MusicPaulo Ricardo: ‘Cazuza was a lamp, with several moths at Volta’Paulo Ricardo told Rolling Stone Brazil as he met and began to admire the late singer – who, he says, was not a’ crazy fucking

It was 1981. Red baronnor RPM. Has been studying journalism since the previous year in School of Communication and Art from the USP. I always wanted to be a musician, but journalism is a multimedia profession: it deals with everything, from image to sound. Furthermore, Caetano Veloso made philosophy, Chico Buarque He did architecture… We have to study something, but not the music course – because, hence, studies classical music, orchestration, regency, things like that. Finally, I opted for this graduation because while fighting my place in music, infiltrated myself in the record labels and made contact with great artists.

I looked for work on media. I passed some until I arrived at the magazine Sound three. There, they wrote my idols like Ana Maria Bahiana, Lulu Santos, Júlio Barroso… And Ezequiel Neveswho was very fan, not only for his text, but also for being a personality. He lied, fantasizing things that had not happened. It was ours Lester Bangs.

One day I arrived at Ezekiel And I said: “I am Paulo Ricardo Medeiroswhich has a page on the side of yours in the magazine. ”We made friends and soon I met the Cazuza. They called me Paul Richardfor this thing of international rock. We were friends, because he was very funny.

Cazuza It was four years older and had a class. He was a lamp, with several moths around. He was the epicenter of the party. He lived with his parents in Ipanema – and that’s where I was when I went to Rio. On the beach. We were in that daytime madness, a psychedelia. In the late afternoon they were all crazy. The party was still the party at Cazuza. Then we went somewhere.

Cazuza It was a showman. A cultured and sweet person. I wrote, worked, photographed. Still looking for a way. Also, very charismatic and funny, with acid humor: “I lose the friend, but not the joke.” I was that younger boy from Rolling Stone in the movie Almost famouswho had to call home and say, “No, mother, be quiet.”

I saw all this happen: Cazuza grow, the Baron to happen. Frejat It was my age. We went to hotels and our spree was to order banana split on the label’s account. It was beautiful to see happen step by step – and witness Cazuza Soon out in a solo career, with Exaggerated. Foot on the door.

Between 1981 and 1991, it was ten years. Until the end, Cazuza It was amazing and brave. At no time
He was religious or felt guilty in the midst of huge prejudice because of AIDS. It is recognized to this day, as it incorporated his work. He was the “exaggerated”. The songs are about him.

However, he was focused. I worked hard. It was not a crazy fucking. Several times I passed his house in the afternoon and he was there on the typewriter making text. He did not consider scribbling the napkin: he was always on the typewriter. Had method and time. Blues, rock, elbow pain, the Beat generation… was from his DNA was in his DNA to meet the intersection between blues and samba. The same with the natural transition from rock to MPB. No one even noticed. If you take rock from your songs, they get great poetry.

His work is intact. It is timeless. “Time does not stop“It has one of the most amazing lyrics in the history of Brazilian popular music. When I play any of its live songs, it always generates a reaction like:” Wow, it seems that it was today. “

Cazuza It was incomparable. Insultable. No one came close. He was the trapeze artist of the triple carpal mortal. No one even joked about getting close to the degree of his madness, nor his seriousness with work. It was very influential. Somehow people incorporated and imitated something from him. It had a magnetic personality. Everyone loved him.

It is a rare case where the work is as interesting as the person. Carlos Drummond de Andrade It is one of the greatest poets of our literature, but it was a civil servant. Only Drummond’s work fascinates; Life, no. With Cazuzait’s different. Life and the work interest. Left a timeless job that yields movie, piece, musical, book, exhibition. It will always be like this.

*Paulo Ricardo in a statement given to Rolling Stone Brasil

Rolling Stone Brazil Collector Edition: Cazuza – Memories of the Poet

This text is present in the collector’s edition of Rolling Stone Brasil in honor of Cazuza. The magazine, available in EDITORA PROFILE STOREhas testimonials from friends and close people, a tour of the exaggerated Cazuza exhibition, list of 20 most rewritten songs, commented discography and much more!