The transatlantic slave trade, which began in the 16th century and extended until the end of the 19th century, brought Africans to the Americas -- a diaspora with economic, social, and cultural consequences. Violated in their status as subject and treated as merchandise by European colonizers, Black people developed survival methods to ensure their existence.

​

Music was undoubtedly a factor in bringing people together, reworking and inventing new ways of existing in the diaspora. In Brazil, samba crystallized as a powerful force, a phenomenon far beyond a musical form, establishing itself as a social, cultural, and economic space where Afro-Brazilians reinvented themselves through a language that unites, socializes, teaches, celebrates, honors ancestors, and negotiate daily life amidst racial oppression.​

​

For over a hundred years, samba sprouted in all regions of Brazil where Black people settled and followed diverse paths of development. One was the invention of the samba school, a space for recognition, preservation, and defense of Black culture. Fabiana Cozza is a beloved heir to this tradition, inherited from her father Owaldo dos Santos, who for years was lead singer for the Camisa Verde e Branco samba school, a stronghold of Black music in São Paulo. Carrying his daughter in his arms to rehearsals and performances, he immersed Fabiana in samba since childhood. Although she studied singing in her teens, she pursued journalism in college until one day samba called her back to sing professionally.

 

Today she is recognized not only for her beautiful and powerful voice, but also for her care for the history of samba, bringing in her hands the sounds of the terreiros (religious spaces) where ancient Afro traditions flourished, the colors of Bahia, the rhythms of the samba circles of Rio de Janeiro, and the samba that gave rise to bossa nova. "Fabiana wields the ancestral baton that was given to her," writes one critic, "and walks resolutely towards mastery."

 

This will be her first U.S. tour since making her debut in 2010 at Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina.