First published in Renée Silverman. (Ed.) The Popular Avant-Garde. Amsterdam: Rodopi Press, 2010, p. 300-314; reprinted in Essays Brazilian, Global South Press, 2016. Tom Zé’s Unsung and the Fate of the Tropicália Movement Oh Senhor Cidadão Eu quero saber Com quantos quilos de medo Se faz uma tradição. Tom Zé, “Senhor Cidadão” I. The strength of the concept of a “popular avant-garde” must come as the result of tension embedded in the expression itself. If the latent disagreement between the two terms making up the expression passes without comment, it easily becomes apologetic or ideological; yet if it is construed as an unlikely exception, the popular avant-garde may shake the boundaries dividing two worlds at a time when they no longer hold. For while in the arts talk of a post-avant-garde era is far from new, popular music has for decades been anything but popular since it has been increasingly dominated by a business-oriented rationality in its conception and industrial processes in its production. At least provisionally, it seems safe to argue that a true fusion between the avant-garde and the popular can only take place at specific moments, when there is a certain porosity within and between both spheres. Brazil’s case, in this respect, is both exemplary and unusual. Although in Brazil, artistic institutions have not been strong enough to support a vigorous and continuous tradition, they haven’t been sufficiently fragile so as to simply disappear or become unable to accommodate extraneous elements, forces or impulses coming from the outside of their canons. As a consequence, either from internal crises or external pressures, the Brazilian art establishment has had greater difficulty in ignoring the popular than other national traditions. In the field of popular art, it is essential to keep the productive (and explosive) nature of the Brazilian population in mind. A product of the clash among native-born criollo Brazilians and Portuguese colonizers (joined later by immigrants from Japan and other parts of Europe) and an enormous black population – mostly composed of former slaves – Brazilian popular culture looked to the erudite to provide a semblance of unity and prestige while at the same time keeping its innermost impulses alive (Durão, 2008d). Without a doubt, one of the clearest examples of the popular avant-garde in