City of Music, Bahia

Salvador, Bahia, looking down on the Cidade da Musica

There are many reasons to visit Salvador de Bahia, a city that vibrates with the sounds, aromas, and colours of Africa, a city whose exuberant spirit is so powerful that it can awaken the sensorily dead. Amongst its many treasures, is the Cidade de Musica. In the same way that cities are often defined by their literary cultures, so by their musical traditions. One of my many unfinished book projects was to document just such a musical history. Kingston Reggae, Berlin Techno, Chicago House, Detroit Soul, London Punk, New York Hip-Hop, Milan Opera, Lagos Afrobeat. It is an idea overflowing with permutations and possibilities. The City of Music would fill several chapters. Housed in a blue and white tiled colonial building, and spread over four floors, it offers an astonishing array of audio-visual environments that celebrate the rich and vibrant musical history of Bahia. Sound booths, percussion workshops, documentary films and interactive displays, all combine to create a sonic landscape that pulsates with the rhythms of Capoeira, Samba, Bossa Nova, Rap, and Reggae. Brasilian music needs no introduction, and like its food, religion, and miscegenated population is a fusion of African, European and Indigenous cultures. But Salvador is special. A magic place where Angolan martial arts are laden with Yoruban gods, a place that produced household names like Ara Ketu, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Ivete Sangalo, Novos Baianos, and the undoubted global monarchs of the drum, Oludum. To listen and watch everything in the museum requires a formidable seven hundred and fifty hours. That’s seven months. At the entrance, the curator of the museum Antonio Riserio writes; “It's a two-way game. The city gives life to music, music gives life to the city. The city knows its music, and music makes us know the city and its people...” It would make for a great introduction to my unwritten book.