Serginho Meriti - Bem Natural FLAC album

A few years ago, an airplane on which I was traveling back to my city was ordered to delay the landing for half an hour. The plane then circled over my city, and below me was my grandparents 'house, my parents' house, the school where I studied as a child, the place where my first job was, and the house where I lived that moment. It was as if my whole life had been suspended in time - as if, regardless of where we went, what we did, the past continued all there, in a present moment, if we rise to a considerable height like the height of an airplane to get the due perspective.

Sometimes I feel a similar sensation when diving into the old records. So much of what formed our tastes and molded our experiences, are still there, underestimated and forgotten inold sheds and record shops. Now these records may not have the same impact and meaning for new generations, precisely because they are all thrown into the same bag, out of any historical sequence, out of any timeline or musical cycle. Everything appears in great disorder, this is how the new generations see our musical past. On the other hand, nothing is completely swept or discarded - and some relevant works are retouched by other artists, from other generations.

In a way, the work of Serginho Meriti fills this gap in Brazil. Many know the sound of Serginho personified in other artists, that is, a good part of the Brazilian audience knows songs of artists that were influenced, directly or indirectly, by Serginho Meriti, but few still realize the artistic value of the records designed by Serginho Meriti in the early 1980s. Zeca Pagodinho, Martinho da Vila, Arlindo Cruz, Fundo de Quintal, Bebeto, Bezerra da Silva, Almir Guineto, Alcione, among others, are just a few artists, with emphasis on musical styles such as samba and pagode, which recorded compositions with lyrics by Serginho Meriti. In these musical styles, specifically, Serginho collaborated in more than three hundred other songs. Some of these compositions, even, are part of the imagination of the Brazilians, such as "Deixa a Vida me Levar" by Zeca Pagodinho "and" Negra Ângela "by Neguinho da Beija-Flor.

Sergio Roberto Serafim was born in Madureira, Rio de Janeiro, but has lived since childhood in São João do Meriti, a city next to Rio, in the suburb of Rio de Janeiro. that is why it was renamed as Serginho Meriti, in allusion to the city. He is the son of a violinist father and a mother songwriter in the Evangelical Church. He inherited the musical dna of the family, and since he was little, Serginho Meriti travels the tracks of the musical universe. Despite being widely recognized as a samba enthusiast, it was in the 1980s that the musician began to design his aesthetics, fusing samba with elements of Soul and Funk. This aesthetic already appears in the 1980 album of the group Copa 7, which has two songs composed by him. What is seen in his "Bons Momentos"(1981), "Vida Tão Bela Menina (1982), and "Bem Natural" (1984) records is clearly this mixture and fusion of elements that, in my view, symbolizes the sound of the suburbs of Rio at that time. In fact, the three records are incredible, and are desired in Brazil and in the world. But this record of 1984, "Bem Natural", is the most difficult of them, with limited edition and little distribution in the Brazilian territory.

The heat, the vibration and the energy of a coastal city with the climate of the Rio, were primordial for the conception of the aesthetic in the records of the Serginho. You listen to the lyrics, the chords, and mentalize a boy or a girl of humble origin, from the suburbs of Rio, dancing, in an agitated way, reproducing in their bodies, in their corporal languages, the phrases that refer to the American Boogie, lively and relaxed that bring the verve of samba, the bass lines that exude rhythm, full of groove. You notice this vibration in tracks like "O Couro Come", "Fafá Tieti" and "Relicário 81", with the same energy in other tracks present in their previous records as "Memórias de Um Neguinho Poeta", "Tipo Help", "Chateador" and "Eu Vou Fazer", for example. Anyone who listens to the 1983 record of the Zeca do Trombone, "Rota Mar", or the notorious "Tamanqueiro"of Elizio de Buzios, may perceive a similar aesthetic and similar vibration. It is the vibration of the suburb of Rio.