Xamanismo Coletivo“The #BarretosRodeoFestival is perhaps the most visible demonstration of the nation’s economic, political, and cultural power base’s inland shift over the course of the past few decades. #Brazil is no longer the country of samba and Jorge Ben Jor’s “País Tropical”; sun-soaked, soft-power postcard images of Rio de Janeiro’s beaches belong to the nostalgia of an imagined past. Today, sertanejo music—which blends Brazil’s traditional #músicacaipira with North American country and western—dominates the country’s playlists with ballads like “Ugly Fight,” “Bad Reputation,” and “Smell of Guilt.” Themes typically include lost love and betrayal, while echoing late-capitalist tropes: performative consumption, flirting via Instagram likes, and online jealousy with an emphasis on cuckoldry. There’s even a subgenre called #agronejo, a kind of blingy rap but for farmers: Instead of diamonds and platinum, it boasts of abundant harvests, cattle profits, and imported pickup trucks, the preferred vehicle of insurgent #interiorBrazil.”
