Caetano Veloso

Caetano Veloso has often been called the Bob Dylan of Brazil. But it’s just as accurate to say that Dylan is the Caetano Veloso of America. Both are founding fathers of modern pop music, deified as icons in their respective countries. Each has written poetry, worked in film, and is a political provocateur, though Veloso is the only one to spend time in jail for his activism. Back in the mid-Sixties, he fused bossa nova with arty rock guitars, edgy jazz, spoken word, and folk influences from Brazil’s Bahia region to help create the tropicalismo sound. And his musical innovations have continued through the present.