Brazilian artist Rodrigo Amarante launched his musical career in the late 1990s as a singer in one of Brazil’s most successful rock bands of all time, Los Hermanos.
Today, Amarante has switched his home and career to the United States, where he can boast his recognizable voice and writing is just as good in English (and Spanish) as it is in his native Portuguese.
Here, Amarante recorded his largest success and most recognizable tune: the iconic and romantic theme song of the famed “Narcos” series on Netflix, “Tuyo”.
Amarante has released two solo albums, “Cavalo” in 2014 and “Drama” in 2021. He is currently writing a new record that will be released in 2027.
Amarante told WUNC Music that part of this upcoming album is being recorded here in Chapel Hill at Betty’s.
Originally from Rio de Janeiro, Amarante is known for his strengths as a multilingual singer and a versatile composer and arranger who has collaborated with Brazilian artists like Marisa Monte, Gal Gosta, and Moreno Veloso.
Amarante first came to California to record music with Venezuelan-American singer Devendra Banhart. There, he recorded his first big American success with the rock band Little Joy he formed with Fabrizio Moretti of The Strokes. Little Joy released an acclaimed self-titled album in 2008.
Amarante sat down with Aaron Sanchez-Guerra of WUNC News before performing next door in Bay 7 on Saturday, Oct. 10 as part of the Good Moon Festival organized by Durham artists Sylvan Esso and their record label, Psychic Hotline.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
How's Durham treating you?
The first thing I did was very good. I stepped next door to Queeny’s (bar). and I was just waiting to meet with my friends Silvana Estrada and Edwin, and I had a little time, so I walked in there. There was a line. I kind of walked in there and asked a nice gentleman there, "Do I need to be in the line to get a beer?” He's like, "Nah, come on." So he brought me to the back, nodded to the bartender, and so I sat there, and she came. And I think that that was the gift, as far as I'm concerned. She's like, "What can I get you, honey? And I was like, "Yes! Just give me a pilsner.” (She said) “I got you, baby.” I was like, “Yeah!”
Southern hospitality.
Yeah, just so warm and real. There's often so much coldness in this kind of efficiency craze that we're going through. Very often … it's the corporate thing where people are understand that they have to act like robots to be efficient, and I think it's pretty much the opposite. The more human, the more warm, the more efficient. Because, you know, I felt great. I was like, I love Queeny’s, and I loved that they were warm and real.
Is this your first time performing in North Carolina?
I played in Asheville ... I was touring with Angel Olsen, and we played there, but this was, yeah, maybe eight years ago.
Tell me about how you got here and about your relationship with Nick and Amelia of Sylvan Esso.
I've been paying attention to Psychic Hotline for a while, and always loved their work. And then I remember hearing The A's record, and that record really, I was like, "Oh, this is so special!" It's almost like you can't really put your finger on why it is so good.
I wanted to come here even before I was invited to come because I was like, "Oh, look at this scene. Look at this something really special about it." Then I heard Sylvan Esso. I was like, "Oh, this is very fresh and very cool.” Then eventually I met them and we hung out in L.A. I actually met Nick briefly, maybe a year ago in L.A. and then I got to sit with them this year with Nick and Amelia, and they're lovely people, and I admire them and I like their music, and I'm lucky enough to be here now.
Tell me about what’s next.
I'm writing a record now that will be recorded at the end of the year, (and) will come out next year. I think that writing — for me anyway, for me to feel that something is really happening, I'm not just you know doing what I'm supposed to.
I feel like it has to be an exercise of discovery, to put myself in a place to write a song or whatever it is that I'm writing that starts with a question for myself, and then through that I get somewhere. I'm very unpredictable even to myself, you know? So I am very open to being surprised and to disagreeing with myself.
I'm not chasing texture, or you know, a look that will be a consequence of what I find. In this one, I'm actually making an effort to not demo anything, just memorize and focus on the songs, on lyrics, learn how to sing them with the guitar or the piano before I get to the fun part of production because it's just too fun.
I feel like that's what happened in my last record, and maybe that's why it's kind of a baroque record with so many instruments and you know I wanted to do that I wanted to do kind of a hi-fi giant arrangement album, and I did that, and now I want to do something else, but I'm not sure. I'm still writing, and so I start recording a little bit tomorrow. True story.
Here?
Yeah, we'll see what comes out.
Can we expect you to do any music with Psychic Hotline out of here in Durham?
That's what I've been hoping. Don't tell them. I'm a fan of their work. Yes, I hope so.
And you're recording part of your music here in the Triangle?
I've received this wonderful gift of some time at Betty's, and I shall honor them. I've been writing, you know, these new songs, and I'm gonna see which ones I can remember to play. And I intend to play a few, and then I'm gonna record some of them, at least in this like raw form, at the studio. This is this is a great gift all around, and I've been looking forward to it for quite a while.
You're known as the guy that sang the “Narcos” theme song "Tuyo." Tell me about how, if at all, that's followed you throughout your career. Are you asked to perform that? Are you asked to record more music in Spanish, more boleros?
Yeah, I'm asked to perform that because it's my biggest success. Why wouldn't I? For one, no one is asking me to write specific things. I get asked to write music for film. And for other things, but people are smarter than that. They're not going to ask me to repeat something that was successful. To be honest, Netflix asked me to do that, and I told them that's a dumb idea.
Why?
Well, because they wanted me to write a different song for each season, and I told them this is not a good idea, because that song worked really well for the show. It really, there's something about it which you know I don't exactly know what it is, but ... there's a kind of a cognitive dissonance between the violence and intensity of the the story, and the apparent tenderness of the song, the lyrics are something else, but which also is apparently tender, but it is not.
I don't know if this is where you're getting to, but I don't have any qualms about success. And so here I am, like, oh, but do people ask you to play your most famous song? Yeah, of course they do. Do I play it? Of course I do. I wrote it. I love it. People love it. My first band in Brazil was very successful. Yeah, and right in the beginning, the first song I wrote was in the charts, and that's crazy. It's not even a very good song. So in the very beginning, he's like, "What are you gonna do, man? You wrote one song, and it's like playing on the radio. So how are you gonna live with that?” You know, I was like, "Well, I'll just try to write another one.” But what if it's not as successful? Oh, it obviously won't be. But what do you do with that? Do you go crying to mama, or do you just be grateful for the success? It's not like I'm a parade of success. I'm a parade of attempts.
That phrase in Brazil, I don't know where it comes from. “Quem foi teu mestre?” You know, like who was your teacher? Who or what has been your teacher?
So when I was a kid, I was training jiu-jitsu in Brazil with the Gracie family (creators of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu) . And at the time, I was a you know a young boy living in Rio, and the streets were pretty rough for a kid my age. Like everywhere you went, there was an older kid that wanted to beat you up, or you know, and and frankly, I was quite disappointed at what life was in the sense that I was like, wow, is this really what we have to become?
Is this what it means to become an adult, to be vile and cruel? You know, growing up, turning from a child into a man has such violence. You know, not to compare with what women go through, because I can't speak to that. I can speak to what I saw, and so when I went to the Gracies. I was it was it was something that really transformed me, because it it showed me tenderness, discipline, deference, and and I say tenderness because when you're training, especially as a child, or young boy as I was, you're constantly having to acknowledge the limit of hurting someone else, and so you're training that.
But what's present at all times is this notion that you don't want to hurt anybody, and so you're learning and you're playing, learning the body and learning how to actually have someone submit, but with always being respectful to their bodies.
And so my teacher at the time was this guy that now actually lives here in the states called Jean Jacques Machado. He has in one hand, only two really working fingers. His thumb is his index. He has a birth defect, and I remember as a boy having him as my teacher and noticing that, and seeing how incredible he was, and he's still one of the best you know teachers and fighters in the world.
And the whole thing with jiu-jitsu from the Graces was this is the “weapon of the weak” because it's not about strength. It's not about flexibility and technique. You never attack because you use your opponent's energy, anxiety, weight, even muscle mass against them. You know if they're attacking you. It gave me just a great new view on everything and made me calm. I feel like it helped me walk onstage, walk the streets as a boy and walk onstage and have some calm and respect for the elders and so many things. So, Jean Jacques Machado was my sensei.
