For the first time in more than one hundred years there was no carnival in 2021. For the second time in history, a pandemic cancelled the popular party that symbolizes Brazil. It isn’t, however, a reason for a year without samba. To set the mood for the only carnival in which the best thing to do is to stay home we created this samba’s lexicon. It came to be after the analysis of 14,7 thousand lyrics from 199 artists.
Here, we propose a non-exhaustive trail through interesting points derived from the dataset. It does not end in the Wednesday of Ashes (the day that closes carnival). There is much more that can be done with the collected data and that is why all the datasets used in this project are available. Now you just have to choose the best soundtrack and start the journey. Have a pleasant trip!
Google searches for samba follows a distinct pattern. There is a huge spike when it is carnival. The explanation is on the most connected terms: “school of samba” and “samba plot”. Both terms are deeply connected with the carnival in Rio de Janeiro.
?Is this samba or pagode? Maybe you had that discussion. A possible way to answer it is looking for what people think about both genres. We analyzed playlist for each type of music and selected the songs thar showed up more frequently.
?We recognize some limitations in the data’s universe. Here, you will have more information about where the data came from before finding out where it leads.
?199
analyzed artists
14.693
analyzed songs
1,8 million
terms
It is not enough to count words to unearth the most often used in samba songs. Words with no particular meaning were excluded from the analysis. If we did not do this, the most frequent words would be articles such as “the” or “a”. It wouldn’t be very fun, no?
?Filter by:
Does the singer's birth date affect the terms used in each song? This animated chart shows how the most commonly used words in sambas have evolved over time.
?Who is the queen or king of each word? To answer this question, we calculated the share of each term in the total used by each artist.
?Love
Karametade
1 every 27 words
Miss
Elizeth Cardoso
1 every 245 words
Sadness
Vinicius de Moraes
1 every 496 words
Happiness
Gonzaguinha
1 every 557 words
Kiss
Turma do Pagode
1 every 171 words
Carnival
Ary Barroso
1 every 598 words
Samba
Ary Barroso
1 every 97 words
Pagode
Jovelina Pérola Negra
1 every 212 words
Rich
Carmen Miranda
1 every 939 words
Poor
Bezerra da Silva
1 every 928 words
Woman
Inimigos da HP
1 every 140 words
Man
Jorge Ben Jor
1 every 240 words
Words are not islands; they are always connected to each other. Here we analyze with which they appear the most (before or after).
?Samba has the influence of several religions, especially those of African origin. The terreiros (religious centers) are at the genesis of the rhythm. The umbilical connection between these religions and samba is also in the syncretism that unites them with Catholicism and indigenous religions. All this is in the samba and we tried to map part of the question by looking for names of deities in the analyzed songs.
?A duel between words. The purpose of this comparison is to see if any word appears more or less than the associated term.
?There was no better ending than with samba. For this, we have assembled four playlists with the songs that most appeared in the playlists analyzed for this Samba’s Lexicon. Enjoy!
