Chico Buarque de Hollanda was born in Rio, but spent part of his childhood in São Paulo. Born to a family of intellectuals – his father and uncle were writers – Chico belongs to the generation of artists who exploded in the 60s in Brazil, together with Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, a decade later than Tom Jobim and João Gilberto.
Chico is not just one of Brazil’s best composers. He is a most remarkable poet, a playwright, a writer, a singer. He is present through his music in the lives of millions of Brazilians, Europeans and in other parts of the world.
In Brazil everybody loves Chico Buarque de Hollanda, or just Chico. Anyone can hum a song or two that relates to one’s own story. President Lula da Silva, for example, tells that “A Banda” was playing when he met his wife Marisa. Either through a love song, or a political one, Chico has left his mark in many lives. And he keeps on doing it.
With a great sense of humor, Chico is a good storyteller and amuses himself fooling people with made up stories. He loves soccer and even owns a team, Polytheama, in which he is active and plays three times a week.
The other days, he takes long walks on the beach, sometimes on parks or even the Bothanic Garden in Rio, where he lives. Good way to keep his slim figure and youthful looks. Very handsome, Chico’s emerald green eyes fed passionate fantasies in many women. And still do.
Chico loves his family and loves to write. Friends say that he is a perfeccionist when writing his music and his ability to intertwine words and notes is of a rare kind.
For 40 years Chico Buarque has been writing Brazil’s soundtrack and although he does not like too much praising around him – he was brought up having modesty as an important treasure to nurture – he is adored in Brazil.
He does not call himself a showman, but the shows’ earnings supported the writer.
Until now.
Writing Budapest changed Chico’s life as a writer. The book caused such an impact in Europe that it made to the finals at the Foreign Fiction Prize, a kind of Nobel Prize of British literature. The book sold out its first edition of 12 thousand in Italy alone and is steadily selling a minimum of 2500 copies a month in France.
The writer is now as successful as the musician, but the two sides of Chico’s art are still alive and he shall continue living up to his creative cycles. While he was busy writing Budapest, for 2 years, Chico Buarque did not write music nor went on tours. The writer was on.
Now, despite a busy schedule involving the book, the musician is back. And in between trips and events related to Budapest, Chico resumes his guitar playing, and allows the music to take over his mind.
But do not take this creative being for granted, his world is too rich and occupied by diversified interests. While in New York for the Pen Club Festival at the New York Public Library, Chico got restless at the hotel not wanting to miss a soccer game featuring his favorite Fluminense.
He just did not want to miss the game so he called Globo International TV and was directed to the network’s office in downtown Manhattan. And there he was, on a Sunday, sitting in an empty office, Chico Buarque himself, watching a game in Brazil.
Or when the French Vogue asked to photograph him for a special edition on Brazil. When the photographer arrived for the session, expecting to find a writer with the looks of an intellectual, he was surprised to find Chico wearing his soccer outfit, shorts and a T-shirt with his number, 9. So the pictures were taken at the Polytheama’s field. That’s Chico. No matter where he is, Rio, New York, Paris or Rome, Chico is always Chico.
He now plans on writing enough songs to make a new CD and to go on tour. Slowly but steadily, the songs are coming to him. This should keep him involved for another couple of years, between tours, when the writer will probably pop in and say excuse me, but I have a new book to write.
An extremely focused man, Chico Buarque produces both quality and quantity. Friends say he is extremely organized with his time and family time is a preciosity he cannot go without.
Before he started writing Budapest he asked a close friend, who was buying a new computer, for his old computer, “it’s for good luck with my new book.” The friend, a writer who lives in Paris, sent him the obsolete computer and felt very proud of his old machine when he read Budapest.
Right after he turned 60, last year, Chico celebrated with an album with 12 CDs containing all the songs that marked his career.
He has also started recording a documentary. Supposed to be a secret, it soon became public or so to speak.
The first two episodes are ready and earlier in April Chico recorded at the Estrela da Lapa, a show house, the third part with the Velha Guarda da Mangueira, a team of old samba musicians from one of the most traditional samba schools in Rio.
No public and mostly, no press were allowed during the recording session – if no longer a secret, no one knows exactly what the documentary will be like.
Of his generation, Chico Buarque is the one artist loved by everyone. Somehow he does not bring about polemic, controversial feelings, like many artists do.
Something about Chico draws people to him, they come for his art, but there is something personal on the way. A personal interest, a mixture of tenderness and respect.
Will it be the boyish smile? Or maybe the smiling green eyes… or the jokingly way he addresses people… whatever the reason, Chico Buarque is one of those rare people around about whom everyone thinks the world. Most Brazilians, if not every single one, thinks Chico is a wonderful poet, a wonderful songwriter, a wonderful everything.
Of course the military dictators did not like Chico. He was too political, he showed too many truths better kept quiet. In the middle of his early success, in love with his music that brought the love of an entire country back to him, Chico was persecuted, became sad and went into exile.
But he never stopped writing. Julinho de Adelaide was the name he picked to send songs to his friends back in Brazil to go unnoticed by the censorship, which had, at the time, big eyes focused on anything by Chico. Like in a soccer game, he tricked them any way he could but he never stopped doing what he believed.
Now Chico Buarque, the incredible songwriter, is getting world recognition for being an incredible writer, multiplying thousands of times his invisible friends and admirers.
“Le Monde,” the biggest newspaper in France elected Chico the Brazilian of the century. Chico is now producing a CD with several of his songs sung in English by prominent Brazilian singers.
Well done!
Clara Angelica Porto is a Brazilian bilingual journalist living in New York. She went to school in Brazil and at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Clara is presently working as the English writer for The Brasilians, a monthly newspaper in Manhattan. She is also the Marketing Coordinator for Brazilian Day in New York. Of herself, she says “Words have been the most important part of my professional life. Either written or spoken. And I don’t have an accent when I write…” Comments welcome at clara.angelica@gmail.com.
