Abstract
Veloso’s latest work upholds an aesthetic disposition: an aversion to conservative criticism and consumer expectation that are both obsessed with ethnic/national authenticity and contemptuous toward non-melodic music. The Bahian resumes an attack on what Charles Perrone and Christopher Dunn have named “xenophobic sentiment in Brazil” and “notions about Brazilian song abroad,” or “suave bossa nova” (22). Even though cê commands three mellow tunes of amorous contemplation and a modal outcry on racism and anti-racism ideology, the disc intertwines the lines of that aesthetic disposition to the sound of weeping guitars while dramatizing romantic trepidations, sexual imperatives, and gender ambiguities.