbo, put the gumbo together. And, uh, it worked.
He’s a translator.
He’s tran... He translated something
that was going on in Brazil to the whole world.
He’s able to, um, span the generations by collaborating
with new artists and, and up and coming artists.
That sound was unique in the ’60s in the ’70s in the ’80s in the ’90s.
It’s still unique.
♪ His name is Sérgio And he rockin’ the sound ♪
♪ He on your radio And he throwin’ it down ♪
Some artists are just doing it for the love the art,
and I think that’s what Sérgio does.
[Common] ♪ Yo, make the music ♪
♪ With the sound and get busy ♪
♪ Everybody out there Yo, get with me ♪
♪ We goin’ from Brazil To Chi-City ♪
♪ I know we got a whole Lot of committee ♪
♪ This is how it be When get the sounds ♪
♪ Yo, like pocket of oil I get around ♪
I’m here because I love Sérgio Mendes.
Common comes in and it’s all spontaneous.
It was nothing written. There’s no lyrics on the chant.
He provides his rap all the way from the beginning.
♪ That’s the most high ♪
♪ Rio De Janeiro is close by ♪
♪ I keep a close eye on The sound piano ♪
♪ When it come to this Y’all could just handle ♪
♪ When we go down ♪
It’s called the flavor of Rio. It’s about Brazil.
It’s about a party, let’s all get together, actually enjoy life and...
- Yeah. - You know, Brazil, Samba, Africa,
- that whole reunion of cultures. - Yeah.
Getting to do this with Sérgio is really kind of fun
but it’s, it’s also like, uh, it was scary.
You know, is it at the level that I would write at?
We both wanted to achieve a vibration, a feeling,
so I was free to be in a freestyle on this and it’s one of the, you know,
few times that I recorded freestyle.
♪ Never wrote this But it’s all cool ♪
This is what we do. The rules.
It was like listening to a great jazz musician,
the improvisational aspect of what he does.
He as rhythmically talking,
and his conversation had a flavor, had soul.
Yeah.
Sabor do Rio.
Here we come. Let the drumma.
I approached it like, hey, I’m one of the instruments
and let the music guide some of the rhythms,
that’s the, you know, and let what naturally comes out.
[Sérgio] The chant, the melody, the rap, the rhythms, the percussion
is like, you know, makes you feel great.
You wanna dance, you wanna cry, you wanna hug.
[Common] It’s always a blessing to roll with one of the giants,
roll with somebody who is a legend and create with them.
When I look back I wanna be like man, I did something with Sérgio Mendes.
I remember that day.
But it’s all cool.
This is what we do. The rules.
[both laugh]
I like that.
[Sérgio] Niteroi, that’s where I was born and that’s where the adventure starts.
Jose Augusto Mendes was my grandfather,
a good-looking black man.
He was probably a grandson of a slave.
And on my mother’s side, we had the Portuguese, the colonizers.
So Santos is my middle name.
I think that mixture of cultures in Brazil,
we had the, the natives and then we had the Portuguese
that came and colonized Brazil.
And then they brought the slaves like they did in United States,
and I think that multi-culture things that came to Brazil
really gave something very special to the culture.
Here I am back on the street that I used to live, uh, between five years old
and maybe 12 and, uh, Rua Coordenador Queiros is the name of the street,
and I’m surprised the building is still here.
It’s called Santa Isabel, which is Saint Isabel.
And I used to live on the third floor up there.
I was in between two and three years old that I fell in the bathtub.
Next day fever so I went to the doctor
and I was diagnosed having osteomyelitis, which is a bone disease.
That kept me away from the bicycle, the soccer,
the swimming and everything else.
I was put in the cast for three years.
I was carried around and hospitals and operations.
You know, it was not easy.
One of those coincidence and serendipity and all that,
penicillin was just discovered in England,
and because my father was a doctor and he had friends,
I was one of the first people to take penicillin in Brazil
and that took care of my leg and cured the osteomyelitis.
I remember the last time I wear the cast,
we went to a beach close by here, Itacoatiara Beach,
and we were like celebrating finally my freedom, I could walk,
I could do my thing, yeah, but that was very, very beautiful.
And I have recollection of that image on this beautiful rock
and I had the cast in my hand and we all threw the cast on the ocean.
But I cannot play ball on the streets with the kids, I cannot do this.
You have to be careful this thing may come back da-da-da-da-da.
My mother said to me, she said, you know, I’m gonna give you a piano,
that music was gonna bring me some peace and some,
something to relate to it.
And I start playing classical piano, learning music.
When I start playing, you know, Chopin and Beethoven,
and all those things I was like, oh that feels great.
I had a friend here that had access to the LPs from United States,
which was very hard to get those in those days,
and we’ll get together at his house and we’ll start listening to jazz.
And, uh, so I heard this record one time.
It was a Dave Brubeck record, which I didn’t know,
and I heard, uh, "Take Five."
And I said, "Oh, man what is this," you know?
It was so great, and I was, like, fascinated.
We had like a little club of guys listening to jazz,
going to see those fantastic movies like Kurosawa,
Fellini, Godard, you know, the great directors of, you know, of the world,
and reading books, and then the painters in, you know,
we’re like, it was almost like the, the thirties in Paris,
but was no Paris here, but we’re living that.
One of the painters that I fell in love was, uh, Paul Gauguin.
Of course his art and beautiful paintings and,
and he also fascinated me, because the idea
that he left France to go to the Polynesia.
So I had that fantasy, I said one day I’m gonna leave Niteroi
and maybe move to Rio and to United States or somewhere.
So I wrote a song, my first song, called "Noanoa," inspired by Gauguin.
I had a friend of mine that was a great guitar player and he had this band,
and he asked me why don’t you come and play piano, play for, for people to dance, you know?
Oh, it was great ’cause I was like the youngest guy on the band,
and I was like, I don’t know, 18, 19, and we did a lot of those balls,
and clubs, in Niteroi and private parties
so it was like a dance band that was my beginning.
Growing up here in Niteroi, most people you go to the beach
and you only see Rio in front of you, but it’s in front of you, but it’s kind of distant,
so there’s that attraction.
It’s distant and it’s Rio de Janeiro, it’s beautiful,
and it’s the capital and things are happening there, not here. We gotta go there.
I had a friend, and he was a dentist and a piano player,
which is great.
[chuckles] Yes.
He called me, he said, "Listen, I cannot do this gig.
Can you cover for me for, you know, the next week?"
And I said, "Wow," you know?
The first chance to cross the bay
and play in a club, the Copacabana.
So that was my first, uh, adventure, coming to Rio to play in a nightclub.
This is the first time I’ve been back to the ferry for a long time, it feels great.
I mean, it’s nothing but joy and, uh, to be here
and it’s beautiful weather today and a little wind, but it’s okay.
I’m very possessive of this hat. I don’t want the hat to fly here, I’m sorry.
The ferry was like taking me to Rio, taking me to do what I love to do,
which was to play music with my friends
so the ferry represents that, you know, the freedom of going and coming back.
The bossa nova’s been hanging around in this alley in Copacabana for a long time,
a new cult waiting for some members.
The tourists all walked right by on their way to the big nightclubs.
That left this place, the Bottles Bar, to the kids,
the ones with the expressionless faces and the understated way of smoking a cigarette,
but nice, romantic kids, not at war with anybody,
like the music in the Bottles Bar.
Well, behind me, the Bottles Bar.
That was the first place that I played in Rio de Janeiro, Copacabana in 1962.
I had the trio, piano, bass and drums.
But every night the best musicians, the composers, the singers,
would hang here, would get together here at the Bottles Bar.
[Nelson] The Bottles Bar used to have jam sessions
and Sérgio used to play on this jam sessions,
and, uh, we became friends, and, uh, I became a follower
of, uh, what Sérgio was doing, playing bossa nova.
Bossa nova in English means, more or less like, uh, new wave.
The beat of boss nova...
[imitates bass guitar sounds]
was invented by João Gilberto in 1958,
and was an explosion in Brazil for the young people.
What a fresh breath of air that bossa nova was when it came out,
it’s just acoustic guitars man and these beautiful soft voices
’cause the music’s so strong you don’t have to yell it.
So powerful, man.
[imitates bass guitar sounds]
I didn’t know much about bossa nova as a kid.
My gateway into it is Sérgio, and I think he’s been a lot of people’s gateway into it.
First of all it is sensual. It kind of takes you there, you know?
It, it makes you feel that sensuality,
the sexuality of, of Brazil, the cool of Brazil.
It’s kind of mellow and it’s infectious.
Part of the uniqueness of Brazilian music is the fact that,
I think, Brazil by itself, it’s a very eclectic mixed kind of country
so I think music is part of that melting pot.
The African rhythms to the European flavors,
the indigenous sounds and the percussion.
The melting pot culture that we carry in Brazil is this amazing,
I would say like, uh, not even a melting pot, like a fruit salad of like flavors.
If rock and roll is like action movie music,
like da-da-na-na-na and funk is like sexy and like,
and disco is like, you know, let’s party, forget about tomorrow,
forget about yesterday and let’s live right now,
and hip-hop is like braggadocios, rambunctiousness,
then bossa nova is... gentle.
It’s totally passionate music.
It’s, it’s full of joy, it’s full of life,
it’s full of pain.
Um, if you took all of the, all of the emotions in the world
and put it one music, it’s Brazilian music.
Rock and roll wasn’t, uh,
something fit for the Copacabana, you know,
all those black leathers and, uh, knives and, uh, the motorcycles.
It didn’t fit in the beach, no.
Black leathers? Oh, come on. It’s too hot for this.
And instead we found in bossa nova,
the soundtrack of our lives, of the new generation.
There was a very young producer.
And he asked me, he said, "Do you wanna make a record?"
And I said, "What, are you kidding? Yeah."
So there was a studio in downtown Rio, two tracks,
and, uh, so I made Dance Moderno there.
Was, uh, piano, bass, drums, trombone. That was my first record.
There’s a word in Portuguese, called saudade.
Saudade’s a beautiful word in Portuguese. It’s like to miss something,
to miss somebody, and, uh, it’s just... So I feel saudade of those moments.
1962, November, first time I came to the United States, to New York.
Bossa nova was exploding all over the world,
and they had a bossa nova concert at Carnegie Hall.
And they invited me to bring my band to New York.
And here I am in New York with Antonio Carlos Jobim,
the most important composer in Brazil.
He was like our colporteur, our Gershwin,
my mentor, my teacher, friend,
and then we go for rehearsal in Carnegie Hall.
I said, oh my, I can’t believe I’m, you know, this is like New York, Carnegie Hall.
Just an amazing emotion.
[Quincy] Play Carnegie Hall,
that’s a prominent place as you could ever play, you know.
But, uh, by that time everybody was getting hip to it.
Everything was like going to heaven because we heard this music and like you know,
nobody had ever heard anything like this before, you know?
Oh, my God, man, ’cause they call it jazz and samba, jazz and samba.
[imitates music sounds] You know?
And all my favorite Brazilian people were there, ’cause it was so new then.
The day after the concert I went to Birdland,
was the jazz cathedral in New York,
you know, of all the great jazz musicians played there
and Cannonball Adderley was playing there.
So he look at me he said, uh, ’When are you going back to Brazil?"
I said, "This week." He said, "No, no you stay, stay couple weeks.
Let’s make a record together." I said, "It’s not pos..." So I started pinching myself.
This is not... This is not real, you know? Cannonball asking me to make a record.
So we did an album it was fantastic. The whole thing for me was like magic.
That’s the bossario sax set.
People they really liked that sound,
because it was so different from... ’Cause bossa nova,
most of the interpreters and, and composers was very minimalist,
was a guitar, acoustic guitar and a voice,
so now two trombones and a tenor and a drums.
Can you imagine listening to a sax that like this with two trombones and a tenor sax,
really blowing out? On a small room for 40,
45 people, they really blowing hard.
It was a different way of, of uh, understanding and developing bossa nova.
We used to call the... This is heavy bossa man,
and Sérgio was the most perfect example
of this encounter of jazz and bossa nova.
[Sérgio] Rio means a lot to me,
because Cidade maravilhosa, which means marvelous city,
but really, it’s a very inspiring city.
I’m so happy to be back in Rio De Medellin Studio where I’ve made so many records,
recording those songs you know from the old days, 1962-63.
When I say, wow, uh, I’m gonna play with Sérgio Mendes,
everybody goes, oh man, what are you gonna play, that album, wow, fantastic.
I’m sorry, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. [foreign language]
[foreign language]
They were like amazing songs, melodically, harmonically, and rhythmically
and the, the interpretation of the songs is an instrumental.
There’s no lyrics, no vocals, but was tremendous energy.
And I like that so much, you know? When we play, ba, ba, ba, ta, da, da, da.
It was like, hey wake up, you know, we are here.
The name of the album was Voce ainda nao ouviu nada.
It means, You Haven’t Heard Anything Yet,
’cause that was really a vanguard at the time, you know?
The motto for the revolution, the military coup.
We’re here to clean the country from communist, subversion, and corruption.
Who couldn’t applaud, ah, what that’s what we want.
And people thought they’d stay for one year, two year at the maximum.
That didn’t happen.
They stayed 21 years. It became a terrible dictatorship.
No justices, courts, you have no rights.
You could be detained for no reason.
People starting killing people, torturing people.
Bossa nova was not the type of music
for the times we were living then, times of fear,
of violence, of, uh, division,
of, uh, prosecutions, of, uh, militarily courts.
The country was in a convulsion.
My son, Rodrigo, was born the sixth of April of 1964.
So about a week after the revolution,
I sent a telegram to a friend of mine saying,
that Rodrigo was born, but in kind of a joking between friends.
I said Rodrigo Mendes, the first magic realist
of Niteroi, tell Uncle Lee that the whole thing
it’s about loose diapers and warm milk.
I was arrested and questioned. I say, ’What is this?"
They thought the telegram was a key of the anti-revolution.
The whole thing was so surrealist. It was like Kafka.
It was just ugly, ugly times.
I had a friend of mine, he was my, uh, best man in my wedding
and he worked at the cultural division of the Brazilian Foreign office.
I said, "Mario I must get out of here.
I want to go to the United States, you’re gonna help me."
I said, "I want some airline tickets
and money to pay for my hotels." So he look at me and said, "You’re crazy,
but I’m gonna get you there," which he did. I’m so thankful to him.
I spoke a little English, not very much.
I had the wife and the little kid, that I had to, I had to pay rent,
and the, the real things of life.
I remember my bass player, we bought a car together.
It was a Chevrolet 1951, cost $75.
And he would drive for one week, I would drive for the other week. That was my first car.
Back then, for someone to travel,
it took a huge effort, it really did.
I can’t overstate this.
So even though he was successful in Brazil and even though he was known
in the States for being successful in Brazil,
it wasn’t like he was... Like there was this huge massive consciousness here
of who Sérgio Mendes was. There wasn’t.
So I put this band together, Brasil ’65.
We were auditioning, doing a few gigs.
We made a record for Capital Records.
The record didn’t go anywhere so we kept touring all over.
Thank you very much. We would like to dedicate our last number
to all the people who work here at Mother Blues.
We enjoyed very much our time here in Chicago
and we hope we come back again next year. Thank you very much.
Sérgio Mendes and Brasil ’65 were playing at Mother Blues,
and this was their last gig, because the group was breaking up.
They were all going back to Brazil except Sérgio.
He wanted to try one more time to put a group together,
and he was looking for a girl singer.
I walked in and I see this beautiful young girl playing guitar and, and singing.
I say, "Wow, what a incredible voice," you know?
Something different than what I’ve heard before,
very soulful, very beautiful.
He came up to me after the show and said,
"I’m putting this new group together called Brasil ’66,
and I’d like you to be the lead singer."
I said, ’Well, you’ll have to ask my father,"
’Cause, you know, I lived with my parents, I was 19.
[Sérgio] So I went to her apartment in Chicago.
I met Father and Mother, and I said,
"Listen, this is what I do,
I’m a musician from Brazil and I live in L.A."
And my father was reluctant but he knew how much I loved to, to sing
and he said, "Okay so if anything happens you don’t like,
you hop on a plane, you come home." And I never did.
♪ Well, I think I’m going Out of my head ♪
♪ Yes I think I’m going Out of my head ♪
She was amazing, I mean, funny and great sense of humor,
very intelligent and incredible voice, very musical.
You know, I would play songs for her that she never heard before
and some of those Brazilian songs are very complicated harmonically speaking,
so you have to have the ears to,
not only for the melody for, for the changes, she had it all.
I’m forever grateful to him, for changing the course of my life, and he did.
[Sérgio] So Lani came with me for California.
I put together this new band.
There was a Brazilian girl living in town.
When I heard the two girls singing together, I said, man I like this sound.
You could listen to that sound and wow, romantic,
but at the same time and the up tempo Brazilian songs.
It’s a different sound for me because, I mean, I no longer have a guy
blowing a saxophone or trombone in my ears.
The more we rehearse and I said, "Man, this is so good."
So it was not something really planned or...
It was something that happened so organically, you know?
It was completely different from anything and, uh,
definitely completely different from rock and roll, but that speaks to
how certain Sérgio was of that sound, doesn’t it?
That he didn’t try to imitate
what was going on but just kind of went into this unique path.
[Lani] We had a job to work in a resort in the Bahamas,
and people weren’t really responding to the music.
[Sérgio] So the owner of the club came to me and said, "Sérgio, you know,
"I’m sorry but, uh, the customers here are not too happy with the sound.
They don’t know what you’re singing, what language is that."
[Lani] They wanna dance, you know, they wanna dance.
So I don’t think it’s really working but we’ll pay you.
And Sérgio said, "You mean, you’re gonna pay me to not play?"
And that’s what happened.
So I was fired of my first gig with Brasil ’66.
This was 1966. We got a, a call from our distributor in Seattle
who had heard Sérgio, and he called us and asked us to audition the group.
He thought they were special.
[Sérgio] They told me they were just starting a label, A&M,
and Herb had the Tijuana Brass, which was huge,
was the biggest instrumental band in the planet.
This was a big deal. This was a big deal.
And we played a lot of things from the sets that we were playing in clubs.
I remember walking down the hall and listening to this sound,
and the sound was really, there was something captivating about it
’cause it was like a, a hybrid, you know, like between Brazilian music, Brazil...
Like a little bit jazz, a little bit of folk,
a little bit of African blues. It had all those elements.
♪ I must think of a way ♪
♪ Into your heart ♪
♪ Oh, there’s no reason why ♪
♪ My being shy should Keep us apart ♪
[Herb] And then to top it off, it had this fabulous singer,
Lani Hall, you know?
So I walked in the room and, uh, just fell in love,
fell in love with the sound.
It was just, just very, very unusually special,
hadn’t heard anything like it.
[Jerry] Boy what fun it was in the studio. Being around that music is just so much fun.
Just listening to his keyboard work, he was brilliant, just absolutely amazing.
The makeup of the band, uh, was exciting,
so we went ahead and signed Brasil ’66 and Sérgio Mendes.
Now after being fired from a gig to be hired by a record company,
so I had the two emotions.
I was fired then I was hired, story of my life.
Well, you know, A&M was on that path, you know, of breaking down boundaries.
I was with them 12 years.
Amazing history at A&M and Sérgio was like one of the family, you know?
We went into the studio and started recording,
’cause Herb was hungry to produce us,
and that’s what he did, he produced us.
Going to the studio to record with Herb was really, uh, an incredible experience for me,
because I didn’t know much about the, the recording part of it
and he was very fluent in that language.
I mean, he spoke the language beautifully.
He knew everything about the position of microphones and this and that.
So one day, I turned on the radio and I hear "Mas Que Nada," and I say, "Oh, man."
So I called Herb, I say, "Herb, they’re playing."
He said, "Yeah, man, it’s a big hit, you know?"
And I say, "Wow."
[Quincy] They have such good stuff, man. That stuff would knock me out.
The sounds are the secret, people don’t realize that.
A great song can make the worst singer in the world a star,
and a bad song can’t be saved by the three greatest singers on the planet.
[Sérgio] This is the first time ever that a song in Portuguese became a world hit,
and people didn’t know what it meant, and it didn’t matter
because it was such a great sound on the radio.
It just made people feel good.
Sérgio Mendes is joy.
The first album with Sérgio was on A&M was a million selling record, easily.
It developed Sérgio into a major artist,
and his drawing power with Brasil ’66 grew.
So the fact that he was able to kind of rebrand himself entirely
and reposition himself, and launch this incredibly successful career here
just speaks a ton as to his preparedness,
his talent, how unique the sound was.
He said, um, "That he was very lucky."
And yes, I think he was very lucky but, of course, luck favors the well prepared.
Brasil ’66 is something that was invented here,
and that’s what really made him a global phenomenon.
I never expected anything. I mean, in terms of...
I mean, I’ve always... I love what I do.
I mean, to play and to perform and to write songs,
and same thing in Brazil with the Bossa Rio sextet.
And so all of a sudden we recording in United States,
the music is being played all over the world, including Brazil.
I saw Sérgio as a winner, you know, because it’s pretty hard
to reach the American market, you know?
Because we speak a different language, you know, Portuguese.
This is... There’s a barrier, you know,
but he was so, uh, smart, and clever to do the...
to find a way to do that.
Wow, this guy, he go out there, he did the thing,
you know, the perfect blend of bossa nova, jazz,
Brazilian music, and he invented the new kind of pop music.
It’s been about five years now since bossa nova was introduced to this country
and, uh, it looks like it’s here to stay.
And we’re delighted that one of the main reasons for its popularity
is a group that’s with us tonight. They’ve got the beat, the blend and the band.
Ladies and gentlemen, Sérgio Mendes and Brasil ’66.
♪ Chove chuva Constant is the rain ♪
♪ Chove chuva Endless is the pain ♪
♪ As I stand here And remember ♪
♪ That once our Hearts were one ♪
♪ And every day Was spring to me ♪
♪ Till you left And took off to the sun ♪
♪ Now the days are lonely ♪
♪ The song of love is still ♪
♪ They say that I’ll forget you ♪
♪ But I say I never will ♪
♪ And it hurts With such a pain ♪
♪ To be a lone And lonely in the rain ♪
♪ And it hurts with Such a pain to be ♪
♪ Alone and lonely In the rain ♪
He was unstoppable, man. You couldn’t stop it.
♪ The look of love ♪
♪ Is saying so much more ♪
♪ Than just words Could ever say ♪
♪ And what my heart has heard Well, it takes my breath away ♪
♪ I can hardly wait to hold You feel my arms around you ♪
♪ How long I have waited ♪
♪ Waited just to love you Now that I have found you ♪
How good was our group on stage, musically?
Oh, uh, we were great.
♪ Day after day Alone on the hill ♪
♪ The man with the foolish grin Is keeping perfectly still ♪
[Sérgio] Was Christmas of 1967, I hear the song "Fool on the Hill."
I said, "Wow. Like, different, you know? Different melody."
And I said, "Man I think I have an idea for an arrangement."
Let’s see if we can bring that melody to Brazil
and arrange it in a different way of course, otherwise, why would I do it?
The whole idea of, you know, interpret the song
was to do it in a different way.
And as soon as I heard the arrangement the vocals,
I call Herb, I said, "Man, let’s record this thing, you know?"
It’s like feels so good all of the sudden, you know,
and it’s like, oh, my God, I’m in heaven again.
So when we finished the album, "Fool on the Hill,"
and they said, "We wanna show you the album cover."
And I see this beautiful picture, looks like a, you know, a mountain on the air.
And I saw these gorgeous undulations,
and there was a hill.
And I said, "Man that’s so beautiful." And they... it looked gorgeous.
But I didn’t really pay attention on the hill.
And then people told me, you know, this is a lady laying down naked.
I said, "Oh, okay, you know." And so... But the best part of the story is that,
so A&M was gonna release the album like that.
And then they had a lot of phone calls from record stores,
"Oh, we cannot release this record."
I said, "Why you cannot release?"
"Because it’s showing a nipple,
and we’re not gonna put that in the, on the..." What?
Well, we’ll put a sticker with the names of the song
and you’ll never see that nipple or the hill, so the fool on the hill.
Every one of Sérgio’s records was either gold or platinum throughout those years.
What Sérgio did in the mid- to late ’60s was phenomenal.
[Herb] Man I, can’t say enough good things about him,
because, you know, without him I would’ve never met Lani, because he became Cupid for me.
I remember Lani telling me, "Sérgio, you know,
I’m gonna leave the band." And I said, "Wow."
Was like a big surprise for me,
because she was the sound of Brasil ’66 and, uh,
part of that whole thing was her voice, you know, and I said, "Wow."
♪ The dawn is Filled with dreams ♪
♪ So many dreams Which one is mine ♪
It was difficult for me to leave, but Herb was no longer traveling,
and I knew that
I couldn’t have a relationship if I’m on the road 11 months out of the year.
I have to show up for this relationship,
and I took a chance and I knew that I was burying myself
with the idea of, if it doesn’t work, can I come back?
That was not gonna happen. Sérgio was ver...
I think he was very hurt that I left.
But, um, I was in love and I followed love.
♪ ...all the songs ♪
♪ When there’s a song For every star ♪
I was kind of sad, but at the same time happy,
because I knew that she and Herb, they love each other.
That was gonna be something that beautiful, beautiful story.
[Herb] Lani and I have been married for 43 years,
and it’s the best that ever happened in my life.
The risks when a lead singer leaves
or when a key member of a band leaves is huge.
Bands work, because there’s a certain energy that ties them together,
and then you take one of those elements away, and what do you do?
And especially if it’s the vocal, the vocal is what people hear.
I was not disappointed to her, but I was kinda sad.
Said, "What am I gonna do now, you know, now, you know?" So...
♪ Which one to choose Which way to go ♪
♪ How I can tell how Will I know how... ♪
[Gracinha] Lani had been with him since the beginning,
and the other singers came and went, but she was the main singer.
She was supposed to stay in the band until the end of the year,
and I started singing with Sérgio with the, with Brasil ’66
while she was leaving, so I would one sh... Uh, show she would do another
and then she started doing less and less.
[Nelson] Gracinha became an instant Brazilian darling.
Seventeen years old, so graceful as her, her name said
and singing very well, crystal voice,
and the country became in love with Gracinha.
♪ How I envy the cup That knows your lips ♪
♪ Let it be me my love ♪
♪ And a table that Feels your fingertips ♪
♪ Let it be me Let me be your love ♪
[Gracinha] I started my career in 1967 in Brazil,
and Sérgio in ’68, he came to Brazil for the first time with Brasil ’66 to tour,
and he came to see a show that I was doing with some friends of his.
[Sérgio] I heard her sing, and I think was like, fell in love immediately.
So original, you know, so different, that trademark,
you know, has that sound that only her can have that sound.
After Lani left the band and I moved to Brasil ’66, that was it.
[Harrison Ford] I bought a house in Hollywood Hills for $10,000,
which was worth about what it sounds like.
I had a young family. I was starting to remodel this house.
I didn’t really know anything about carpentry,
uh, except that, um, uh, what I had observed in a couple of books.
I bought some lumber and I bought some tools, and then I ran out of money.
I decided to build a studio in my house in Encino
’cause it was one of my dreams to have a studio in my backyard
that I could record any time I wanted, you know, that kind of a dream.
[Harrison] And a friend of mine was working as a recording engineer
at, uh, A&M and working with Sérgio.
He suggested that maybe I should entertain the thought of,
uh, of trying to get this job at, at Sérgio’s,
which was outrageous to start with, since I didn’t really know anything about it.
Nonetheless, uh, an appointment was arranged.
I went out to Sérgio’s place, uh, met him one morning quite early.
He arrived in his, uh, bathrobe, uh, with a cigar
and we strolled around the backyard and he was very sweet, very nice.
And I liked him immediately. He was one of those
just felt he was a right guy, I don’t know why.
The most important point here is that Sérgio forgot
to ask me whether I had ever done it before.
I was an actor.
You just make shit up.
Is that not right?
I can’t remember whether we had a permit or not,
um, but, I drew the plans and, uh, and we built it.
[Sérgio] I had a magnolia tree, beautiful tree,
he would sit and start reading scripts, you know?
And I said... And he told me, "Listen, I wanna be an actor,
and that’s my passion," you know?
It’s like, and I said, "Great," you know?
Possible, possible, I’m sure I was on my lunch hour.
Sérgio was very patient about the whole thing.
Absolutely charming, generous,
it was a kind of a dream project.
I did parlay that job into another job, into another job,
and I had a very, uh...
A very good career as a carpenter.
He did such an incredible job, and so that was my dream, you know.
He was building my dream in my backyard, and I made so many records there.
Would I have hired me?
Fuck no.
[laughter]
No.
So, uh, I guess 1972,
and, uh, my marriage was not working, and, uh, I was just... We were too young.
We got married too young and, uh, so divorce comes in and I kinda felt,
I felt sad, but I felt more sad
for the fact that the children were going back to Brazil with their mother.
So that for me was very, very hard, very difficult,
and I had to sit down with them and tell them that I was divorcing their mother.
They could not understand and for me telling them the truth was very painful.
The fact that they’re gonna go to Brazil, I’m not gonna see them,
so that was very, very difficult for me to, to handle that moment.
Having that separation, all of a sudden lose all that that he constructed and built was just,
you know, tough and, you know, they, he did,
like my mom, did the best that they could.
My dad every Sunday called us no matter where it was,
every Sunday, so I know to expect that call.
That showed a commitment of a father, I think.
[Isabela] We would visit my dad every summer and every winter.
You know, it’s so hard to spend a lotta quality time in a month’s time,
but my dad made it work, you know?
It was not about quantity, it was about quality.
When I think about my family, for me is the most important thing in my life, period.
It’s a kind of feeling I don’t know how to describe.
It’s just a very warm, very safe kind of feeling.
It’s a wonderful thing.
He got divorced in ’72, and I was well aware that I was,
you know, that I was in love with him but, you know,
he was not free so after his divorce we started,
you know, getting together and, uh, we decided we were gonna
try and see what happened and, uh, the kids were very, very easy with that,
because they liked me and they knew me.
So we just moved in together and that was it and,
uh, and the rest is history and here we are.
If I had to write a movie about musicians,
and what love could look like
if you’ve traveled the world singing and music was your life,
and now your wife is your life and you met through music,
Sérgio and Gracinha would be the perfect stars.
[Sérgio] There’s this complicity that I love.
I think the complicity’s it’s a great word to describe our relationship.
In Portuguese we call, cumplicidade.
It’s like I love the word in Portuguese and English,
because it means this, you know, the embrace.
To have complicity like I have with Gracinha,
it’s beyond explanation, it’s just a wonderful thing to have.
We have a wonderful thing in our relationship which is laughter.
We have a lot of fun. There’s so many positive things,
that we need another hour for that one.
Gracinha’s an important ingredient for Sérgio.
She’s kinda like the stabilizer, you know?
It’s fun to watch them, because they’re lovely together.
They’re both really smart,
and they both have a great sense of humor.
There’s a lot of laughter, and a lot of music.
There’s so much joy between the two of them,
there’s so much comfort because not only are they husband and wife,
but they’ve been working together for so long that there’s a...
There’s a beautiful trust that they have with one another.
My mom and dad are quite the pair, an amazing team.
I’d like to say that it’s a symbiotic relationship
but I think he may need her a little more.
[Gracinha] When Sérgio and I got together, he had three children.
They didn’t live with us full time. For the first few years,
they lived in Brazil with their mother, and then in 1983, they came to live with us.
Then we had two sons together, Gustavo and Tiago,
and, uh, we became the big family that I always dreamt of,
because I come from a very big family.
They also know that there’s an enormous interest in their lives and being there for them,
you know, and they know they, they can count on him, and he’s there for them.
He’s very proud of all of us, and it’s really very...
It’s nice to be his son.
♪ A stick a stone It’s the end of the road ♪
♪ It’s the rest of a stump It’s a little alone ♪
♪ It’s a sliver of glass It is life, it’s the sun ♪
♪ It is night, it is death It’s a trap, it’s a gun ♪
♪ The oak when it blooms A fox in the brush ♪
♪ A knot in the wood The song of a thrush ♪
The ’70s were really a very strange time of, uh, of our lives in terms of music.
It’s so hard to maintain momentum as a recording artist
and to have people interested in your music as fads change,
and it’s a challenge, right?
Because you want to maintain the integrity of your sound.
You don’t want to "sell out" to whatever’s happening on the air,
but then you do risk sounding dated.
It’s a journey when it comes to music and life and career,
um, and that journey is not always the mountain top.
That journey is not always the highs, and it’s like really,
the things you learn while you’re in that valley that you could take up and,
and build into character traits that when you at the mountaintop,
you like can really enjoy it, be real with it, be authentic.
I think perhaps he didn’t evolve at that point in time,
and people started to associate it with old music.
♪ A must a thrust a bump ♪
♪ It’s a girl, it’s a rhyme It’s a cold, it’s the mumps ♪
Pelé was born in a city called three hearts, yes.
He’s a man with three hearts.
When you talk about Pelé, uh, genius.
Uh, it’s like one of a kind. It’s never been anybody like him.
He’s the best soccer player ever in the world.
I saw him playing, it’s amazing.
[Gracinha] It was a documentary about Pelé done by this French director.
They invited Sérgio to do the soundtrack.
So Pelé used to come and stay with us in L.A.
He wrote a couple of songs,
and actually Sérgio picked up those songs
and developed the soundtrack pretty much based upon those songs.
I would not think of Pelé as a singer.
I don’t think of Pelé as a singer,
but I still would listen to Pelé singing with Sérgio Mendes.
[clapping]
That was great.
Are you kidding me? You’re never gonna see me that happy again.
Woo!
No. Again, again, let’s do it again.
Do it again, do it again.
I’ve been working on the new album now for two years,
and in Brazil, in Rio and here in Los Angeles.
The percussion department, which brings the essential joy to the project,
I recorded in Brazil with the best percussionists in Brazil.
His name is Pretinho da Serrinha and his nephew,
young 10-year-old percussionist, so that for me was like amazing.
♪ Samba in the corner ♪
♪ Dancing, drinking, thinking Back to grooving ♪
Then I came here to L.A. where I live,
and I recorded a lot of music with young singers.
♪ Movin’, samba in heaven ♪
♪ Strollin’ the beaches Like when we were lovers ♪
I have this young girl, she’s my goddaughter.
Her artistic name is Sugar Jones, an unbelievable voice.
♪ You give me, you give You give me fever ♪
♪ You give me, you give me You give me fever ♪
That’s great. That’s beautiful. Sugar, you’re the best.
- Thank you. - Really sounds incredible.
Can we do it again?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
[speaks Spanish]
I recorded a song for the first time in Spanish, which I always wanted to do.
So I met with two young kids from Colombia.
They’re brothers, and they call themselves Cali and Dandee.
All of a sudden we have this combination of Brazilian rhythms and reggaeton,
and the two of them singing in Spanish.
This is an incredible joy for me to be making a record like that
with so many different people collaborating and being part of it
and putting their hearts on the line.
- Whoo! - Yes!
We love it.
He hadn’t recorded in America for like three years, something like that,
so he started getting excited and he did this album.
This whole album was not very Brazilian; it was a pretty much pop album.
I had finished the album and the album was being mixed.
And this song arrives in the mailbox, little cassette.
I mean, I was in love with that melody and the changes and the chords.
Sérgio heard the song and said, "Well, my... But my album is done."
And I said, "Well, just start again."
[Sérgio] So I met Joe Pizzulo.
♪ Hold your body Close to mine ♪
I literally was learning it driving to the studio to meet Sérgio.
I walked in and I met him and he did, run through the formalities,
I walked into the booth and pressed the button.
I started singing, and I went through verse and the first chorus and he stopped me,
which is usually, you sound great, we’ll get back to you.
And instead of that he said, "You’re perfect for the song.
Let’s record it." And we literally recorded it that night.
I never heard of a male voice like that, beautiful voice, very soulful.
We lay down the track. It didn’t take long. Maybe three, four hours.
It was like one of those songs that almost missed the boat, right? Almost missed the album.
Sérgio was... He was having, like a cold spell there for a year or so,
I’m not sure it might’ve been longer, and then he came into my office one day
and he had this master of "Never Gonna Let You Go."
I put it on, and loved it. It didn’t sound like Sérgio and Brasil ’66,
but there was something about it. It was a great song
and it was a great performance and it was a beautiful arrangement.
I picked it up, you know, for A&M and it was the number one record.
I can’t get over the fact that that’s what he did.
It’s a pop song, where he plays keyboard.
♪ I’m never gonna let you go ♪
♪ I’m gonna hold you In my arms forever ♪
♪ Gonna try and make up for All the times I hurt you so ♪
It’s not a comeback that people immediately think, oh, that’s Sérgio Mendes,
but it was such a big song that it kind of transcended that,
and it definitely put him on the map again.
[Sérgio] Not only here, everywhere in the world.
In Brazil, in Japan, in Europe.
Ended up being one of the biggest records of my career.
For me to go back to A&M and have another hit record,
I mean, it was, it could not been better. I could not have planned anything like that.
♪ Never gonna let you go ♪
♪ Hold you in my arms forever ♪
♪ Gonna try and make Up for all the times ♪
♪ I hurt you so ♪
♪ Hold your body Close to mine ♪
♪ Are we gonna be together ♪
♪ Oh, I swear this time... ♪
For the next nine years, he did some very nice albums.
He did a couple of very Brazilian albums with very good Brazilian songs,
none of the songs as successful as "Never Gonna Let You Go," for sure.
[Common] It’s like, well, you might not have sold that many records as you did before.
If you do it because you really love music, that low point,
that was his moment, and even though it might not have been widely received,
it was an expression of me, and I’m glad I released that.
And I’m gonna move to the next and create something else
that I hope lights up the world.
[Gracinha] His contract with A&M was over, and a good friend of ours was the head of Electra.
And in one of those times that we saw each other he said to Sérgio,
"When are you coming out with another album?"
Sérgio said, "I don’t have plans, I don’t have a label."
He says, "Well, just go and bring me the best Brazilian album that was ever made."
Is, uh, probably top three of Sérgio’s career
and it’s a very important album.
[Scott] The opening song starts really soft.
And then when all the percussionists come in, there’s over a hundred of us total.
When they all come in, it’s the most incredible sound
in the world that you could ever hear.
Like, oh, my God, this is amazing. I felt like I was at Carnival.
So two o’clock in the morning I’m in bed, phone rings.
I usually take my phone off the hook, usually at night.
Phone rings, this guy on the other side, "Hello, this is Carlinhos."
I said, "Oh," I said, "I’m asleep, man."
He said, "No, no, no, you got to hear this song." I said, "What, 2:30 in the morning?"
And he starts singing...
[imitates bass sounds]
I look at Gracinha, I said, "I love this guy." He’s crazy, I wanna meet him.
So that’s... It happened exactly like that. Serendipity, there we go.
He put his whole band on the street, I don’t know, 30 guys,
playing percussion, and I said, "Oh, my God, this is like,
I never heard anything like that."
And him, you know the great personality.
So we again, we like this.
The art of the encounter.
The timing was good, because that was when world music
was kind of becoming a buzzword, and so he comes with a very Brazilian album,
which is a return to his roots.
I think it was a risky move,
but I think he takes risks,
and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t,
but it’s part of the reason why he’s still relevant.
Brasileiro because another landmark in my career, because we won a Grammy.
[clapping]
[Gracinha] After Brasileiro, a couple of years later,
he did another Brazilian record. But after that he didn’t record for quite a long time.
[Sérgio] So after doing so many albums,
’cause in the early days,
we used to do almost like two albums a year.
So the ’60s, the ’70s, the ’80s,
now 1996,
I thought it was time to stop.
We kept traveling all over the world,
concerts everywhere and going here, going there,
and I had no desire to make a record.
So the years went by, ’97, ’98, 2000, millennium, da, ta, da, ta, da, ta.
And then one day, somebody called him
and said, "There’s this kid that wants you to play in his record...
but he’s shy to come to you."
He’s not shy, but he doesn’t know how, just send him over whenever he wants.
His music, like I said, it took me to another world.
And I felt like this connection with Sérgio Mendes and bossa nova.
This was 1992, and I went out to thrift stores and bought his vinyl
and started collecting Sérgio Mendes work.
I came to his house with all of his records,
and all the things that I went hunting for when I was 17 years old,
looking and trying to find all the Sérgio Mendes albums,
I wanted to show him that like look bro, like I, I studied this stuff.
I think I can figure out a trans... I can translate this sensibility to today.
That was another serendipity moment, you know, he...
I’m repeating too much this word, but I love the sound. Serendipity is gorgeous.
You know, man, your music is... It’s been incredible, my life and this.
And starts telling all these beautiful stories about how he heard him the first time.
This older guy that showed it to him when he was 16,
and then he would show to the girls and say to the girls,
"You don’t know Sérgio Mendes, you don’t anything about music."
He was very charming and very intelligent and very funny.
You know, that kind of connecting, when you meet people,
then knowing that you’re going to be friends for a long time,
and you’re gonna have a lot of artistic time to spend with them
and that happened with Will, which was like, uh... it changed my life.
♪ Mas que nada ♪
♪ Black Eyed Peas came to Make it hotter ♪
♪ We be the party starters ♪
♪ Bubblin’ up just like lava ♪
♪ Like lava heated Like a sauna ♪
♪ Penetrating through Your body armor ♪
♪ Rhythmically we massage you ♪
♪ With hip-hop mixed up With samba with samba ♪
[Sérgio] Of course Will.i.am, like my other brother, you know.
And Will, like me, is very curious, very open-minded.
I mean it’s like... He will try, he’s always
looking for something fresh, innovative, different.
The idea was to do the great Brazilian songs, but in the different beat,
different than the original, and then he put a little rap and, you know...
That encounter, just meeting him, going to the studio with him,
that for me was, uh, an incredible experience,
kind of an experience when I had, when I did my record with Cannonball in ’61.
Now the difference, now I’m the old man. You know, he’s the young kid, I’m the old guy.
[Leila] I remember when I got Timeless in the mail,
and I thought Sérgio Mendes, wow, what has Sérgio Mendes been up to?
And then I put the album in and I though, "Oh, wow, this is so clever."
And I thought it was visionary and very well-executed, and it sounded great.
And it didn’t sound like it was contrived at all.
It’s not like he collaborated with classic pop acts.
No, he collaborated with people that were in the hip-hop world, like all through the spectrum.
It’s easy for that to sound like a cliché or to not really mesh well.
He did it extremely well,
but he can do it well, because that’s what he’s always done.
I would say that Sérgio was one of the original fusion artists in the commercial space,
and he’s still able to do it. So that’s part of his talent,
that he’s able to adapt and incorporate new sounds without compromising his own integrity.
It was an amazing project. I really, really loved Timeless.
It taught me a lot about patience in the studio,
how to work with different musician disciplines.
I learned a lot about that style of producing from working with Sérgio.
The album came out, it was a big success all over the world.
And I’m so happy, because that was like for me was like something fresh.
Here, I have a new start right now, I’m excited again, after 10 years, you know?
This is Sérgio Mendes. Timeless, bro. No more years. This is forever now.
[Sérgio] I’ve always loved to try new things in music,
working with somebody else that will bring a new angle, a new idea.
I’m always attracted to that.
One day, I’m trying to write a song.
I’m at the piano, trying to come up with a melody and some changes.
We just started playing together, both of us playing our keyboards into the computer.
No lyrics at all. I don’t write lyrics.
And then we’re like, "Well, who can we get to write the lyric?"
And he said, "What about John Legend?" I was like, "Oh."
It was a really lovely groove, and it felt really good.
And it already had, uh, a melody, uh, a vocal melody laid out.
Said, "Can you play a little bit of the song again?"
I never seen that in my life.
So he opens his computer,
and for an hour and a half he...
Nobody says a thing.
And then he look at me, and then said, "I’m ready."
So he goes to the booth and starts singing.
I mean, really singing with his heart and, like, John Legend, you know, that voice.
And, uh, and I go like, "What?"
♪ I see the wonder In your eyes ♪
♪ Let the rhythm hypnotize Let it take your mind away ♪
♪ Ooh, let’s get Closer than before ♪
♪ Let’s arrive at Something more ♪
♪ Then we’ll make It real today ♪
Was such a beautiful words and everything was like,
so the lyric and the melody were like that.
That’s John singing, and I say, "Yay."
We called it "Don’t Say Goodbye," and it really came out beautifully.
Uh, he did a great solo on it, as he does. And it was a really lovely record.
♪ Let me spend it All with you ♪
Sérgio is a real passionate guy.
He’s passionate about food, he’s passionate about wine.
[Sérgio] My mom was a great cook, and I have the memories,
the perfume of her food and the taste of her food.
So the interesting food, I think, had a lot to do with her,
and I think that later on in life provoked me to try different foods, you know?
Again, it has to do with curiosity of the palate, of the hearing, you know?
I wanna hear new sounds.
That’s the whole thing about the palate,
and the nose and the hearing.
I think they all related, and wine comes right into that.
It’s... Well, it’s a mixture of hedonism and curiosity, no.
[Will.i.am] Sérgio is like very emotional. Say, for example, we finished recording.
If it’s late, he’ll have a glass of wine,
and then we’ll get to talking and he’ll get to shedding a tear or two,
’cause that’s just how much he loves music and how open he is with his emotions.
And, by the way, the, the chefs, they call the stove,
they call le piano, the piano, which I love. That is, oh, yeah, really?
I said, "Yeah, we call le piano."
Oh, le piano, it’s me. I like that.
So all of those things, when you add them together, it’s great.
The piano, the music, the wine, the food, a grand celebration of life.
When I had the opportunity to create Rio,
the first thing I thought about like, okay, this movie gotta have music.
And I want it to be authentic, but I want it to be something also accessible
to the world audience, and who could do that.
And then Sérgio Mendes’s name came, like, right off the bat.
I met him, I mean again, you know, immediately, you know?
So he told me the story about the idea of the birds in Brazil
and I said, "Oh, man, this is amazing." I said, "I’m in."
It was something totally new for me, because making a record,
I know I’ve been doing that,
but working for a movie’s a different thing, totally different.
Sérgio really came up with these like very simple notes
that really became the, the spine of Rio, like in Rio, which was like that,
kinda like little melody that was really simple but really potent, you know.
And that’s when John embraced it, and then off they went into creating this amazing song.
That’s ultimately what Carlos was trying to tell a story of his own home.
And so by bringing in Sérgio, you know, the two of them,
they stretched that understanding of what home is if you come from Rio.
Let’s have a song that establishes the, the joy of your childhood.
♪ All the birds of a feather ♪
♪ Do what they love Most of all ♪
♪ We are the best at rhythm And laughter ♪
♪ That’s why we love carnival ♪
♪ Possibly we can sing too ♪
♪ Sun and beaches, they coo ♪
♪ Dance to the music Passion and love ♪
♪ Show us the best You can do ♪
[Sérgio] The song we wrote was nominated for an Oscar,
which was another great experience to be in the Oscars, you know?
We’re all kind of like... We’re jumping up and down with joy,
like that he got that nomination. It was so, oh, oh, you know, so right.
♪ ...in Rio know Something else ♪
♪ All by itself, itself ♪
♪ You can’t see it coming ♪
♪ You can’t find it anywhere Else anywhere else ♪
It’s interesting, you know, I usually don’t hear my old records
for whatever reason, ’cause I’m always thinking about the next.
I think it’s amazing that he’s had such a successful career for this long,
that he’s been relevant for this long, and, uh,
I think a lot of musicians would envy that and it’s not easy to duplicate.
[Leila] So Sérgio has 19 entries on the Billboard 200.
The Billboard 200 are the 200 albums
that at any given time are the top-selling albums in the United States, 200.
To be able to get into that chart, you have to sell.
I mean, there’s like no way around it. You can’t make that up. It’s like tangible.
[Common] First of all, to be able to work 60 years and have a career in the arts is amazing.
That’s like a gift from the creator, for sure.
That’s a gift from the creator that you are taking and you are,
like, nurturing it and you are, like, developing it and you are using it in the right way.
People sometimes ask me the question, well, you keep reinventing yourself.
I never think about that word first of all. I don’t use that word.
Why would you wanna reinvent him? He’s perfect the way he is.
I will never retire, because I love what I do.
I love traveling, I love playing concerts and working with my band.
It gives me tremendous pleasure. So in my mind the idea of retiring, no way.
I think his music transcends like age and all those barriers that we think,
we keep thinking, oh, he’s an old-timer. He hasn’t, like, since Brasil ’66, you know,
but actually, he never stops, you know, like...
And I think it makes his work always contemporary.
It’s impossible for an artist to have a career that long.
This Sérgio Mendes dude seen a whole bunch of presidents through, bro.
A president only has four to eight years, that’s it.
Sérgio Mendes seen Nixon, Ford, freaking, think about all the presidents he’s seen.
Come on.
Sérgio’s a visionary. When he sees an opportunity,
he’ll go for it. He doesn’t go backwards, he goes forward all the time.
I think he does it out of the right reasons.
He’s passionate about making music.
He loves to do it, he loves to record and,
uh, he’s really good at it, and I think that keeps him alive.
For me, this whole journey, the word is joy, alegria.
Uh, the next party, I’m ready.
♪ Yeah, how y’all Feeling out there? ♪
♪ Sabor do Rio, let’s go ♪
♪ Yeah, come on ♪
♪ Feel the sunshine Yeah, it’s summertime ♪
♪ Little brew, a little Bit of little wine ♪
♪ We feeling good now In the ’hood now ♪
♪ Rio de Janeiro Understood now? ♪
♪ Coming from Chicago This is Common ♪
♪ I’m in the place With my man, Sérgio ♪
♪ This is how the words’ll go ♪
♪ This is how we rockin’ in The circle, universal though ♪
♪ La music, we in sync ♪
♪ A lot of people doing What we can, no think ♪
♪ Don’t think too long Don’t think too wrong ♪
♪ When it come to this Yo, you lovin’ that song ♪
♪ Now, we can go strong Look at the palm ♪
♪ Trees and feel breeze, MC’s ♪
♪ This is how we be When the style’ll be free ♪
♪ I love it when the Ladies just smile at me ♪
♪ Let’s go this discussion Over Rio percussion ♪
♪ It’s like this, y’all Everything is gushing ♪
♪ A little bit of water ♪
♪ It’s what the sons And daughters ♪
♪ When they come to Brazil It’s all in order ♪
♪ Gotta go down Gotta hold down ♪
♪ Shout out to my man Green from Motown ♪
♪ But we comin’ back To Brazil to feel ♪
♪ The type of things That’s real, yo ♪
♪ Everybody chill and just ♪
♪ Sabor do Rio ♪