Cazuza

The sound of Cazuza cannot be explained without that mix of melancholy and rebellion that beats in every lyric. His songs are not just chords: they are confessions, cries drowned in the middle of the night in Baixo Leblon, where he grew up listening to Cartola and Dolores Duran but also to the distorted echoes of Led Zeppelin he discovered in London. There’s something in his voice — raw, sincere — that sounds like pure truth, as if every word came from a place where no more masks fit. Exagerado, his first solo album, confirmed it: there was no room for half-measures there, only the intensity of someone who knows time is running out.

Before that, Barão Vermelho had already put him on the map. With them, he recorded tracks like Maior Abandonado and Bete Balanço, songs that sounded like Rio rock with a garage soul, but it was on the Rock in Rio stage in 1985 where the band exploded. However, Cazuza wasn’t satisfied being the leader of a successful group. He wanted more: he wanted his lyrics to tear open the skin of the moment, to speak of love, loss, of life slipping away. He left Barão Vermelho in 1985 and launched into a career where he alone was responsible for what came from his pen.