Internationally, Brazil is known for the great city of Rio de Janeiro.

Rio is best known for its carnival and the vast assemblage of creative samba schools and music.

Samba originated not in the centers of learning or organized studios.

Its roots and development come from the shantytowns called favelas.

From inside we will see how these humble origins produced one of the world's truly original and most compelling art forms.

Funding for In the Americas with David Yetman was provided by Agnese Haury.

[Music] The classic view of Rio de Janeiro shows the world's most spectacular urban landscape and stunning affluence.

What it doesn't show is where most of the people of Rio de Janeiro live and the innovations that have made Brazil's culture one of the most interesting in the world.

One of these innovations is the music that emerged from the favelas.

Maurício Maestro is a renown musician from Rio de Janeiro.

He has encapsulated in his music the history of samba as one only immersed in samba culture can do.

[Music] These are Leblon and Ipanema beaches, where the wealthiest Brazilians live.

This is among the world's highest priced real estate.

From here, we are going to go up in those hills where the poor majority of the people of Rio de Janiero live.

I know you were born and raised in Arizona, how did you get to Brazil?

I married a Brazilian.

I guess that will do it every time.

That will do it... My friend Kate Lyra is a celebrated model and famous actress in Brazil, she's recognized everywhere we go.

For decades, Kate has shown a passion for the culture of Rio de Janeiro and has become an expert on favelas.

Some of the land has been occupied for so long, one could say they've acquired squatter's rights.

Others have belonged to the government.

It must be complicated, because there's no regular lot size.

No.

And they are just building where they can and over the years it becomes a living community, but without any subdivision.

Exactly, exactly and trying to control this of course after the fact is a big problem.

How does the government recognize favelas now?

They've done a big program in this let's say for the last 15-20 years called Favela Bairro, which would be like the favela neighborhood.

The idea is to try and get them like basic things that you need like garbage collection and then water, sanitation and what have you.

Of course the way they've been built up all together sort of all jumbled together that makes it difficult.

I mean you can't imagine someone delivering the mail.

Door to door.. To the first house to the bottom of the hill.

Or even collecting the trash.

I mean they are setting up places where people can take their trash and some places trucks can actually get to, but the rest is on foot.

And putting in sewers is just a nightmare.

It's very complicated.

So sewage just runs off in channels then to get water is equally difficult.

It used to be that people, the women would carry big cans usually that paint comes in.

They would, you can carry the water up on the hill.

Most of the favelas nowadays have at least 1-10 land houses where kids can access internet.

They are very internet savvy, very cell phone savvy.

Everyone has a cell phone.

Favelas in Rio de Janeiro goes back 150 years to Brazil's wars, bloody conflicts, including an international war with Paraguay and a civil war.

Following the battles, armies of veteran soldiers found themselves with nowhere to settle.

The Brazilian government transferred thousands from the battlefields to Rio de Janiero and left them there destitute and homeless.

The veterans invaded the hillsides and began colonizing them, in spit of the perceptively steep slopes.

Soon, they were joined by former slaves, some of them escaped.

They named their new neighborhood the favela after a tree that irritates the skin and a well-known hill from the civil war.

They built and settled on land, no one else wanted and stayed.

In the intervening decades landless peasants and rural poor and jobless refuges poured into Rio de Janeiro, expanding the already bursting favelas.

Their homes built almost on top of each other.

So this is a huge favela, but it hasn't appeared as tranquil as it appears today?

That's right.

In 2008 if you're standing out here we would probably be shot in a second, but this complex Alemão called a complex because it's a set of several different favelas.

Alemão is just one of them and it used to be that there were a lot of gang wars going on inside.

You know young kids knew exactly what streets they could walk on and where they had stock.

For decades inside of the favelas, non-residents were not welcome, including the police who were notoriously corrupt and violent.

Drug lords became the dictators of life inside the favelas, but ironically they also became the basic providers of social and health services.

In 2008, the government adopted a new program that framed the police in a different image that of peacekeepers rather than vigilantes.

Police were stationed within the favelas.

Their mission was to make life safer for the residents.

In some favelas the program has been successful, in others less so with residents expressing a preference for life under the drug lords.

It was not too long ago that guided tours became available for tourists and residents alike.

They've become increasingly popular and the favelas themselves are become increasingly proud of what they have done and can show to outsiders, where there were no services 20 or 30 years ago, there are now services including bed and breakfasts, grocery stores, and even electricity and internet throughout the favelas.

One of the first favelas to receive the new police program was Santa Marta.

(Portuguese) He's welcoming us to the Favela of Santa Marta and this is a map, a map actually showing every building.

Here in Santa Marta we have a project called Rio Top Tur commissioned by the state governor in 2010.

The objective is to train local guides in the tourism and commerce and the restaurant industries.

It's designed from the people from the communities to become official guides to work with tourists.

Well, we're on our way.

Apparently, the cable car makes it easier to get to the top.

Yeah, they are only going to make us walk down.

That's great!

We get to walk back and that's better for the knees anyway, so our guide is named Fumaça and he has walked this road thousands of times.

Everybody in the favelas knows him.

(Portuguese) This is really a nice kind of saying on this mural here.

Rich people want peace so they can keep on being rich.

We in the favela want peace so that we can stay alive and the road ends here.

The streets of Rio de Janeiro go right up to this stairway here and from there on, on foot.

I am known as Gilson Fumaça.

I have been through various phases of change here.

Including drug wars and trafficking and police pacification.

I survived all this as well as when Michael Jackson and Madonna came here.

I love Santa Marta.

I can't think of living anywhere else, but here.

(Portuguese) Santa Marta is located in the southern zone of Rio de Janiero.

We've been here more than 80 years.

It was built from the top down and it was the first favela in Rio to be pacified with police stations.

Police were viewed as corrupt officials who came into the favelas to arrest, shoot, kill and then leave.

Today though, their relationship is different.

They are here in Santa Marta more than 123 cops.

They protect the community, working in shifts and are distributed throughout three stations.

Santa Marta is different from other favelas because cars can't drive into the favela.

All of the houses have electricity, water and numbers.

And the numbers are important because if you have a number that means you own the land.

Some of the things you take for granted just didn't occur here.

Barber shops.

How would anybody who live here get their haircut that had to walk all the way down to find one at the bottom somewhere.

Places where you can buy food, flip-flops which everybody in Brazil wears.

People who were born in the favelas have a natural entrepreneurial spirit.

They are gradually turning an informal economy into a more formal economy.

There are over hundred of these little general businesses and they've been registered and they can actually participate in the country and this will mean that eventually people will be able to get loans to make their businesses even larger.

Here we sell recyclable items.

Some of them my Aunt creates like these designs here.

We take advantage of discarded milk cartons to make wallets.

My ten-year-old cousin painted these designs.

And he said since they've put the UPPs in that for the last six years they have not had any exchanges of gunfire.

He says so you know like a kid that was born in 2008 is now six years old, he's probably never heard gun fire and if you're 18 now, you no longer have those criminals and gangs and the whatever as your hero.

It's not just physical.

It's changed the minds of the community.

So this is the good solid granite of all around Rio de Janiero, but they conform the foundation of the house with unsurpassed ingenuity.

Sometimes we always think of them as a shantytown that is not permanent, which will move, but this shows you that the opposite is true.

(Portuguese) The urban improvement projects took care of 90% of the sewage problems.

We still have two open sewage canals.

Some people still throw their garbage here without any regard for recycling or sanitation.

Over there is a library with a collection of children storybooks and over here is a bakery with homemade bread and cakes.

But you notice when the guy went by he says it's not a favela, it's a community.

Yes and that's very important.

So he's very proud to say some people now like to call these communities instead of favelas.

There's a slightly negative connation to favela and he says no we are a favela, he's proud of it and that's what we are and we recognize it.

So they brought some of this stuff by the cable car and most of it they brought up on their own backs.

(Portuguese) In the middle of the community we have a natural water spout known as the Primeira mina or the first min.

We don't drink this water because it goes by an open sewage canal.

We do use it to bathe and wash dishes.

This here is a painted mosaic made by a local artist, next to us is a daycare center founded by the women who live here.

On average a thousand people live here, of which 800 are year round residents.

Most work outside of the community, some do work in local shops but 90% still leave the community for work.

Michael Jackson came in '98 and a helicopter left him off at the top then he went down all the stairs at the bottom to say hi to everybody and then he walked all the way back up.

(Portuguese) This rooftop is where Michael Jackson filmed his music video in '96 when he died the state government decided that we needed to commemorate his visit here and so the department of sports and culture renovated this place and the two local artists made this statute and then placed that tile mosaic on the wall over here.

So there are more than 500 favelas in the state or Rio de Janeiro.

Between 110 and 150 in the city.

In the city.

Yeah.

All kinds of people live here, fireman, electricians, taxicab drivers, transporters, delivery boys, masons, carpenters, painters, storytellers, photographers, and even journalists.

This mural was painted by a community artist and speaks to the daily life here of a woman carrying a water container on her head, a statue of Michael Jackson, even a tourist taking photos.

A wall that used to be dirty and full of holes is now covered with this beautiful design.

Many of the homes here have been painted and this building up here was built as part of an urban improvement project.

It used to be a rickety wood shack.

(Portuguese) The tram has been here for public use for six years.

It existed here before, but only to transport construction materials by the worker crews to build the stations, houses and stairways.

It wasn't for the residents.

A lot of the old timers tell stories, how they climbed up here in the dirt and mud, whereas now it's easy.

We have the tram and the staircases.

Cars can even drive to the very top on the other side.

Before, people didn't have official resident status, only a piece of paper from the neighborhood association.

Today, we have an electrical bill with our name on it, so that we can prove that we live here.

(Portuguese) Earlier the politicians wanted to tear down the homes here and up there they still want to remove these families and these homes and replace them with large buildings like those down there, but these families refuse to leave, so we are at an impasse.

For us the history of the favelas began with the war of the ?

?

and enlisted soldiers after the war were not paid.

They were homeless because the government tore down their homes and caused war and so they set up camp at the first hillside that they came across, which is now the center of the down town in Rio de Janiero, it was on Providence Hill, the first favela of Rio de Janeiro.

This field used to be all dirt and it was on this field that Michael Jackson landed in a helicopter in 1996.

In 2012, the government decided to create an accurate map of Santa Marta so that residents could receive official titles to heir homes.

So far about 60% of the residents are official owners of their own homes All of the favelas have a samba school or at least a bloco, at least a block, that's where they play and they continue to play samba.

It revolves around Carnival and requires a full year of preparation, including weekly mandatory rehearsals.

(Portuguese) The samba school really began at the end of the 20th century as a meeting of a group of marginalized poor people who practiced Afro Brazilian rituals known as candomblé.

At that time slavery had just recently abolished here in Brazil.

These terreiros or religious spaces were produced in their circles of saints or deities a circle of samba.

What we call a ?

?

de samba.

Today samba schools are intertwined and connected to their respected communities.

Now we are in the Leopoldinese neighborhood.

Mangueira is connected to their community and so on so all their different schools are meeting places for those that don't have the financial resources to go elsewhere for entertainment.

They all meet in places like this to dance, be happy and for enjoyment.

This is a rehearsal of Imperatriz of Leopoldinese in the Leopoldinese neighborhood.

Beginning in September, rehearsals throughout the city begin preparing for the big event.

Samba schools have about 4,000 members.

Here one small group of performers is polishing their act.

Members of the neighborhood are welcome to join the performers and become part of the samba culture.

Everyone is bursting with energy, getting ready for the big event in the Sambodromo, a kilometer long stadium constructed specially for Carnival in Rio de Janiero (Portuguese) The percussion is the heart of the school.

Not just for my samba school, but for all samba schools.

Without the beat there is no dance.

So it is the heart of the school.

My mother was dancing samba when I was in her She was a baiana with Imperatriz.

She would be the ideal person to tell you the story of samba.

Samba is culture for Brazil, for my country.

It's everything to me.

I love samba.

The importance of the samba school for a community is a hundred percent.

Within a samba school children can learn to play rhythms, be a dancer, write lyrics and music, create carnival.

It is an enchanted universe.

The alternative would be lots of kids in the streets, doing bad things without a family structure.

The samba schools contribute especially to their community.

Samba is within the grand context of culture, the cultural history of Brazil.

All of this preparation culminates in the big day and the school performs in the Sambodromo, the kilometer long grandstand in the world's most sensational show.

It all originated in the favelas.

(Portuguese) According to historians, the first Samba school began in Rio in the outlying poor neighborhood of San Carlos.

A parade consists of presentations by thirteen different Samba schools.

Each one of them has at least 4,000 participants, plus floats and percussion beyond anybody's wildest fancy.

(Portuguese) A presentation of Samba schools is like a live opera on a large stage acted out with all of Brazil's cultural traditions.

The Sambodromo or samba drum is probably the world's greatest outside grandstand theatre.

It's more than a half-mile long.

It holds 100,000 spectators.

Each samba band has at least four thousand participants.

The fantastical images follow before your gaze one after the other, after the other for nine hours on two successive nights.

(Portuguese) A musical theme is chosen which is called an enredo.

Based on this theme, composers and musicians and designers create lyrics, ribbons and floats and costumes.

All the samba schools reinforce this basic concept of the message and the theme.

One of the most important things that the samba schools are judged on is the display of color.

The more the better, so everyone of the thirteen samba schools tries to make itself stand out better than any other on the basis of visual display.

The winner gets immense prestige and a lot of money as well.

So it's to the benefit of every samba school to make sure as much of the crowd as possible is solidly behind them, cheering as loudly as they can.

For many thousands of Brazilians, Carnival is not just a three-day event.

The day after Carnival is over and the samba schools have put on their displays, the work begins for next year's celebration.

Tens of thousands of people work all year round to make their samba school the best.

[Music] Funding for In the Americas with David Yetman was provided by Agnese Haury.

Copies of this and other episodes of In the Americas with David Yetman are available from the Southwest Center.

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