Encantou-se, virou estrela
Mulher negra guerreira
É a nossa Rainha do Coco
Que um dia foi Selma Ferreira.
(Rainha do Coco. Williams Santana, o Chicó da Burra).

 

She was enchanted, became a star

Black warrioress

She is our Queen of the Coco

Who once was Selma Ferreira

(Rainha do Coco. Williams Santana, o Chicó da Burra).

 

Selma Ferreira da Silva was born on December 10th, 1935 in the municipality if Vitória de Santo Antão, in the zona da Mata of Pernambuco. Since childhood, Selma came into contact with traditional Pernambuco music, especially the coco de roda (a round dance, typical of the region, influenced by African drumming and dances from Brazilian Indigenous peoples), in Midsummer parties she attended with her parents. She lived in the countryside until she was ten years old, when her family came to live in Recife, the city in which she got married at a very young age.

 

Selma lived for 15 years in the Mustardinha neighborhood, in Recife. When she became a widow at the age of 30, she went to live in Olinda where she started selling tapioca (a food made with cassava plant extract). She began to sing the coco to her customers, and thus delighted tourists and increased her sales.

 

This struggling and optimistic woman began to organize coco rounds in her spare time.

 

In the 1990s, Chico Science and the other young people of the Manguebeat (a counterculture movement from Recife which praised local culture and criticized social and ecological questions) who discovered Selma’s irreverence and began to praise her songs. Thus, Selma became better known and began performing at popular parties where she sold cassette tapes with her recorded songs.

 

The 1996 Abril Pro Rock festival marked Selma do Coco’s first performance to a large audience, instantly provoking a radical turn in her artistic career.

 

In 1997, the coco tune “A Rolinha”, performed at the festival and recorded by other artists, was a success in Carnivals in both Recife and Olinda.

 

She was invited to perform in São Paulo and, from there, in Europe, especially in Germany, where she played several concerts.

 

Her first CD, Minha História, in partnership with her son Zezinho, recorded in Germany in 1998 and later released by Paraddoxx, earned her the Sharp Award the following year.

 

According to Selma (201?), her first CD features several of her compositions, such as the title song, “Santo Antônio”, “Dá-lhe Manoel”, and “A rolinha”.

 

“Minha História” featured the following tracks:
1. Minha História (Dona Selma Do Coco / Zezinho)
2. Odete (Dona Selma Do Coco / Zezinho)
3. A Rolinha (Dona Selma Do Coco / Zezinho)
4. Dá-lhe Manoel (Dona Selma Do Coco / Zezinho)
5. Santo Antônio (Dona Selma Do Coco / Zezinho)
6. Areia (Dona Selma Do Coco / Zezinho)
7. Ô Moreninha Do Dente De Ouro (Dona Selma Do Coco / Zezinho)
8. Peixe Desconhecido (Dona Selma Do Coco / Zezinho)
9. Coco Para Barreiros (Dona Selma Do Coco / Zezinho)
10. Coco Para Berlim (Dona Selma Do Coco / Zezinho)
11. Submarino Alemão (Dona Selma Do Coco / Zezinho)
12. Encerramento (Dona Selma Do Coco / Zezinho).

In the following years, Selma performed at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York and the New Orleans Jazz Festival, as well in several European countries: Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, and Portugal.

 

She recorded the album Heróis da Noite alongside African singers during her European tour, at the invitation of the Berlin Cultural Institute.

 

In 2003, “Raízes da cultura” was released, recorded in Olinda.

 

Dona Selma: bodas de ouro em coco, with a multimedia track, was recorded and produced between 2008 and 2009.

 

It is also worth mentioning the artist’s participation in compilations:
• Heróis da Noite
• Cultura Viva
• Pernambuco em Concerto.

 

Her son Zezinho worked as her producer and musical director in her second CD, Jangadeiro, recorded in 2004, with the tracks:
1. Chamada para Dona Selma
2. Jangadeiro
3. Rolinha 2
4. Tuninha
5. Cabo de Santo Agostinho
6. Meu sabiá
7. Fazendo vento
8. Usina maravilha
9. Mano
10. Cordão de prata
11. O que é que Selma tem
12. Itapissuma
13. Eu vou pra Olinda
14. Não erre, cantador

Her son Zezinho coordinated all of Selma’s independent records. Her only son alive at the time, he sadly died in April 2010.

 

Coco, like other popular culture manifestations, struggles for the maintenance of its tradition and for visibility in the social scene. To overcome the invisibility of popular culture and the difficulty in maintaining themselves due to low financial profitability, coco groups independently organize periodical concerts in marginalized neighborhoods, the birthplace and promotion site of this culture. These groups contribute to keeping popular culture and coco de roda alive. Ximenes (2015) introduces us to some of them:

Coco dos pretos
Founded in the Chão de Estrelas neighborhood in March 2006, the group states that the drumming of their instruments is ingrained in the roots of rhythm, which directly influence their components - yet they are always expanding their possibilities when they play, so their performances are innovative. Their tour date regimen is intense. Coincidentally, on the day Selma do Coco passed away, the group played at the event “Onde é que tá o Coco?” (Where’s Coco?), in Camaragibe, in the metropolitan region of Recife. You can follow them on their Facebook page, in which, in addition to their performance dates, you can see photos and watch sambada videos.

Sambada de Coco da Tabajara
Every month, Mestre Juarez and Coco do Seu Mané perform a sambada in Cidade Tabajara, in which they spread the collective’s mission: to contribute to the process of popular culture affirmation and encourage cultural exchange between masters, artists, and groups from different communities in which this culture is managed and carried out, so that this experience exchange strengthens art and fosters popular rhythms in that universe, giving turn and voice to independent and self-managed artists. In sambadas, social fairs with local art and fashion are also held, creating profitability for the event. To learn more and keep track of their performance dates, visit the group’s Facebook page.

Grupo Bongar
The group was founded in 2001, in the vicinity of the Xambá community, in Olinda, aiming to bring to the stage the traditional Coco da Xambá festival, held in the community for more than 40 years, on June 29. Bongar focuses its musical background on the popular universe, whose songs are influenced by the Afro-Brazilian cults experienced by its members. In addition to stage performances, the group also performs lectures and percussion, popular dance, and instrument-making workshops. Their schedule and other news can be read on the group’s Facebook page.

 

Northeastern cocos vividly and joyfully express social and human aspects: “the coco adopted me, they call me coco queen, the people is my love” sang Selma do Coco with emotion.

 

When Selma sang, she suddenly dropped an “aha”, which, according to Burh (201?), she disclosed that had no relation to orisas or other entities from the Yoruba religion of West Africa, and that the scream happened while her thought spun, seeking, in her repertoire, the next coco to be played.

 

Morena do dente ouro, qual é o teu feitiço? Cantando e dançando um coco sincopado, matreiro e cheio de duplo sentido, Selma sabe que agrada. E gosta do que faz. Embrenhando-se no meio poético-musical do coco de roda, entramelando-se nas devoções de um coco que sutilmente também batuca, o grito de guerra “a-há” antecede o canto e faz a amarração de uma performance cheia de ginga, simpatia e irreverência. (BURH, 201?). 

 

Gold-toothed black woman, what is your charm? Singing and dancing a syncopated, cunning, filled with double-entendres coco, Selma knows she pleases. And she likes what she does. Delving deep into the poetic-musical milieu of the coco de roda, intertwined in devotions of a coco which subtly drums, the war cry “aha” precedes the singing and ties a performance full of swing, charisma, and irreverence. (BURH, 201?)

Selma do Coco, considered a cultural heritage of the state of Pernambuco, died after spending 28 days hospitalized to treat a fractured femur, caused after a fall in her home. Due to a cardiac arrest followed by multiple organ failure, on May 9, 2015, she said goodbye to coco, but left us a legacy: the solidification of coco as a reference of Northeastern popular identity.

 

 

Recife, November 30th, 2017.

sources consulted

ALCÂNTARA, Clênio Sierra de. Celebrando o legado de Selma do coco. In: A Cidade e a História, 30 jul. 2015. Available at: http://acidadeeahistoria.blogspot.com.br/2015/07/celebrando-o-legado-de-selma-do-coco.html. Accessed: 30 nov. 2017.

BUHR, Priscilla. Selma do Coco (in memoriam). Cultura Pe, [201?]. Available at: http://www.cultura.pe.gov.br/pagina/patrimonio-cultural/imaterial/patrimonios-vivos/selma-do-coco/. Accessed: 30 nov. 2017,

SELMA do coco. [Foto neste texto]. Available at: http://www.cultura.pe.gov.br/pagina/patrimonio-cultural/imaterial/patrimonios-vivos/selma-do-coco/. Accessed: 21 nov. 2017.

SELMA do coco. [201?]. Available at: http://www.cantorasdobrasil.com.br/cantoras/selma_do_coco.htm. Accessed; 30 nov. 2017.

FALECEU artista Selma do coco. Diario de Pernambuco, 09 maio 2015. Available at: goo.gl/PzQwb6. Accessed: 30 nov. 2017.

TELES, José. Dona Selma do Coco vibra com a comenda recebida do presidente Lula e celebra seus 50 anos de carreira. Available at: http://www.onordeste.com/portal/selma-do-coco/. Accessed: 30 nov. 201.

XIMENES, Lara. Selma do coco e a resistência da cultura popular. Blog do dia 11 de maio de 2015. Available at: goo.gl/Ybu2tr. Accessed: 30 nov. 2017.

 

how to quote this text

VERARDI, Cláudia Albuquerque. Selma do Coco: Cultural Heritage of Pernambuco (singer-songwriter). In: PESQUISA Escolar. Recife: Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, 2017. Available at: https://pesquisaescolar.fundaj.gov.br/en/artigo/selma-do-coco-cultural-heritage-pernambuco-singer-songwriter/. Accessed on: month day year. (Ex.: Aug. 6 2009.)