Axé music

Axé music is a style of popular music which originated in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. The word comes from a ritual greeting that means good vibration and is used in the Candomblé and Umbanda religions.

The term axé began life as an insult, intended to point out the perceived pretentiousness of the genre. It was applied vaguely, however, and anything recorded in Salvador was appellated axé. Starting in about 1992 and peaking in 1998, axé became one of the most popular genres in the Brazilian music scene.

The root of axé is in guitarra baiana , a 1950s guitar style that used electric guitars to play the frevo from Pernambuco. This genre was purely instrumental, and remained so until the 1970s, when Moraes Moreira (of Novos Baianos ) began singing.

Carnival bands like Filhos de Gandhi , Olodum and Muzenza then fused the electric frevo with maracatu and samba rhythms, African ijexá and Caribbean merengue. Olodum's samba-reggae fusion was a Bahian success in the 1980s, and was followed by deboche (debauchery), an electric frevo/ijexá fusion.

In 1992, axé entered the mainstream. Daniela Mercury's O Canto Da Cidade set the stage for the explosion of bands like Banda Cheiro de Amor , Banda Eva , Bandamel and Asa de Águia . Though axé was popular, it was not without detractors like Dorival Caymmi. 1995 saw the biggest commercial success to come out of Salvador, Gera Samba (later É o Tchan), who pioneered a sexy image and crossover appeal.