Be it at the huge gatherings of Recife’s rockers (Rec Beat) or at French festivals of traditional music, Coco Raizes gets absolutely everyone on their feet and dancing. Their energy is infectious and impossible to resist. Born out of a passionate encounter between the group and Outro Brasil, Coco Raizes is the way tradition should be: full of joie de vivre, selflessness and sincerity. A way of life, almost a philosophy.

In the Nordeste of Brazil, a family decided to revive the tradition of the Arcoverde coco. Known here as trupé, it is a tradition based on requests and replies in which the dancers pound the ground with wooden sandals (tamanco). Thanks to Lula Calixto, now deceased, the elders recovered their local traditions. When Lula passed away, one of her nieces Iran took her place. Every performance by the group is a huge success, partly due to the astonishing vision of a whole family on stage with just four percussive instruments, wooden sandals and the energy of those that have little other than their love and joy of singing the coco. Lula Calixto turned the coco of the elders that was used to level out the ground in new houses by pounding the earth with their shoes, into a professional art with a group, a repertory and wooden sandals especially made for dancing.

Today the Calixto family lives to the rhythm of the coco, rehearsing in the morning before going to work, getting ready for concerts around the country and throughout Europe. The roots (raizes) of the coco have blossomed anew, the town of Arcoverde and its inhabitants now acknowledging Coco Raizes as one of its cultural pearls alongside Cordel do Fogo Encantado, more influenced by Mangue Beat