Now, I would like to illustrate this joyful dimension through a reading of a small fragment of conversation with the Brazilian musician Cartola, one of the pillars of the traditional ‘samba’ in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. The sincerity and naivety with which Cartola carried on with his laboring supposes understanding labor outside the regime of value. During an interview with the broadcast TV Cultura, Cartola tells the story of a samba he composed, ‘Que Infeliz Sorte’ (‘What Bad Luck’). Cartola, already well-known as a musician and composer in the ‘morro da Mangueira’ where he lived, at the time a growing slum in Rio, got an offer in 1931 to sell the recording rights for ‘Que Infeliz Sorte’. Cartola recognizes that at the time he knew nothing about the music business in the city. Cartola did barely live from his labor as a musician carrying on a bohemian lifestyle, although his sambas where widely played by acclaimed singers like Carmen Miranda during the 30s. It was at this time that Cartola did win some reputation as a samba composer. The story of ‘Que Infeliz Sorte’ goes as follows: Cartola tells how somebody in the name of Mário Reis, a popular Brazilian singer mostly famous for his radio broadcasts, approached him and asked, if he (Cartola) would like to sell a samba. Cartola’s response is astonished: ‘What? Buying samba? Are you crazy? (…) Who wants to buy samba? What is that, buying samba?’ Finally, Mário Reis persuaded Cartola to sell that samba. One could see this ‘transaction’ as a mere economic negotiation if we take for granted that both parties, buyer and seller, are economic actors. But is truly doubtful that in 1931 Cartola was fully aware of the economic (i.e. capitalist) dimension of his labor as a musician. In fact, from 1933 on, after some of his sambas reached commercial success in the city, he decided to compose exclusively for the samba school he helped to established in the slum, getting marginalized from the music industry. In 1946 Cartola even disappeared from the music scene only to be found by a journalist some years later working washing cars in the neighborhood of Ipanema. It was in 1974, at 66 years old, that Cartola got his first solo album recorded. If we assume that Cartola was not using the notions of political economy, i.e., samba as the outcome of his spent labor, his question, what it means to buy samba, attains a completely different dimension. Cartola was simply exercising his labor ontologically, in Gullì’s sense, as part of the rich cultural milieu of the slums where transactions between people cannot be reduced to economic terms. On the contrary, the selling of a samba usually seen as the recognition of Cartola as great author, really meant the attempt to incorporate Cartola in the realm of political economy as a labor force for the cultural industry. After his ‘rediscovery’ in the 50s Cartola became more or less involved in the music business and, consequently, celebrated as one of the greatest composers of Brazilian music. JM Durán, "Art and Labor" (2009) zcommunications.org/labor-and-art-by-jose-maria-duran
Posted on: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 10:25:33 +0000
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