Tropicalia

Bring a bunch of restless college students together in the musically fertile climate of Brazil's Bahia state in the 1960s and you get Tropicalia (a.k.a. Tropicalismo), a hodgepodge of traditional Brazilian styles -- including Samba and Bossa -- combined with imported rock and pop. Young Bahians like Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Gal Costa began writing music in this eclectic new style and exported it to the cities of southern Brazil, where it gained a larger following through music festivals, recordings, radio, and television. Most of the founders of the Tropicalia sound are still recording and touring worldwide.