Interviewing the Interviewer: a chat with Felipe Tadeu
By www.BrazilianArtists.net, translated by Jana Pietroluongo

Felipe Tadeu, a journalist from Rio, has lived in Germany since 1991 and is deeply involved with the diffusion of Brazilian music in the land of Kraftwerk. As a producer of a radio programme called Radar Brasil (Radio Darmstadt), as a consultant to several Brazilian and German media or as a lecturer at Universities or cultural centres this guy still finds time to perform as DJ Fila in Brazilian Sound Nights throughout Germany.

Felipe , Praça Onze, Rio, 1992

We managed to contact him via the Internet in February 2005. With the due permission of his son Gustavo, aged only a year and a quarter, Felipe gave us this interview soon after he collaborated with us with the review of the first solo album by BNegao. Enjoy it.

Who is better known in Germany: the group Tchan or Martinho da Vila?

Felipe Tadeu: Brazilians always think that the Europeans are well informed about everything that is good on a cultural level, but unfortunately it is not like that, is it? In fact, believe me if you can: when I arrived in Germany in May 91, I found out that my neighbour, a German student, aged about twenty-seven, didn’t know who Bob Marley was. Raimund was studying Machinery Engineering at College. I had to illuminate him introducing the “Catch a Fire”. This means that it’s obvious that the butts from the Tchan are better known in Germany than the beautiful sambas written by Martinho. However, many people here show an admirable interest in other countries’ cultures. Had it not being this way, how to explain that artists like Elomar, Itamar Assumpcao and Nana Vasconcelos, for instance, have their albums released here? None of these is from the so called mainstream Brazilian music showing that you can conclude that the criteria used by the Germans was almost exclusively the great quality of the work developed by the three. To conspire in this sense is what interests me. As BNegao would say the process is slow but irreversible.

You have being producing for almost eight years a programme of Brazilian music in the Radio Darmstadt. Can you tell us more details about the Radar Brasil?

The programme has a commitment with the incredible diversity of the Brazilian music. For us there is no hierarchy amongst musical genres nor it matters how famous the artist is. In the 168 programmes we have produced until December 2004 we’ve had from Adoniram Barbosa to the group Rappa. They are programmes transmitted fortnightly on Tuesdays at 8:30pm and have a bilingual edition German-Portuguese.

Felipe at work- Rádio Darmstadt On the background, Rita Lee vinil "Entradas e Bandeiras".

We focus on a specific artist or band, present a small bio about him and let on air what we consider the best of the musician’s repertoire. You know, I love to play the B side of life. If I am to introduce a programme about Chico Buarque, for instance, I’ll play “Ela desatinou”, “Futuros Amantes”, or the “Noiva da Cidade”, but never “A Banda”. No matter how much Chico’s first hit is also relatively well known here – incidentally, the song has a ridiculous version here recorded by a German artist. I think that Radar Brasil is more informative to the listener playing that little pearl here and there, the ones that have always been discarded by commercial radios.

So, you don’t play hits?

The Radar Brasil will gladly play “A Namorada” by Carlinhos Brown, or “Mama Africa”, by Chico Cesar. But we really get a kick out of playing something that is capable of surprising people by its beauty, you know? Why take up the public space – the radio waves – playing only “Garota de Ipanema”? When I was in my twenties, in Brazil, I was hooked by the German cinema but I had to choose in the dark for the coolest films; there wasn’t anyone to tell me which directors were cool or which the unmissable films were. If at that time had I had access to someone that knew German cinema well, my life would have been much cooler. That’s what I enjoy doing with the Brazilian music here; to be someone who can tell, to a German or to someone who lives in Germany, who Paulo Vanzolini, Lenine or Os Mutantes are…I must confess that sometimes I feel even a bit sadist when I play Brazilian rock to puzzle the audience. It is true that Brazil is samba, thank to the gods, Bossa Nova, but it is also Luiz Gonzaga, Arrigo Barnabe and Dona Edith do Prato.

Who is part of the “Radar Brasil” team?

The German radio presenters alternate with me, the one who presents the programme in Portuguese. And they are Axel Flörke, Ana Cláudia Krause and Gisela Pimentel but in the first five years of “Radar Brasil” the German part was presented by Alexandra Roether.

To what other media do you write for? I work as a freelance to the magazine “Tópicos”(Germany) and to the publication “International Music Magazine” from Rio de Janeiro. I also have a bilingual music column called “O Som do Brasil” in the German site “Nova Cultura” (www.novacultura.de). I have worked for the Deutsche Welle Radio for two years; I have collaborated for the Brazilian music site Cliquemusic (edited by Tárik de Souza) and for the magazine “Outracoisa” administered by the musician Lobão. Now I am starting to write about Brazilian music to the German jazz magazine “Jazzthetik”, besides the activities as DJ Fila. The only thing that is missing in order to get a medal from the Brazilian Culture Minister (“Hi, Gil, a big hug!”) is to open a Brazilian record shop! (laughs).

Felipe at the Festival Viva Afro-Brasil, Marisa Monte's concert

What does the DJ Fila usually play in the German nights?

Can I tell you an infallible sequence? Jorge Ben Jor, Daúde, Luiz Gonzaga, Carlinhos Brown, Gil, Rappa, Tim Maia, Zeca Pagodinho, Seu Jorge, Alceu Valença, Caetano...I don’t tell you what I left out – which is far from being the left overs – because I don’t want to serve it in a plate for my competitors. But I can say that I also play Clementina, Novos Baianos, Chico Science, even the Roberto Carlos from the good old times. Rhythms from the Northeast like the baião, xote, xaxado fascinate the Germans. Perhaps it is because of the good old accordion.

What do you like most in your work as a journalist and DJ and what do you hate about it?

What is terribly boring is to have to put up with inconvenient people that keeps disturbing you in the middle of a party asking you to play this or that. Those guys think that DJ is like a musical waiter; you only have to ask that the Joe DJ will play. Every DJ has an agenda more or less established that will vary according to their audience. The good DJ knows what he needs to please the young people, to keep the people on the dancing floor…but to think that he will play what someone else wants to listen to, then it is a different story. The songs have to be well linked, the repertoire has to have the DJ imprint, otherwise the people won’t come to the dance floor. What is the most rewarding thing is to know that when you work with Brazilian music, either as a DJ or a journalist is to have the feeling that you are introducing to a foreigner a masterpiece that was out of his reach. You don’t become rich doing this but your spirit rejoices and walks on the air.

In Which European country Brazilian music is more successful? I would say in France. But in Germany, precisely because it is not a Latin country, it has a much more encouraging potential. When I interviewed Lenine, he called my attention to the fact that Germany and Japan are the countries that are more receptive to other cultures. I agree although I don’t know the whole world yet.

Felipe and Lenine, in Mannheim

What would you like to change so that the Brazilian music became better known in Europe?

First I would like that musicians in Brazil were treated with more respect, that they wouldn’t have to struggle to survive only because he or she was born with a musical talent. Everybody knows that music is the Brazilian cultural gateway but you must see under what conditions musicians live in Brazil! Not everybody is as successful as Zeca Pagodinho. They should invest in more musical education at schools, after all

Brazilian music is better than our football. The Government has to invest in more tournées for the Brazilian artists, without favouring some names or groups. And the artists have to be on the road. Copyrights need to be respected in Brazil, mainly by the big media companies. They are the pirates in this business. Our musicality is phenomenal. Enough of wasting money because we don’t take advantage of it.

Does Lula Government represent any advance for the sector?

We are still waiting the government to be more focused on social justice. The Minister of Culture is an artist but we need more sensitivity to avoid that cultural projects only get peanuts from the national budget. I think it is very good that the government doesn’t charge taxes anymore on the publishing production but the end result is still not satisfactory. If this government doesn’t differentiate in the cultural, educational plane, you can ask for your hat and check out. That is the way I see: culture, as an institutional commodity, is more important than the economy of a country, although they are not even a tiny bit antagonistic.

For further info please contact Felipe Tadeu at Brasilkult@aol.com