Signifyin(g) Salvador: Professional Musicians and the Sound of Flexibility in Bahia, Brazil's Popular Music Scenes

Jeff Packman

Over the past twenty-five years, popular music scholarship has benefited from an ever-increasing diversity of approaches. Even so, in-depth studies that address music as not only a creative endeavor but also a form of work are less common. In this article, I investigate flexibility in the career paths, musical knowledge, and localized "Signifyin(g)" practices (Gates 1988, see below) of professional performers in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, an urban center that is culturally rich but economically poor. Rather than focus on media stars, those few performers who have achieved national notoriety and a measure of financial success, I emphasize local working musicians, whom I recognize as members of a flexible workforce in the city's music industries. This focus helps bring to light numerous issues related to the processes and cultural politics of music making among people who are involved in an everyday struggle for survival in a competitive employment market. While the musicians who helped me with my research come from a variety of racial, educational, and socioeconomic backgrounds, none of them can be considered economically privileged or even financially secure. On the contrary, they all exemplify the ways in which Bahia's musical workers endeavor to overcome numerous challenges in order to build careers as music makers.