By Ann Driscoll
Associate Editor
Tais Alvarenga is a trilingual (Portuguese, Spanish, English) Boston-based singer-songwriter from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her music is an immaculately produced blend of Latin pop and folk: both catchy and socially conscious, commenting on the political and economic state of modern-day Brazil. An accomplished stage actress, she performed in theater productions in Rio for three years with director Oswaldo Montenegro. Alvarenga graduated from Berklee in 2009 with a degree in film scoring. Her debut album of Portuguese-language Latin pop will be out fall 2010.
AD: Tell me about ‘Trafego’ and ‘Nem La Nem Ca,’ the songs that appear on Dorm Sessions Vol. 7.
TA: ‘Trafego’ translates to ‘traffic’ jam in English. It’s a love song. It’s someone saying to another person, ‘What would happen if we forgot about each other? How long would our pain last for?’
‘Nem La Nem Ca’ is a Brazilian expression that means ‘Not here nor there.’ It’s a political song. It’s criticizing the social situation in Brazil—and how each individual tends to deal with it. Using subjects like how people are dying everyday and how the economic situation is backwards, told in analogies.
AD: Do you have plans to stay in U.S. or return to Brazil?
TA: I’m going to record an album this year in the U.S. and release it in Brazil. I would love to stay here. It’s easy to have a life with dignity in a country where rules seems to work, but for the same reason, I feel that I need to go back. I believe that running away from the problems of my country will not make me a better artist, even if it gets hard to make money and success. I have a lot of faith in changes.
AD: How do your political opinions influence your music?
TA: I can’t help writing about social and political subjects. I strongly believe that me, you and the artists in general have a huge responsibility in making people think about those things. There are many great artists that are doing that, being themselves. In my last class at Berklee, my professor said a remarkable phrase: ‘Here at Berklee, the students learn about everything, the only thing they don’t learn about is themselves.’
AD: It’s always interesting to hear about the politics of a country from someone who has lived there all her life and who cares passionately. What are some issues in Brazil that you think need to be addressed?
TA: I would start with corruption. The money that is supposed to go to education, health, safety, etc. gets stolen by corrupted politicians, who make millions for themselves. I am sure that if our police officers got good money for their job, they wouldn’t stop you on the road and ask for money instead of exercising the law. And since nothing really works for the population, crime and poverty became a big issue. Including kids that start working with drug dealers really young. And I am not judging them, even after having a gun to my head a couple times; I think that if many of them had opportunities, they wouldn’t be in this life. They are born in this situation, how can we expect that they go to a different direction? Those children start their sexual life at ten or thirteen. They listen to funk music, which nowadays is incredibly sexual in Brazil. Many girls get pregnant at the age of fifteen or less. I went to a slum this break, to teach music and English to some kids. You should have seen the shine in their eyes. How can we, as artists, ignore this? Maybe you’ve seen movies like City of God, or Elite Squad. They are a great picture of the reality in Rio. And besides all this, we see nature destroying countries like Haiti. Last year, Brazil had a difficult situation from rains that caused floods. In the south, more than 54,000 dislodged. The corruption also affects the devastation of our forests. More than 75 percent of the Amazon rainforest that is being cleared is for cattle ranching. And besides the fact that these areas end up losing the potential for rebuilding, cattle ranching is a high carbon emitter.
AD: Where are you recording your album?
TA: I’m recording it this year in Boston with the Brazilian producer Diogo Barcellos.
AD: Tell me about your acting career?
TA: I auditioned for a soap opera in Brazil, and I got the part. I had the choice between doing the soap opera and studying at Berklee. It can hurt you as a musician if you’re an actress and then decide you want to go into music.
AD: How do you feel being the only foreign-language musician on this year’s Dorm Sessions?
TA: I feel really proud and with lots of responsibilities. I am happy to see that Heavy Rotations is choosing more and more diverse music for its CD. Berklee has a lot of cultural diversity to be explored.
AD: How do you connect with non-Portuguese-speaking audiences?
TA: Audiences can always know what I’m saying from my expressiveness and the musicality. But usually I talk about the subject of the songs I present. Especially because people tend to relate samba and Brazilian music with happiness, which is true: our rhythms and melodies are beautifully happy. But ironically, most of the time, the lyrics are talking about serious things, or even sadness.
AD: How old were you when you started writing songs?
TA: The first song I wrote, I was nine. It was a 6/8 song. I had no idea but I went back and listened to it, and it was in 6/8. I stopped writing for a while. I started back up again at sixteen or seventeen. I’m still in the process of becoming a composer.
AD: You wrote the songs on Dorm Sessions?
TA: Yes.
AD: Can you see yourself writing for other people?
TA: Yes. I just had a singer record one on my songs on her album in Brazil.
AD: Do you write on piano or guitar?
TA: I have played piano since I was seven. But a great teacher from the MP&E department and my producer Diogo told me to start composing on the guitar. And after that my compositions started being fresher. He explained that sometimes when you play an instrument for long, the muscles tend to go before the sound that you have on your mind. Bobby McFerrin also mentioned composing a capella when he visited Berklee, for the same reason.
