The future of the samba musician and the samba musician of the future

youth, sociability and associativism in children’s samba schools from Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

Children and teenagers participate with their families in the activities of samba schools. These young people have their own spaces for decades: children’s section; master of ceremonies and flag-bearer (courses); drum sections, allowing for professionalization and renovation within the samba school itself; and children’s samba schools.  Nowadays there are 16 schools, mostly derived from the mother schools, which parading more than twenty-five thousand youngsters on Fat Tuesday, closing the Carnival festivities. They try to insert themselves into the social policies for the youth, for the promotion of citizenship and the revitalization of the sense community. They maintain  lose ties with their neighborhood, contribute to the appreciation of the carioca culture and present themselves as a fundamental element of samba in the last decades.