Tecnobrega is the most exuberant breed of the brega genre and has become a symbol of the State of Pará in the Amazonian region of Brazil. In 2024, it is also making waves outside the borders of Northern Brazil through pop hits like Pabllo Vittar’s “Ai Ai Ai” and getting recognition from the global scene of electronic dance music, such as London-based project Boiler Room.
There are debates on the genre’s origins, but tracking its history inevitably leads us to one artist and, more specifically, one song: “Lana” by Tonny Brasil. Released in the late 1990s (the year is unconfirmed), “Lana” is reportedly the first brega song recorded 100 percent electronically. Its release is considered the birth of the tecnobrega genre. The term “tecnobrega” is an agglutination of the prefix that refers to technology, or even techno music, and of course, the music genre “brega”.
Brega music made in the North of Brazil was a mix of several genres and influences, including doo-wop, rockabilly, and Jovem Guarda (Brazil’s response to Beatlemania in the 1960s). These influences can be heard in the beat pattern and melody of “Lana”. However, adding keyboards changed everything. This would be one of Tonny Brasil’s many contributions to Brazilian music.
Tonny Brasil died in June 2024 at the age of 57. He left a repertoire of over 2,000 songs, recorded by names like Banda Calypso, Banda Sayonara, Reginaldo Rossi, Marília Mendonça, Wanderley Andrade, and Gaby Amarantos. Unfortunately, he left little to no records or written archives of his creative process.
The stories of the creation and the repercussions of Tonny Brasil’s songs live in the streets of Belém (the capital of the State of Pará), and in the memories and research of people such as Tonny Brasil’s son, musician Jimmy Goes; Eduardo Barbosa (musician, music researcher and executive producer of events dedicated to the promotion of lambada); and Junior Almeida (DJ, music researcher, and director of the museum Sonoro Paraense). PopMatters talked with them about “Lana”.
The Making of “Lana”
Almeida: I remember some years ago when I participated as a DJ in a project called “Cafona” together with DJ Igor Alves, Tonny Brasil revealed to us that [the idea to create the track] “Lana” came from a project called “Esquema 3”. This project involved three musicians who made medleys (called pout-pourris) of “seresta” electronic music. It was [purely] electronic, made with keyboards, with no acoustic drums. Tonny Brasil listened to this album and created a project with his keyboards. That’s when he created “Lana”.
Goes: I was little when my dad worked on his music production at home. [“Lana”] was written before I was born, but I remember him producing the song at home, in his studio, with his equipment. He was making the “demos” to take to the recording studio. I remember him programming on a Solton MS50 keyboard. He used some floppy disks and wrote some notes on them. The track was later recorded in a professional studio my dad accessed.
This song allowed my dad to do one of his first TV interviews. If I remember correctly, my mother made the blazer my dad is wearing on the album cover.
Rock ’n’ Roll’s Influence on “Lana”
Almeida: Rock ’n’ roll has everything to do with the [brega] movement. Rock is about movement and behavior, not just distorted guitars. Brega is about that, too: the clothes, the attitude, the poetry, everything. This is what I have been saying for years. I can compare our brega singers with the great rock singers. If you look at Tina Turner’s clothes and stage presence, it’s similar to a female brega singer. The name [rock’n’roll] is a bit heavier, but the two genres are close.
Goes: Many brega songs were visions of international songs. We often say that these [international] songs were “improved” in these [brega] versions. It has something to do with the process of ideological domination. It’s almost as if these brega versions were a subversion of the notion that “only what comes from outside [Brazil] is good; almost as if our idea was to use the good [foreign] music and make it even better, make it sound more like us. Rock influences the brega from these [early beginnings] times as much as other genres due to the music played on the radios and TVs at the time. People from Pará used the “hype” of that time [to create brega].
International Electronic Music‘s Influence on Tonny Brasil’s Work
Barbosa: Tecnobrega is [the outcome of] the search for cheapening recording costs: so instead of spending money on renting a studio, [hiring] guitar players, bass players, drum players, etc., you’ll only need a keyboard player doing everything on the keyboards or programming an electronic drum. It was a market solution, a response to the financial shortage [crisis] that was going on at the time. It’s not [only] an aesthetic matter. But it is also about flirting with house, dance, and techno music. I see these three genres as the pillars of the eurodance that tecnobrega musicians want to assimilate.
Almeida: In my opinion, electronic brega grew along with Brazilian music. Electronic music was growing in the world at that time. [The trends were] moving away from acoustic music to electronic music. So [the brega movement] wanted to be left behind, especially when it came to soundstages. Other movements were growing along with this amplification, right? This sound compression was happening in Brazil and around the world. So brega grew too. I remember very well the conversations people had at the time about electronic music. Especially for those in the sound system movement like us in Pará, [electronic music] contributed a lot.
Goes: The possibility of making the brega rhythm sound electronically democratized and made the musical production of the people of Pará possible. It’s not really a matter of opinion.
Barbosa: When Tonny was in [the band] Açaí Machine, he started flitting shamelessly with house music, dance music, and electronic music. Açaí Machine was way ahead of its time. They predicted a lot of things that were going to be done [by other artists in the future]. Many things released nowadays sound like what Açaí Machine released [when they were active]. Their production influenced brega in general, so I believe [Tonny Brasil’s] legacy is very important for our music. He was a real turning point.
How “Lana” Started Tecnobrega
Almeida: As a novelty, “Lana” touched everyone. Every “aparelhagem” [sound system parties in the State of Pará] wanted to play “Lana”.
Barbosa: “Lana” was a starting point for a way of making brega [music], a way that is more economic for those who can’t afford [to hire] a band. [It fulfills] a need of the artist to release music in whatever it takes to do it. Artists need to compose, produce, and release music. Artists also have to pay bills, but making music is a personal need through which we [the artists] make a living. So I think “Lana” shows a lot about that: the need to make and release music more cheaply — but not without quality.
Goes: Before [“Lana”], recording a song was very expensive and complicated. This took away the chance for many talents to showcase their work. After people—especially people who lived in the peripheries—began to afford to buy equipment such as domestic computers, it became cheaper and easier to produce music or make other forms of art. Talented people without opportunities have always been around. The creation of tecnobrega opened horizons for those who did not have the chance to showcase their talent.
Almeida: [“Lana” inspiring Pará musicians to produce brega electronically] enabled everyone to listen to our music and see how different it was. Our brega used to be a “band” genre, but it was a novelty when “Lana” was released, and everyone in the Amazonic region wanted to join it.
Goes: My father created a new rhythm. He managed to democratize the way music was made in the state of Pará and went down in history for that, and for having composed many of the songs that were successful in this rhythm and other rhythms, such as Calypso, Zouk, and Cumbia.
“Lana”s Detractors
Barbosa: Tecnobrega went through a stage of [being subject of] prejudice with the rest of the brega [breeds]. Prejudice has always been there, but I can affirm nowadays it is not as big. Today, brega is on TV, in newspapers, in magazines, in music festivals, and even in underground indie festivals. But back in the 1990s, there was a deepening of the discrepancy of places for “bregueiros” [brega artists] to perform, especially after the interest in lambada diminished there in the early 1990s (it got swallowed up by axé). Then Brega started to be seen as “brothel music”, something people did not want to admit they liked to listen to. The return of brega began around 1996, with the success of Roberto Vilar. Brega made [another] comeback in the early 2000s, through the form of brega pop.
[When the electronic breed of brega arose], there was a prejudice against tecnobrega inside the brega movement. There were comparisons and judgments regarding what kind of brega was better. People used to say: “Mauro Cotta’s breed of brega is good, but this accelerated version of brega is not good”. There’s a nostalgic element to that, as people may believe the past is better than the present.
I still hear comments like this, but back at that time, this sentiment was stronger. But actually, this is not a matter of good music versus bad music. [Old school brega and tecnobrega] are completely different processes of musical construction and aesthetic construction. Brega becoming more electronic does not necessarily mean [the production] is easier; it is just a different way of producing music, but there’s still a heavy prejudice against it.
Goes: Historically, there has always been prejudice against what is done by black, poor, and peripheral people. Samba was once illegal. Capoeira was once illegal. Brega was never illegal, but prejudice against this musical style was once very latent among the people of Pará. This prejudice still exists in more closed-minded people who do not identify the brega rhythm played in Pará as part of our cultural identity precisely because it is something the peripheral population appreciates, first and foremost. These people usually justify it as personal taste. Still, it is a prejudice that is based on racism, which is one of the foundations on which Brazilian society was built and also a pillar of the capitalist mode of production.
The ideological domination of people is a key factor in the existence of this type of prejudice, making people think that what is good comes from overseas, failing to recognize the value of what is made in the place where they live. The prejudice against the brega rhythm is more veiled today, because the genre has been “gourmetized”, the [artist’s] bodies have become “less black” and have turned the Tecnobrega rhythm into a marketable product. It is sold as something almost exotic, similar to what happens with funk carioca.
Tonny Brasil‘s and “Lana”s Legacy
Barbosa: Tonny Brasil was a watershed of the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. He composed for the greatest artists of Pará, such as Wanderley Andrade and Banda Calypso (which managed to have national hits thanks to him).
Goes: I was able to see my father writing the lyrics of songs like “Gererê”, which was recorded by Nelsinho Rodrigues. Joelma and Chimbinha of Banda Calypso used to go tour house to talk to my father, I saw Chimbinha recording some guitar lines for the tracks he and my father produced together. My father has a big influence in Pará’s culture, because through his work he managed to change the reasons why Pará was known nationally.
Almeida: For musicians of the North of Brazil, Tonny Brasil was everything. He was [the responsible for] all these changes happening in the music of Pará, and even of Brazil. He managed to create something that is very “ours”, a very peripherical [sound], with our manners, our way of speaking, our feelings. It is very difficult for an artist to capture things like these.
Goes: Pará used to be known of the State of the El Dorado massacre. Today, it is known as the State of Tecnobrega. Of course, there are other things that Pará is known for, such as its cuisine, for example. But in terms of music, it is impossible to talk about Pará without mentioning [Tonny Brasil’s] name, unless it is to talk about something specific that he was not part of or did not have much influence on. But if you walk through the streets of Belém, at some point you will inevitably hear one of his songs, whether it is sung by him or by another artist. It is one of the things that makes me the most proud.
Actually, his songs are played all over the world, to a greater or lesser extent. With the advent of the Internet, it is possible to listen to a song he produced in the “Beco da facada” (how he called Passagem Maria, the street where we lived), anywhere in the world. He became immortal in the history of the State of Pará as the creator of the tecnobrega rhythm and one of the greatest composers in Brazil, and perhaps in the world, with almost 3,000 songs composed throughout his career.
All interviews were conducted in Portuguese, freely translated to English by the writer, and condensed for clarity.