Samba Star Rogê Created His "Most Brazilian" Album A World Away From Home
Rogê has walked through many worlds. The singer and guitarist’s samba-soul has garnered him a popular 10-year residency at one of Rio de Janeiro's most important venues, brought him behind the scenes at the Olympics, taken flight to Holland and eventually landed him in Los Angeles.
Tonight Rogê is in New York City, where he’s performing at a members-only club overlooking the Manhattan skyline. At first, the guests seem vaguely disinterested in the show. Yet, together with percussionist Stephane San Juan, Rogê's gravely yet sweet vocals and spirited acoustic guitar styling commands the room's attention. Within minutes, the crowd is clapping along, and the increasingly exuberant Rogê exclaims "saúde!" (Portuguese for "to your health").
Like his idols — Brazilian legends Jorge Ben, Milton Nascimento and Seu Jorge, among others — Rogê has seemingly managed to harness a universality that defies location, mother tongue or genre. His debut U.S. album, Curyman, is a testament to Rogê’s wide-ranging appeal, filled with joyous samba-funk and subtly heartbreaking ballads. Set against emotive string arrangements by master Brazilian composer Arthur Verocai, Curyman seems to transcend language.
The album is "a great picture of my life here," Rogê tells GRAMMY.com, adding that the record — his ninth of original material — was recorded with players he had never worked with previously. "It’s my first album that an American guy [recorded] with a vision and a different angle for Brazilian music. But this album is very me, a lot more than other ones. I’m singing, playing everything, guiding everyone."
Curyman — an amalgamation of Rogê’s last name, Cury, the indigenous language Guarani and a reference to singer/songwriter Dorival Caymmi — is filled with references to his homeland. Brazil’s natural beauty ("Grito Do Natureza"), its ancient gods ("Yemanjá"), plethora of rhythms ("Retumbar Do Meu Tambor") and vibrant energy ("Pra Vida") course through the album’s 11 tracks. Despite this specificity, the album was designed as aural cinema — something that is as much vibe as it is a poignant portrait.
"The emotion is jumping out of the speakers," says producer Tom Brenneck. Although he doesn’t speak Portuguese, Brenneck asserts that Rogê’s singing was "incredibly charming."
"Language barriers be damned. I knew what every song was about, even though it was never translated," he says.
While Curyman is distinctly Brazilian in sound and language, the album could only have been created outside of the country. Despite various successes — an acclaimed residency in Rio, a co-writing credit on the theme for the 2016 Olympic Games, and a Latin GRAMMY nomination for his work with sambista Arlindo Cruz — Rogê was "knocking the ceiling with my head." As Brazil’s political and cultural climate became increasingly perilous, the musician packed up his young family and moved to L.A. in 2019.
After a rough start stateside ("Some days I went to bed early to not think too much about how I would pay the bills next month," he told the LA Times in 2022), Rogê connected with legendary Brazilian singer/actor Seu Jorge. The two shuttled over to the Netherlands to record an EP, Seu Jorge & Rogê: Night Dreamer Direct-to-Disc Sessions, and completed three of a scheduled 23-date U.S. tour before the pandemic hit.
Rogê wrote furiously for the Seu Jorge EP — "Composing something is a spiritual thing," he contends. "I think the perfect composer is the balancing inspiration and technique" — and a handful of those songs on Curyman. He played some of the compositions for Brenneck at Sound Factory studios in Hollywood, where the two were working on whistler Molly Lewis’ 2021 record, Oceanic Feeling. Rogê and Brenneck had never met.
"I was floored instantly," recalls Brenneck, who quickly suggested Rogê record some demos. "Rogê recorded 12 songs in like an hour and a half. His guitar playing was outrageous. The songwriting was incredibly sophisticated. His singing was amazing. So it was like, Yeah, let's do a record."
Rogê and Brenneck recorded Curyman over four days at various studios in a series of live sessions. The project encompassed a number of firsts: The first time both musicians had worked together; the first time Rogê worked with a cast of entirely American session players; and the first Brazilian record Brenneck had ever worked on.
"I was in new territory, I was a bit out of my league. His music was harmonically far more sophisticated than anything else I've ever done in my life," notes Brenneck, whose credits include production and session work with Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars. "Something that [Rogê] said to me over and over again, throughout the process of the record, was 'This record never would have been made in Brazil.' Because in Brazil, more is more; my approach was less is more. The record is very true to what was performed in studio."
Rogê was also working in new territory, away from his homeland and trusted musical community. "But it’s beautiful when you’re in the arts [and] when you jump in the darkness. That's why I made an album with a guy who had never made a Brazilian [album before]," Rogê says. "I had to explain a lot of things of Brazilian music."
Yet their collective musical chemistry superseded barriers. With rhythm tracks and vocals in hand, the two flew to Rio during the summer of 2022 and watched as Verocai — a friend of Rogê’s, to Brenneck’s disbelief — added strings and a transcendent level of emotion.
"It literally felt like I went back in time and, like, understood how, like, Frank Sinatra records went down," Brenneck says of the sessions. "When Verocai was putting strings on [the ballad 'Se u du Amor'] I felt like that was perhaps the greatest achievement I might ever f—ing do."
In attempting to establish himself in America, Curyman has led Rogê to feel even more Brazilian. While his previous albums skewed poppier, "This album is real deal Brazilian: A lot of flavors, different styles of Brazilian music. I felt more freedom to do that here."
For Brenneck, creating with Rogê helped him work through five years of grief following the death of his close friend and musical partner Charles Bradley. "Because everything was so new about it was a different genre, different language, different musical language for musical palette, and I just felt I got so much inspiration. It showed me that there'll be life after," he says. (A testament to that new life, Curyman will be the debut release for Brenneck’s new label, Diamond West Records.)
Rogê, meanwhile, is "just starting to write my story" in America, but believes in the universality of his messages and brand of Brazilian music. "Jorge Ben, Dorival Caymmi sound more than Brazilian. Somewhere, in some space, everybody understands [their music]. They're connected. I really believe that."