Brazilian singer and composer who was one of the founders of the manguebeat cultural movement. He was the lead singer and major creative driving force of the groundbreaking Mangue Bit band called Chico Science & Nação Zumbi (CSNZ). Influenced by such musicians as James Brown, Grandmaster Flash and Kurtis Blow, their music cleverly fused rock, funk, and hip hop with maracatu and other traditional rhythms of Brazil’s Northeast. World music critics found his music “original and distinctive of his region.”
Around 1991, Chico Science, along with singer Fred 04 of the band Mundo Livre S/A, founded the Mangue Bit cultural movement in response to dire economic and cultural stagnation in Recife and Olinda. CSNZ made their US debut at New York’s Central Park Summerstage in 1995, opening for Gilberto Gil, with whom he collaborated during the encore.
Chico Science & Nação Zumbi toured several times in Europe and brought massive attention to the new generation of Brazilian artists in the 1990s. With only two full albums released during his lifetime, Da Lama Ao Caos (‘From Mud To Chaos’) and Afrociberdelia, his influence and vision became the foundation to a whole new generation of musicians in Brazil.
In 1996, Chico Science contributed “Maracatu Atômico” along with Nação Zumbi to the AIDS-Benefit album Red Hot + Rio produced by the Red Hot Organization.
He died in a car accident on 2 February 1997 at age 30 in Recife, Pernambuco. He lost control of his Fiat Uno and hit a side light post after another car cut him off. He was rescued alive but he did not survive his injuries. The Governor of the Brazilian state of Pernambuco declared three days of mourning. Ten years after his death, his family was compensated by Fiat due to a failure in the seatbelt that could have saved his life.
Link to Wikipedia biography