So, Mestre Carlão came to Glasgow. The Govanhill Neighbourhood Centre, to be precise. You might think a community hall in the Southside on an August evening is an unlikely place to unpack the socio-political complexities of South America, but there we were. And, it has to be said, it went rather well.

We spent a couple of hours navigating the rhythms of partido alto, coco, and capoeira. We didn't just hit things. We actually sat down and looked at the differences between the contemporary versions of these rhythms and the traditional ones. It turns out, if you pay attention, you can track the cultural history of a nation just by noticing how someone strikes a piece of stretched hide. The pandeiro, it transpires, wasn't just a pandeiro on the night. It was a sort of percussive transit van, a vehicle reliably transporting us into a discussion about a deeper, older Brazil.

And why does any of this matter? Well, Mestre Carlão is currently trying to put out his twelfth album, Mundo Girou. The world has spun. Brazil is hurtling towards the October 2026 elections, a period defined by the return of the sort of political forces that make you want to draw the curtains and stay in bed. Art, in this context, actually has a job to do. It has to record the moment and remind people they can do something about it.
To that end, money needed to change hands. We held a raffle to fund the album. You could win a Mundo Girou t-shirt, or a copy of Mestre Carlão’s book, In Search of Mandinga, which covers forty years of him travelling around meeting the sort of people who make you realise you haven't really done much with your own life.

People bought tickets. The funds will help the album exist. In capoeira, seeing the world de ponta-cabeça—standing on your hands—is a way of finding balance when things shift. Given the state of things right now, looking at the world upside down might be the only way it currently makes any sense. Thanks to everyone who turned up.