Baco

Baco Exu do Blues elucidates memories, love and anger in “Quantas Vezes Você Já Foi Amado?” (How Many Times Have You Been Loved?).

Third album by the Bahian singer-songwriter features Gal Costa, Vinícius de Moraes (in Samples), Gloria Groove and Muse Maya.

"Quantas vezes você já foi amado?" This question is the title of the third studio album by singer-songwriter Baco Exu do Blues. "Eu sinto tanta raiva que amar parece errado" (I feel so angry that it seems wrong to love). The first verse of the introduction of the new work by one of the main names in the contemporary scene already says a lot about the subject. The record is about how to receive and give affection from a black man. Baco Exu do Blues has never been so Diogo Moncorvo as in the twelve tracks that make up the album that arrives this Wednesday through the 999 label with distribution by Altafonte.

In it, the lyrical self remembers his pains and loves with rhymes that promise to hypnotize the audience. Exu do Blues is back and with all his heart, explaining the ways black people express feelings. Produced by Marcelo Delamare, QVVJFA features beats by JLZ, Dactes and Nansy Silvvz. The result is an avalanche of feelings and musicality, in the style of Baco Exu do Blues. The album features Gal Costa, Vinícius de Moraes (in samples), Gloria Groove and Muse Maya. Everything with the palm oil of Exu and the talent of Baco. In fact, African religiosity is a prominent theme on the album. It seems that the singer has been enchanted by the entities to understand the best meaning of love.

“‘How many times have you been loved?’ is a question that makes everyone uncomfortable. In my case, I’ve been loved many times, but I’d been little taught to receive that love. That made it seem like I have hardly ever been loved because love is a cycle that is only complete when a person is giving you that, and you manage to receive it and pass it back somehow. It has always been different with me. I felt like people were throwing that love, that affection at me, but I couldn't feel it 100%. I was suspicious because of the life course I’ve had”, says the artist.

For him, one of the most impactful things for this record was having his home back in Salvador. “It was very important for this whole re-reading of my life, of the paths I choose, of the process I went through to be, create and understand Baco Exu do Blues. When I returned to my city, I went back to my childhood, my adolescence and I started to question myself about some things. One of them was my relationship with affection, with anger, with hatred, with love. Where they came from and how these connections were established in my life”, explains Baco.

QVVJFA brings a mature Baco, revisiting, in a deeper way, questions that he had already tried to revisit other times, but still without finding a solution. “The musical aesthetics is something unique. It goes back to Brazil and Salvador all the time. It's very Brazilian music, but at the same time, it's very electronic music. In the end, it’s black music, it walks everywhere”, he defines.

This is the third album in Baco Exu do Blues' career. In addition to singles, it is an EP. And it has quite a mix of the predecessors “Esú” and “Bluesman”, with whom Baco piled up a series of national and international awards, including Cannes. The already announced “Bacanal”, whose launch the singer postponed because of the pandemic, will arrive after Baco makes each one look at oneself, question oneself and get emotional asking: “How many times have you been loved?”