Caetano 79, by Zé Ibarra – Handred

August 7th is Caetano Veloso day! A musician, songwriter, poet and an eternal inspiration! One of the greatest Brazilian artists, he built his oeuvre by mixing reinterpretation and renovation.

We invited Zé Ibarra, a young singer from Rio de Janeiro, also admired by us, to create a playlist celebrating the life and work of Caetano Veloso.

“How difficult it is to make a Caetano Veloso playlist. Difficult for one simple reason: Caetano doesn’t reveal himself in parts, he reveals himself in the whole. How can such a vast, immense and infinitely important body of work be cut into pieces for a demonstration, like a souvenir, a sample? It isn’t possible at the end of the day, but even though it’s impossible, it is what was asked of me and I tried to do it with the greatest care I could.

I tried looking, even though I had to choose parts, at the whole, so I chose songs spanning from his first album to his latest, and how amazing it is to realize that everything is so good, that nothing has been lost over his 50 year long career, which, on the contrary, displays the brilliant path of a billion artist who never stops shining.

Caetano has been presenting us for half a century with songs that point toward the future, that present possible solutions for the world, that question the moment’s aesthetic currents, that tie a knot around language, turning it upside down and even still keeping it standing.

Caetano is music, cinema, theater and dance all together, condensed into a polished stone of artistic gold. This playlist fails completely at translating who Caetano Veloso is, but it still attempts at giving a small taste of this huge artist, perhaps the greatest living artist in the world.”

— Zé Ibarra