What do Jimmy Cliff, Jimmy Page, and Dionne Warwick all have in common? For one thing, they've all lived in Bahia. And so have, and do, untold numbers of other wonderful creators whose magisterial work has never reached beyond very limited surroundings. That's why all this began. If all creators can potentially have global reach, Bahian creators can too.
In this matrix it's not which pill you take, it's which pathways you take, pathways originating in the sprawling cultural matrix of Brazil: Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, European, Asian... Ground Zero is the Recôncavo, delineated by the Bay of All Saints, earthly center of gravity for the disembarkation of enslaved human beings — and the sublimity they created — presided over by the ineffable Black Rome of Brazil: Salvador da Bahia.
("Black Rome" is an appellation per Caetano Veloso, son of the Recôncavo, via Mãe Aninha of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá.)
Location & Map:
R. Vinte e Cinco de Junho, 4 - Cachoeira, BA, 44300-000 [open map]
Life & Work
Bio:
A Casa Pretahub na Bahia se encontra na cidade de cachoeira no Recôncavo da Bahia, uma cidade histórica que possui uma representativade potente para cultura afro-brasileira.
É um espaço pensado para apoiar os artistas locais a produzir conteúdo para o digital, tendo um estudio fotográfico e de som, além do espaço de coworking para co-criar e desenvolver os negócios locais, promovendo um ecossistema diverso de economia colaborativa pautada nos temas de afro empreendedorismo e cultura afro diaspórica.
O lançamento ocorreu no dia 13 de agosto de 2021, no mesmo dia da tradiconal festa secular da irmandade da boa morte, uma confraria religiosa afro-católica que, na sua origem, e por muito tempo, foi responsável pela alforria de inúmeros escravos.
A intenção é torná-lo o mais novo espaço da valorização da cultura negra na Cidade de Cachoeira, sendo um espaço de fomento as novas economias, pautadas na ciatividade, colaboração e circularidade, com o engajamento social e cultural, de difusão e preservação artística da cultura negra permanente, estimulando a criatividade e produção cultural do país.
English:
The Casa Pretahub in Bahia is located in the city of Cachoeira in the Recôncavo region of Bahia, a historic city that holds significant importance for Afro-Brazilian culture.
It is a space designed to support local artists in producing digital content, featuring a photography and sound studio, as well as a coworking space for co-creating and developing local businesses, promoting a diverse ecosystem of collaborative economy centered around themes of Afro-entrepreneurship and Afro-diasporic culture.
The launch took place on August 13, 2021, on the same day as the traditional secular celebration of the sisterhood of the good death, an Afro-Catholic religious fraternity that, in its origin and for a long time, was responsible for the emancipation of countless slaves.
The intention is to make it the newest space for the valorization of Black culture in the City of Cachoeira, serving as a hub for fostering new economies based on creativity, collaboration, and circularity, with social and cultural engagement, diffusion, and permanent artistic preservation of Black culture, stimulating creativity and cultural production in the country.
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"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
MATRIX MUSICAL
I built the Matrix below (I'm below left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).