Pernambuco and Bahia’s Musical “War”

This article draws on ethnographic research on contemporary music in Recife, Brazil, to show how people in the northeastern state of Pernambuco are redefining regional identity through engaging in a musically mediated rivalry with the neighboring state of Bahia. While this rivalry is longstanding, during the 2000s and 2010s, it was reconfigured in relation to the state government’s efforts to brand Pernambuco as a multicultural place. Accordingly, I analyze how middle-class participants at events hosted by a government institution that I call the Fundação Cultural de Pernambuco, disparage two Bahian dance genres: axé music and swingueira (a.k.a. pagode baiano), in ways that intertwine racial and class-based stereotypes. I therefore argue that the stigmatization of northeastern people is not exclusive to the hegemonic southeast, but it is also (re)produced within the northeast. This case thus demonstrates how place-based branding enables individuals and institutions to reproduce and justify social inequality.