Nei Lopes

Since 1972 Nei Lopes has worked as a professional composer, earning recognition through his longstanding creative alliance with Wilson Moreira as well as his scholarly investigations into samba. Numerous leading present-day exponents of traditional samba have committed his pieces to disc. In the opening years of the 1970s he set aside his legal practice to concentrate on music and literature. His initial composition to reach the public, “Figa de Guiné,” written with Reginaldo Bessa, appeared in 1972 under Alcione’s interpretation. The following year he made his recording debut by contributing two selections to the Continental anthology Tem Gente Bamba Na Roda de Samba. Toward the close of the decade Lopes formed a songwriting partnership with Wilson Moreira that yielded the well-received numbers “Coisa da Antiga,” “Goiabada Cascão” (later cut by Elis Regina), “Senhora Liberdade” (recorded by Zezé Mota), and “Gostoso Veneno” (taken up by both Alcione and Paul Mauriat). The pair issued two albums of their joint material: A Arte Negra de Wilson Moreira e Nei Lopes in 1980 and O Partido Muito Alto de Wilson Moreira e Nei Lopes. Independent of Moreira, Lopes achieved notice with “Fidelidade Partidária,” “E Eu Não Fui Convidado” (co-written with Zé Luiz), and “Baile No Elite” (composed with João Nogueira). Throughout the 1980s he helped catalyze the pagode de fundo de quintal movement, which returned samba to a central position within the cultural marketplace. His published studies of samba in Brazil comprise O Samba, Na Realidade (1981), Bantos, Malês e Identidade Negra (1988), O Negro No Rio de Janeiro e Sua Tradição Musical (1992), Dicionário Banto Do Brasil (1996), Zé Kéti, O Samba Sem Senhor (2000), and Logunedé; Santo Menino Que Velho Respeita (2000).