Negro Leo – The Newspeak

Based in Rio de Janeiro, Negro Leo is a singer, songwriter and musician from Maranhão. Influenced by Peter Brötzmann’s free jazz, by Caetano Veloso and Jards Macalé’s “tropicalismo”, and by James Chance and Arto Lindsay´s nowave, Negro Leo has been highlighted in Rio´s scene.

In Ilhas de Calor (“Heat Islands”), his fourth album, Leo followed an unprecedented procedure in his work: the album was developed from impromptu sessions with the musicians Thomas Harres (Abayomy Afrobeat Orchestra, drums), Felipe Zenícola (Chinese Cookie Poets, bass) and Eduardo Manso (Bemônio, Baby Hitler, Rabotnik, guitar) and Leo himself, playing guitar, Wurlitzer, clavinet, and modulating many timbres of his voice. From editions held on improvisation, Leo wrote the lyrics and sang on the bases, printing on each an incendiary and urgent poetics. (Un)songs characterized by strong lyrics and delirious images of everyday life, interpersonal relations and the global political crisis. The violence, the heat of the streets and poetry form a fragmentary and filled puzzle of ideas that invites the listener to a radical experience.