Lucas Santtana on his 10th album, ‘Brasiliano’, a celebration of the languages of Brazil

0:12Hello and welcome to the Monaco Weekly. I'm Fernando Augusto Pacheco and today I had the pleasure to speak with veteran Brazilian singer, producer and guitarist Lucas Santtana about his new album, Brasiliano. An ode to the unique language spoken in Brazil, incorporating Portuguese, indigenous and African words. Let's have a listen.

0:54Luca Santana, what a pleasure to have you here at Monaco Radio. Two Brazilians talking to each other. And you have a new album out, Brasiliano, and a selection of gigs here in Europe. But I find this is such an interesting concept of an album. You will have to explain to us. So basically, it's something about being proud of being Brazilian, of our language, and almost changing our language as well. So explain to us the concept of Brasiliano first.

1:22Lucas Santtana:Brazilian started with the idea of thinking in many Romance languages, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician, etc. But in the middle of the process, I started to read some books about linguists and about the formation of the Brazilian language, the history of the formation of Brazilian language. And finally, I discovered a new entire world, the Brazilian linguistics people. And I discovered that in Brazil, we speak a red and not a language. We don't speak Portuguese anymore. In fact, we never spoke Portuguese in Brazil. This is a big era, historic era. There's many things that you can talk about it.

2:18Lucas Santtana:But that proves that if you study the history, the formation of the language in Brazil, you'll be sure that we never spoke Portuguese. In fact, all the time we spoke another language and this language, it's a Brazilian language. And what does involve Brazilian language? It is, from my understanding and even listening to the album, it's a mix of different languages. There's the European, there's the African, there's, of course, the indigenous. You know, that's actually the original languages of Brazil in a way, right? Exactly. When the Portuguese arrived in Brazil in 1500, they came in the both with one family language.

3:05Lucas Santtana:there was the Brahmans language from Latin and through Mediterranean and Spain and Galicia and Portugal etc. with a lot of influence of Arab language also. But when they both arrived in Brazil they met 1 ,800 indigenous languages. So there were many family languages, not just one. And then with the slavery, it arrived around 300 African languages. So many family languages, you know. So everybody in Brazil agree that we are a people from we are a meeting from different people, Portuguese, indigenous people, African people. So if everybody said yes to it, that you are a melting point of a mix of races, why are languages just Portuguese?

4:11Lucas Santtana:So we ignore it, 1 ,800 languages from indigenous, you know. We ignore it, almost 300 languages that come from Africa. And there's another point very interesting to everybody knows that Brazil has five centuries of history, okay? the first two centuries and a half, the most popular language on the streets in Brazil, it was not Portuguese. It was linguagem, general language, a mix between Portuguese and indigenous language. So it means that half of the history of Brazil, the Portuguese, it was not the language, the majority language on the streets. And then when the African people arrive in Brazil, they start to try to speak this language and they modify completely the way that we speak.

5:13Lucas Santtana:For example, all the countries that was colonized by Portugal speak with the Portugal accent, something like that. this kind of accent is different in Moçambique is different in Cabo Verde is different in Angola but all the countries colonized by Portugal speak with this accent the Brazil is the only one that never spoke like that and this is because the way of African people try to speak general languages and Portuguese so in all the history of Brazil we never spoke Portuguese. Of course, the grammar, it's almost the same, but the language is not just grammar. The language, it's memory, you know, it's the culture.

6:09Lucas Santtana:And the Brazilian culture in our memory, it's very, very different of Portugal. For example, if I say the word pipoca, popcorn, this world doesn't exist in Portugal. But for us, it's a world with a lot of memory because language is about memory, it's about culture. And if all Brazilian people recognize a Brazilian music, a Brazilian literature, a Brazilian architecture, a Brazilian gastronomy, a Brazilian cinema, So if we as a people, we recognize ourselves into a Brazilian country, why the language is Portuguese does make sense for me. But that idea can be a bit controversial for some as well.

7:04I mean, are you expecting, you know, some backlash? I mean, because I think it's a, you know, I would love to speak Brazilian. I think it's such a beautiful word as well. But are you ready for the, you know, there will be some people that might be disagreeing with you a little bit.

7:17Lucas Santtana:Yeah, people that disagree, the point is all the time, oh, but the grammar is the same. Okay, are you telling a history? The Portuguese languages, when they both came out from Portugal to colonize Brazil, Portuguese, it was not the official language in Portugal. Portuguese became to be the official language in Portugal just one century after arriving in Brazil. And there is another history very important to understand about grammar. In the beginning, it means around the 8th century, 9th century, the Galician language. And the Portuguese, it was the same language. the same language in terms of grammar, okay?

8:13Lucas Santtana:But around the century 13, 14, Portugal started to think about create a great nation, you know, create a Portugal. And they used the language to do that. So Galician in Portuguese, it was absolutely the same language, But Portugal started to retire Galician from their history. And there's a book very interesting from one of the best Portuguese linguists called Fernando Venancio. They wrote a book called Assim Nasce Uma Língua. This book is very interesting. And he tells us this story. So Portugal creates the Portuguese language to create the nation, the Portugal nation. Very interesting. So language, it's absolute political, you know, it's a political stuff.

9:19Lucas Santtana:So if Portugal said, no, we don't speak Galician, we speak Portuguese. Oh, but the grammar is the same. Doesn't matter. we want to create our nation so we need to create our language I think that in Brazil it's the same so to the people that say no Lucas you are wrong the grammar is the same I would like to say this history because Portugal made this with their language so we can do, why not why not Lucas tell us how are you using this concept in the new album I've listened to it. It's beautiful. And it features eight different languages, right? So tell us a bit more. How did you want to show this?

10:08Because for me, it's an album of collaborations. I mean, there's incredible musicians in there. But tell us more about the music aspect as well.

10:33Lucas Santtana:The history of his album started when I realized that I completed 10 albums and 25 years of career. So my first idea before I understand what I talk about, it was, okay, I need to make an album very happy, to celebrate 10 albums, 25 years of career, etc. So I invited many people to sing with me, to play with me, etc. And then I was walking on the street with my son, and now we live in the south of France since four years ago. and this happened like four months after we moved to France. And my son told me, oh, that I speak Portuguese very well, Spanish very well, I will speak French very well. So after that, I think that I will study Italian because in this way, I will conquer the principal Romance language.

11:39Lucas Santtana:and when he said Romance language I loved these two words together and I said what is Romance language and he told me oh it's the family of the language that comes from Latin but there's another language also as Galician, Catalan and Occitan etc and I said oh my son thank you so much you give me the K for my next album and I come back home and I start to read about the Brahms language, you know. And I think, oh, it's so nice. I can make an album in different Brahms language. I can sing in different Brahms language and I can invite some singers to do that with me. So the idea of making an album to celebrate with many people and the idea of Brahms language, It was perfect together.

12:39Lucas Santtana:And I started to do that to compose in Italian for the first time and composing in French songs, Spanish songs, etc. And invite people to sing with me in their native language. But in the middle of the process, I discovered the Brazilian language. And this changed completely the subject of the album. It's because that, in the beginning, the name of the album, it was Roma's language. And then changed to Brazilian because that. So, yeah, this is the history of the album. And because that, I invited a lot of singers, songwriters from many different countries to participate. And you have a song called Línguas Gerais, right?

13:26Which you were talking to me just now about it. There's some partnerships with Tanara Taku as well, which is an indigenous kind of language singer as well. So that's super interesting.

13:35Lucas Santtana:Yes, I composed the chorus of the song. And in the chorus, I tried to make two sentences to talk about decolonization and decolonization. So because of that, I invited an indigenous sing-songwriter, Tainara Takwa, to sing in Tupi, Guarani. and also the great French rapper Oxmo Puccino to talk about decolonization because he's French but his parents are from Africa, from the country that it was colonized by France. So this is the idea of this track. It's talk about decolonization because the language is the political stuff. So I think that there's a big connection between both.

14:45And you had that beautiful start of a song, A História da Nossa Língua, with Gilberto Gil, Brazilian music legend, former culture minister as well. I think he's a bit of a supporter of the Brasiliano idea as well, right?

15:00Lucas Santtana:Yes, this song tells about the history of the formation of Brazilian language. It's a synopsis of this book called Latin in Po. How say that in English? Latin in Po. Dust. Latin in Dust. Something like that. So this book, it's very revolutionary because the book shows us that, in fact, there is a Brazilian language. And I try to make a synopsis of this book. So I compose this song. And I play with Gilberto Gil for four years. He is a Brazilian legend. And now he's a member of the Brazilian Academic Letters. Yeah, from the Writers Association, yeah. Yeah, it's something like that. that it's very important, very significant in Brazil.

15:58Lucas Santtana:So it was perfect because I played in his band for four years in the past and after some decades he sang my song and he's part of the Brazilian Association so it was very significant for me, you know, like the end of a cycle in my life. fantastic and it's a beautiful album and you'll be coming you'll be here in Europe including London for a Brasiliano tour right? yes we will play on 27th March at 229th January in London it will be the first concert of the tour in London a good start it's going to be a good start yeah a good start I hope

17:07Thank you, Lucas Santana there. His album, Brasiliano, is out now. And he will be performing in London live at the venue 229 on the 27th of March. I'm Fernando Augusto Pacheco and this show was edited by Jack Dewars Thank you for listening