Orality and Capitalist Logic in the Music of Samba Schools

Abstract

One of the most striking features of the music of samba schools, the samba-enredo, is its high degree of formularity, manifested in the works of many composers from diverse epochs and stylistic tendencies. In this article, I intend to relate this phenomenon to the popular (oral) conscience model that still exists in the samba schools, and also to the fact that samba-enredo is embedded in a capitalist logic that ranges from the cultural industry in which it takes part to how works are chosen for performance in Carnival.