A Case Study of Brazilian Popular Music and Censorship

Abstract

This article examines the censorship of popular music in Brazil by focusing on the experience of songwriter Ivan Lins during the country’s military dictatorship. Since the late 1970s, Lins was included in the government list of “suspects” of the musical scene; his songs were often censored and his performances placed under surveillance. Before analyzing Lins’s musical production, its meanings, and its relationship with the regime’s repression forces, the article first discusses the historical context of the years preceding the coup that paved the way for the military dictatorship. It then considers Lins’s use of imagery in his songs to prove his stand. It shows that Lins’s songs reveal the range of conflicts and ambiguities that characterize the relationship between music, politics, and the culture industry in Brazil.