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LOVE YOUR LOCAL BAND: SambaDá by Amanda Martinez for the GOOD TIMES, Santa Cruz
And to think, the birth of possibly the only West Coast band to deftly fuse the finesse of funk and reggae with the sensuous beats and vitality of Afro-Brazilian culture evolved out of the wish of one Brazilian native to travel to America and study economics.

It’s true. That was the initial intent of Papiba Godinho, frontman and founder of Santa Cruz’s seven-piece SambaDá, when he left his hometown Brazilia for Manhattan. But, explains the band’s percussionist Marcel Menard, Godinho chose to follow his heart, and that decision, of course, landed him right here in SC, as a teacher of Capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian mélange of martial art and dance of which Godinho is also a master.

Five years later in ’97, Godinho started jamming with six like-minded Capoeira musicians and the band was born—but it was only a Brazilian-pop cover band.

“We had a big crossroads in front of us and we had to decide,” says Menard. “Are we going to be unique?”

Opting for the uncharted musical territory, Menard explains: “we took all of these great Brazilian styles, yet we mixed it up with funk and hip hop and jazz, and people really grabbed onto it.
Good ol’ open-minded SC loved it, but the real test came in San Francisco, where club promoters were booking safe and recognizable bands, something their Brazilian clients could “sing all the words to.” But SambaDá was bold, (they told promoters cover bands were boring) and persistent. Menard recalls the band’s huge coup in winning over the “younger crowd” at SF’s Carnivale festival.

And in times of disillusionment, they looked to their heroes. “Ozomatli paved this pathway,” says Menard. “They mixed it up big time. They took traditional salsa and they had a DJ mix scratching on top of it. Everybody in the music world, the Grammy-association, is going to say ‘Latin alternative is a genre now … The Brazilian equivalent is not as strong yet, but it will be.”

Promising words from an ambitious band that plans to celebrate its tenth year working on a new disc, touring the country, (Menard adds that they just logged 4,000 miles with Ozomatli as their opener, “It was the most electric thing I’ve ever experienced. The crowd just ate us up”) and “uniting the two Americas.”

“There’s a whole sense of community in Brazil that doesn’t exist here,” says Menard, citing what he believes to be the most significant difference between the two cultures. “People in America are raised to be individuals first.” But, says Menard, any Santa Cruzan in search of an instant bond with your average Brazilian need only utter one word “surfing.”

“Surf and skate culture in Brazil is so big—it really connects the two places.”


SambaDá write up in Honolulu Weekly:
EVERYTHING, PLUS SOME:

If the kitchen sink includes Afro Brazilian funk, samba, reggae, rock, hip-hop, Capoeira music and dancing, then SambaDá has got everything in the house-including the flippin' sink. The band's (or shall we say music-dance behemoth) first Hawaiian appearance will spread the Afro-Brazilian fusion funk love from the Left Coast and should be a welcome performance to this region well acquainted with innovative blends of world of cultures.

Celebrating the release of 2006's Salve a Bahia, SambaDá's roots and cross-cultural collaborations display a fearless leap into an element completely of their own, and 10 years in the making. This ever-evolving project manifests itself in the group's sophmore album, largely in part from working with Grammy-nominated producer Greg Landau (think Buena Vista Social Club-caliber artists) and the addition of dancer-vocalist Dandha da Hora, who has been a member of Brazil's prestigious Ile Aiye since childhood. Founder of SambaDá, capoeira master Papiba Godinho, leads the band and a guest appearance by Ozomatli's bassist Wil-Dog Abers is in the mix (maybe you veteran Ozo fans can still yell, "Ya se fue!" in all your sweaty post-dance glory when the set is over).

SambaDá's one-of-a-kind music and dance extraveganza will have the ability to get even the most sober (shows are 21+) of audience members backing that thang up. Sweat rag recommended.

SACRAMENTO BEE, SAC TICKET
By adding dance to its groove, SambaDá has tapped into a special music mix. By Jim Carnes - Bee Staff Writer

A performance by SambaDá is a lively mix of music and movement. The group has one foot firmly rooted in California and the other in the cultural traditions of Brazil.

It has taken 10 years, but SambaDá has finally found its unique voice. Begun in 1997 in Santa Cruz by Brazilian Papiba Godinho, the band became a club-circuit favorite with its high-energy percussion and danceable grooves. Now, with the addition of dancer Dandha da Hora, a member of the Ile Aiye music group since she was 6, the band has brought African rhythms, salsa, funk, hip-hop and rock into its potent mix.

"Ile Aiye" means "house of life" in the African Yoruba language. The music group, inspired by the black power movement in the United States, was founded in 1974. It stresses self-esteem through education and training in music and tradition. Da Hora danced with the company in 1975 when it became the first Afro group to march in a Brazilian Carnival parade.

In addition to the two Brazilian members, SambaDá includes drummer Gary Kehoe from Minnesota and four Californians: saxophonist Anne Stafford of Sonoma County; bassist Kevin "Pescador" Dorn and percussionist Marcel Menard, both from the Los Angeles area; and percussionist Will Kahn, a native of Bolinas.


Kahn had played drums for a Brazilian dance class in Bolinas for about a year before he moved to Santa Cruz to go to college and joined the nascent SambaDá, he said in a recent telephone interview.

"There has been a long evolution of the band," Kahn said. "Brazilian music, obviously, is at the core, but we mix in so many things to reflect the personalities and interests of all the members.

"When you think of Brazilian music, there are the classic styles that immediately come to mind: samba and bossa nova. But contemporary Brazilian music is truly world music," he said. "There are Brazilian funk bands and hip-hop bands and rock bands. Marcello D2 is a hip-hop artist who mixes beats and raps over samba sound loops. And Sepultura is a hard-rock metal band.

"Everything you hear in our music -- reggae, ska, hip-hop, funk -- you will easily hear in Brazil today."

SambaDá's music is bright with horns, beat-intensive and funky in the best dance-band manner. But its concerts are more than just a musical performance, Kahn said.

"We had to establish ourselves as a musical band, a club band, first, and now we're integrating music and dance," he said. Godinho is founder of the Raizes do Brasil Capoeira School. During musical numbers, he performs capoeira, the Brazilian dance style of African origin that incorporates martial arts movements such as kicks and chops. Da Hora is a dancer, singer and percussionist, and teaches Afro-Brazilian dance in the Bay Area.

Kahn, 27, is the group's youngest member (the oldest is 53), but it was Menard, 32, who brought hip-hop to SambaDá, Kahn said. "He grew up in L.A., listening to it, so it's a natural part of his musical being."

"It's important to me to really understand what I'm presenting," Kahn said. "I love 'world music' in the sense of 'music of the world,' but I hate the world music 'smoothie,' where it's everything and nothing at the same time.

"We pay respect to where the music comes from. We stick to our roots and avoid shaping our music to the market." (For the most part, the band's lyrics are in Portuguese, not English.)

Kahn said, "I want to show respect to the music and hold the people who created and maintain it in high esteem. There's a deep connection between us and what we do.

"We're trying to get people to listen to us who might not listen to Brazilian music. Brazil is very ethnically diverse and the music reflects the various cultures. We're about breaking barriers. And making music that makes people want to dance."



Santa Cruz's favorite Brazilian band has created its own genre of feel-good music.
By GRAHAM HAWORTH, SENTINEL CORRESPONDENT

For a decade, SambaDa has honed their uniquely California-flavored Brazilian sound. They’ve packed the Catalyst and Moe’s Alley many times over, taken their act on the road and, on their most recent album, “Salve a Bahia,” worked with Grammy-nominated producer Greg Landau.

But it’s the connection with their fans and a live audience that the band really thrive on, according to percussionist Will Kahn. So when last week’s Metro Santa Cruz hit the stands with SambaDa being voted Best Band by the community, the members of the group found it to be one of the highest honors they’ve received to date.

“It feels so good, man!” said Kahn, his excitement still evident nearly a week after the announcement.

“We’ve won silver a bunch of years, so I can’t even tell you how excited we all are. We’ve worked so hard for so long. Our relationship with our crowd is real special.”

But don’t expect the band to rest on its laurels after being honored. Just two weeks prior to their award, SambaDa got word they had been accepted to perform at the Sierra Nevada World Music Festival alongside such heavyweights as Toots & the Maytals, Les Nubians and Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars. The event is considered the top world music festival in California.

All the recent accolades have only served as motivation for the band to keep striving forward in the difficult corridors of the music business. And it’s made all the more impressive by the fact that the band has basically conjured up their own genre of music.

“I think that we’ve had to fend for ourselves a lot,” Kahn said. “There wasn’t a built-in Brazilian music scene in California when we started, so we’ve always focused on doing a show, bringing in a crowd and establishing ourselves.”

In that regard, Ozomatli is a big influence on the band. The Southern California band, taking an independent approach, now has multiple Grammy Awards to their name. And SambaDa is friendly with the band, having shared the same stage over the years. In fact, members of Ozomatli are working on remixing a song from “Salve a Bahia” for a remix album due sometime in the fall, according to Kahn.

“The remix album will feature the same songs as the original, but remixed and going in a million different directions,” Kahn described. “Chali 2na of Jurassic 5 has expressed interest, and so has RadioActive.”

RadioActive, a Bay Area MC well-known for his conscious lyrics and inhuman beatbox skills, will make an appearance at SambaDa’s show at Moe’s Alley on Saturday night. The union happened in a totally organic manner at a recent SambaDa gig.

“He showed up at a club we were playing one night, so I walked up to him at the bar, introduced myself and invited him to sit in,” Kahn recalled. “It was magic, incredibly spontaneous. The song he sat in on switches rhythm out of nowhere. We were stretching it out for him to free-style over, and he began beatboxing in the same rhythm we were about to switch to. It was perfect. Since then, we’ve embraced him and he’s embraced us, and that’s what we need in this world. He has a field day with our percussion section.”

As for what lies ahead in the future for SambaDa, Kahn said all he knows is the only way is up. That doesn’t mean the band will forget their hometown Santa Cruz crowd, though.

“We always do something special at our Santa Cruz gigs,” Kahn promised.

Contact Graham Haworth at graham@haworths.org.

On to Brazil

SambaDa is focused on traveling to Brazil sometime next year, according to percussionist Will Kahn. Group founder Papiba Godinho and Dandha Da Hora are both native Brazilians, and Da Hora has been part of Ile Aiye — one of Brazil’s most important musical and cultural institutions, which promotes racial equality — since she was 6 years old.

The band hopes to tour there and Kahn said he’s especially excited to soak up as much musical knowledge as he can in what will be his first trip to Brazil.

SF EXAMINER MUSIC FEATURE
Septet SambaDa expands horizons
Christina Troup, The Examiner San Francisco
Mar 15, 2007

After a decade of delivering world-beat Afro-Brazilian grooves, Santa Cruz’s SambaDa realized it was time to up the musical ante and create a sound that truly defined the collective as whole. The septet, which was formed by native Brazilian Papiba Godinho, had conquered the club and festival circuit with its wildly explosive Carnaval-like performances but had yet to carve a sound for itself that didn’t say, well, cover band. Tonight, SambaDa delivers its signature high-energy percussion and infectious dance beats with its newly inspired sound at the Independent in San Francisco. Through the years, SambaDa had become accustomed to playing a blend of traditional
Afro-Brazilian beats with a tinge of a modern-edge, but had yet to infuse much of a Western influence into its sound, percussionist Will Kahn says. “We do have five Americans in our band, but we hadn’t really explored that aspect of our soundyet,” he says. “We were very into the traditional side of things and paying respect to it.” It wasn’t until SambaDa crossed paths with Grammy-nominated music producer Greg Landau to create the 2006 sophomore release “Salve a Bahia” that the band assembled a sound that not only paid homage to Brazilian folkloric music, but also captured the spirit and musical background of each band member while maintaining a modern reggae and funk edge.
“He really tore us apart,” Kahn says of Landau’s work. “He took us from a cover band and pushed us to find our own voice. He asked us what our story was — what our mission was as a band. We pulled together all these different elements, from the traditional stuff we were doing to reggae, samba and funk to really make sense of our voice and what we wanted to create.” The result reveals how the band has evolved during its tenure in the Bay Area’s world-music scene. “Salve a Bahia” is a milestone in another respect, too. It showcases the band’s most recent addition— legendary vocalist and master Afro-Brazilian dancer Dandha Da Hora of Ile Aiye. It may have taken nearly 10 years for SambaDa to cultivate its sound and present a cohesive representation of Afro-Brazilian funk, but that doesn’t mean audiences will have to wait another decade. “We’re still evolving. We’ll always be evolving. I can’t wait to get our next album out,” Kahn says.


SF CHRONICLE NIGHTLIFE -
Thursday, February 8, 2007
When people think of Brazilian music, often the first thing that comes to mind is bossa nova and the musicians who have made the sound famous, namely Antonio Carlos Jobim, Gilberto Gil and Elis Regina. However, the country's music has always been as diverse as the people itself. Santa Cruz's SambaDá brings Brazil's Afro-samba-funk roots to the forefront. With a robust percussion line and vocals straight from Ilê Aiyê -- one of Brazil's most important musical and cultural institutions -- don't expect to sit down for this one.

San Diego Carnaval 2007, Matt Schild / AOL Digital City
"...Copying the Brazilian tradition to celebrate life with a Bourbon Street-meets-Rio celebration, 4th & B's annual Brazil Carnival delivers a taste of South America the weekend before Fat Tuesday, letting Mardi Gras fans get their revelry started early. With samba specialists SambaDa providing the music through the night, the dance floor's sure to be packed with sweaty bodies..."

"Celebrate with Samba"- Joseph Woodard, Santa Barbara News Press, December 28, 2006
"SambaDa is no stranger to Santa Barbara, and specifically SOhO...Celebrating a decade of musical action in 2007, the band seems poised to bump to a new level, with the release of its second album "Salve a Bahia"...


Good Times Weekly of Santa Cruz, Ca -David Espinoza
“Providing a refreshing contrast to your standard disco-cover-and-bell-bottom-tossing club band, Brazilian dance outfit SambaDá absolutely blew me away! Equipped with a full percussion ensemble that rotates during songs between amplified string instruments and drums, the seven-member Santa Cruz based group got the dance floor moving like it was Carnavál in Rio de Janeiro.”

San Diego Brazil Carnaval Promoter, Steve Spencer
“SambaDa has headlined the San Diego Brazil Carnaval since 2005 and we look forward to them rockin" the house at San Diego Brazil Carnaval 2007. They are an electrifying ensemble of Musicians dedicated to makin’ your body move to the groove. SambaDa can bring it!”

Brasilmagazine.com, Claudia Guedes
"SambaDá has gained steady popularity with this unique mix of cultures, roots, musical genres, and influences. Up and down the California Coast, the group has been blazing a trail hotter than the Rio sun on the first day of Carnival"

Good Times Weekly of Santa Cruz, Ca -David Espinoza
“It’s nearly impossible not to immediately fall head over heals for SambaDá music-the sound is so bright and delicious you’d have to be a lobotomized chimp not to feel moved by it…and while the members of SambaDá may be old hands at club gigs, they aren’t simply another Caribbean cruise ship attraction for the tourists. When they brought out the drum line to back up the dancers from “Leva Samba Dance Co.”, they worked a few hip-hop beats into the mix.”

SOhO staff, club in Santa Barbara, CA
"Sambada...Infectious, high energy, rhythmic dance grooves...the one night all of Santa Barbara comes out to party!!!

Coast Weekly of Monterey, Ca - Tracy Hukill
“To stay seated at a SambaDá show is to ask to be rushed to the emergency room, because no one with a pulse can sit still through this kind of sexy, high-energy rhythmic assault. Hips will begin moving of their own accord.”

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