Banda Calypso

Banda Calypso was assembled in Belém, the state capital of Pará in Brazil, in late 90s by the couple Chimbinha and Joelma. Restricted to Brazil's northern musical circuit in their early days, Calypso today enjoys great success countrywide. Well known for catchy and simplistic lyrics mixed up with highly danceable music, Calypso is the latest fever in Brazil, attracting hundreds of people to their shows, wherever they play (and also attracting the rage of more intellectualized music listeners, who refute their songs as annoying, repetitive, futile and empty). They are considered the official founders of the brega calypso rhythm, which is a mixture of the obvious caribbean-born calypso with brazilian kitsch evolution of beatlesy music called brega, ska and Pará state regional rythms such as the Guitarrada and the world famous Lambada. On stage, Banda Calypso and the bands they influenced are well-known by the overexaggerated clothing, silly and catchy ultra-romantic lyrics and by the serious and heavy dancing. Joelma herself creates her own dance steps and her dancers' as well, and, in their live presentations, she dances during the whole show, while singing out loud, without any dubbing resource. Joelma also is the band leader, writing most of the lyrics, which are arranged by her husband, Chimbinha, the lead guitarist of the band. They met in 1999, when he was hired to arrange what was supposed to be Joelma's solo album; however, it ended up as Calypso's first. Before Calypso, Chimbinha (real name Cledivan) was a prominent popular music arranger and musician in Belém, Pará. Paying homage to his poor origins, he refused to sign with an international label so they could keep the production costs low, in order to sell their albums to the most popular levels of society. This helps to reduce piracy, in his opinion, as well as increasing the penetration of the band amongst the audience. As of today, Calypso has recorded 9 albums on CD, and three live DVDs.