Coco Embolada - The art of improvisation

​

The two singers defy themselves with their light singing and their strong pandeiro beat.

​

The coco of embolada present in almost all the northeast is an art of impromptu. is a "poetic-musical genre of the oral tradition" (Ayala). Sung by pairs, the singers or coquistas, who usually present themselves in fairs and markets crowding the public by its attractive performance. The two thrusters challenge each other with their light singing and their strong pandeiro beat.

​

The repertoire of the singers is built on top of traditional themes, but it is in the practice of the challenge, the confrontation that the verses are being quickly elaborated in a rhythm that often accelerates throughout the performance. It is common to call papulagem, self-praise and "coco-malcriado", a good thing to mistreat the companion, "quoting once again the ethnomusicologist Maria Ignez Ayala. Another ethnomusicologist who devoted herself to the study of the coco of embolada was Elizabeth Travassos,  according to her "the verses of the singers are often considered" crazy, "meaningless or vulgar. According to her, Mario de Andrade, observing the song of the coquista Chico Antonio describes its embolada as something close to a trance.

Djalma recorded a number of young tweens who showed up at the São José Market, downtown Recife, in 1973. José Claudino da Silva ("Pintassilva"), 14, and Wilson Antonio da Silva ("Gavião"), 13 .