From popular music to the “ponto cantado”: folk song and afro-religious musicality

Abstract

This article focuses on popular Brazilian musical productions, especially from the 1970s onwards, based on the survey of songs and artists that dealt with Afro-religiosities, and their recognition within the temples of religions of African origin. By using the popular songs as “pontos de Umbanda”, the musicality of the temples demonstrates that they have traveled through a kind of double way in the historiography on Brazilian popular music in the XX and XXI century, where research indicates that “samba”, for example, appeared in some Afro-religious temples. Thus, this brief historical analysis aims to reflect on the representations of a worldview of the temples communities in the field of artistic manifestations in Brazil, as well as the re-significations of these arts by these peoples, as strategies of resistance overlapping in the singular forms of manifestation of human sacredness through music.