Tom Zé, The Most Interesting Person in Sâo Paulo

Sao Paulo Trail : Tom Zé > Zé Celso #1

Tom Zé (Portuguese pronunciation: born Antônio José Santana Martins, 11 October 1936 in Irará, Bahia, Brazil) is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer who was influential in the Tropicália movement of 1960s Brazil.

Tom Zé, now in his 5th decade as the Brazilian music icon. Zé pioneered the Tropicália movement founded under military dictatorship, fusing poetry, music and theatre. Controversial and irresistable, he was an important collaborator alongside friends Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. Together they turned upside down the musical, political and behavioral conventions of the country.

After the peak of the Tropicália period, Zé went into relative obscurity: it was only in the 1990s, when the musician and label head David Byrne discovered an album recorded by Zé many years earlier, that he returned to performing and releasing new material.

In this video Tom hosts Most Interesting Person, Sâo Paulo and talks us through his beautiful career as an artist, activist and cultural lifeblood of Brazil's great city.

Zé shares some of his many iconic moments as a musician before introducing us to his most interesting person, the great theater poet, Zé Celso (José Celso Martinez Corrêa).