This post, the last in the series on artists tied to the Tropicália movement, focuses on one of the most innovative and clever Brazilian musicians of the last 50 years – Tom Zé.

Now 76 and better known by his stage name, Antônio José Santana Martins was born on October 11, 1936, making him one of the oldest musicians and songwriters in the Tropicália movement (only Rogério Duprat was older than Zé). Like other artists involved with Tropicália, Zé was from a middle-class family in the poor Northeast, although the conditions of his family’s own status were unique: his father had won the national lottery. Growing up in the interior part of the region, Zé has described his childhood hometown as “pre-Gutenbergian,” an area where low literacy rates and regional culture created a strong oral tradition, both through the spoken word and through song. Indeed, Zé cites a fascination with the…