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Samba: Canta Canta, Minha Gente

Samba: Canta Canta, Minha Gente

posted on May 19, 2015

Brazilian Music translated lyrics Canta Canta, Minha Gente  - Martinho da Vila

There’s a type of Brazilian music that I find really encompasses the joviality found in Brazilian society and one person that understands this is Martinho da Vila, a highly respected sambista from Rio de Janeiro.

One of his songs that easily expresses the joie d’vivre is Canta Canta, Minha Gente, a 1974 hit that can still be heard all over Brazil more than 40 years later. In this song, he talks about different sub-genres of samba (some are listed here) and other Brazilian rhythms that I encourage you to find on YouTube. The song is about people simply coming together and being happy. Below, I put together the translated lyrics alongside the original.

Canta Canta, Minha Gente

Canta canta, minha gente / Sing sing, my people
Deixa a tristeza pra lá / Leave the sadness behind
Canta forte, canta alto / Sing strongly, sing loud
Que a vida vai melhorar / Because life will get better

Cantem o samba de roda / Sing samba de roda
O samba-canção e o samba rasgado / the samba-song and the “ripped” samba
Cantem o samba de breque / Sing the samba with “breaks”
O samba moderno e o samba quadrado / the modern samba and the “squared” samba

Cantem ciranda, o frevo / Sing ciranda, frevo
O côco, maxixe, baião e xaxado / the coco, maxixe, baião, and xaxado
Mas não cantem essa moça bonita / But don’t hit on this pretty girl
Porque ela está com o marido do lado / Because she’s got her husband by her side

Chorus

Quem canta seus males espanta / Those who sing scare away bad things
Lá em cima do morro / up on top of the hill (favela)
Ou sambando no asfalto / or samba’ing on the asphalt
Eu canto o samba-enredo / I sing the samba-enredo
Um sambinha lento e um partido alto / A slow little samba and a partido alto samba

Há muito tempo não ouço / For a long time I have not heard
O tal do samba sincopado / That so-called syncopated samba
Só não dá pra cantar mesmo / It’s just not really possible to sing
É vendo o sol nascer quadrado / seeing the sun rise squared*

(*to see the sun rise squared = to be in prison)

Chorus

Disritmia is another big hit by Martinho the Vila:

Singing is a great and fun way to practice pronunciation and learn vocabulary and grammar. Of course if you are serious about speaking Portuguese comfortably, your best next step is to book a Trial Lesson with us. You will quickly see the difference it makes when you learn with professional language coaches.

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About Adam Lee

Adam is a writer and a researcher who has studied Brazilian culture for over a decade and created several Brazil-themed blogs going back to 2008. Having taught himself Portuguese, he put it to practical use by spending three years doing Brazil on a budget (and living in favelas), from Rio de Janeiro to the Amazon.

He now resides in Lisbon, Portugal, developing a startup and dreaming about having a beachside B&B in the Northeast of Brazil.

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