Samba can’t be learned from a textbook alone. Brazil’s musical tradition is best understood first-hand and up close — close enough to feel the drumbeat reverberate inside you.
“ It's like an ocean of sound hitting you from every direction. Like you're not hearing it with your ears, you're hearing it with your whole body,” said Miamibloco musical director and cofounder Brian Potts. “It's an incredible feeling.”
Samba is a broad term used to describe a musical genre that originated in Afro-Brazilian communities in the 20th century, marked by traditional percussion instruments and syncopated rhythms.
Potts and his partner, suOm Francis, co-founded Miamibloco, a samba percussion group, which emerged in 2017 when Potts started teaching a small circle of friends how to play the drums. Soon their informal backyard hangouts bloomed into a village of percussionists.
After the pandemic paused large social gatherings and forced people to reassess the way they socialize, Francis, who is an urban planner by trade, treated Miamibloco as a social project — one that could build community through music.
“ Samba is a culture that spans generations, and it spans cities and neighborhoods and it brings everything together in a very harmonious and powerful way,” Francis said.
“I saw the opportunity to apply my knowledge and my passion of giving accessibility to people in Miami — to really have something to gravitate to that would make them care about the city and about the culture,” she said.
People of all ages and skill levels are welcome. Francis said they attract a mixture of local musicians and non-musicians alike. Miamibloco hosts a variety of programs such as The Bateria Academy, which is a six-week samba course; community workshops, which are more casual introductions to percussion basics; and Bateria Saideira, which is their high-level 80-piece percussion performance ensemble. Francis said Miamibloco is an equalizer.
In South Florida, where people speak multiple languages, she said everyone understands how to follow a drum beat. And the group is not limited to just samba — they will also play popular rhythms like cumbia, merengue and plena.
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Potts, who studied Brazilian pandeiro at the University of Miami, spent time in Rio De Janeiro, playing alongside artists there, such as Pandeiro Repique Duo.
During rehearsal on Monday night, Potts vocalizes various rhythms that the percussionists mirror back. He cuts through the air with short hand movements, setting the tempo. Potts and other section leaders will then shift the drummers into a square formation, bringing the higher frequency instruments, like the tamborim, to the front and the lower frequencies, like the surdo, to the back.
“We teach like rote verbal tradition. We teach you how to sing it. I don't care if you have a doctorate in music like me, or if you've never touched a drum, because it will instill it in you in a deeper way than just reading something.”
The Bateria Saideira group will perform at the Miami Beach Bandshell on Saturday, May 24 as part of their fifth annual Saideira Social. It will feature collaborations with 23 local and international musicians, including the maestros of Salgueiro, one of the best samba schools in Rio de Janeiro.
“ I think it’s hugely important to give validity to this movement because it can be very easy, especially here in the United States, to look at a big group of drummers and say, oh, that's a drum circle,” Potts said.
Francis, whose family comes from San Andrés, makes a point to pay respect to Brazilian culture by inviting samba teachers from Brazil to Miami and connecting them to Miamibloco members.
“It's a beautiful thing because instruments are supposed to come alive by being played. When I came on board to really get involved, it was more about how we can use this as a vehicle of creating community exactly how it is done in Brazil,” Francis said.
“I would say that Miami is a very rich place with different cultures, and you're always becoming richer as a person by exploring different cultures in a respectful way,” she said.
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