Singer revealed as lead singer of the group Negritude Junior, Netinho de Paula gives great testimonials in the series available on Globoplay Reproduction / Video ? DOCUMENTAL SERIES REVIEW Title: Anos 90 – The pagode explosion Director: Emílio Domingos and Rafael Boucinha Script: Raul Perez Rating: ? ? ? ? ? ? “When the pagode started to do a lot success in the 90s, this helped me to understand myself as black, to be more proud of being black. The pagode of the 90s goes far beyond music. It is a transformative movement in society”, analyzes Thiaguinho in a statement heard almost at the end of the third and final episode of the documentary series “Anos 90 – The pagode explosion”, now available in full on Globoplay after being shown on TV Globo on the last three Wednesdays. The speech of Thiaguinho, a nationally recognized singer in 2003 as the lead singer of the group Exaltasamba, sets the reflective tone of the documentary directed by Emílio Domingos and Rafael Boucinha. The series examines and reframes the pagode of the 1990s as a movement that transformed samba and, as Thiaguinho says, society itself. The protagonists of the genre debate their own trajectory from the perspective of time. Still in the third episode, “The show must continue”, Netinho de Paula – an interviewee who stands out for his speeches capable of summarizing facts and moments – is moved by seeing a performance by Negritude Junior, the group that revealed him in the 1990s, on the program “Domingão do Faustão” (TV Globo), and reflects on his own trajectory with a critical bias. "What a great time! How quick it was... My leaving Negritude Junior to pursue a solo career wasn't supposed to happen. We were supposed to continue together until today. But they thought I was much bigger than the group and I was asked to leave", recalls Netinho, highlighting that all of Negritude Junior's work also involves the issue of identity, including the fact that the group has absorbed codes from North American black music. Chrigor admits in the series that he suffered when he left Exaltasamba in 2002 and was replaced by Thiaguinho Reproduction / Video High quality, the testimonials enhance the documentary and are the main raw material of the series, whose script – signed by Raul Perez – intersperses the singers' speeches with archive images (generally takes of the groups' appearances in auditorium programs and one or another show of these groups at the beginning of their career) and with musical numbers in which one artist revisits the repertoire of another. The testimonials sound sincere. Chrigor, for example, admits that he felt the blow when he left Exaltasamba in 2002 and was replaced by Thiaguinho, having transformed his colleague's initial jealousy into friendship. "I was a successful guy (suddenly) without any success. For my life, it was good because I learned to live, but I suffered. Success is not committed to anyone", reflects Chrigor. The documentary stands out for highlighting social issues that came along with the pagoda explosion. As several interviewees point out, the groups were formed mainly by young black people from the outskirts, generally from the city of São Paulo (SP), the epicenter of the pagode, although the group Só pra Contrariar is from Uberlândia (MG) from Minas Gerais. The explosion of the pagoda enabled the social mobility of these young people and their families. Male supremacy at the beginning of the movement also comes into play. If only the singer Eliana de Lima broke this hegemony in the 1990s, Ludmilla currently draws crowds to the shows of the “Numanice” pagode project. Ludmilla's interview contributes to understanding the transformations of the genre over thirty-six years, taking as a starting point the success of the pioneering group Raça Negra in 1990. Thiaguinho reveals that the explosion of the pagode in the 1990s helped him understand himself as a black man Reproduction / Video By the way, the absence of Luiz Carlos among those interviewed is felt, but not to the point of taking away points from the documentary series. The reason is that Raça Negra prepared the ground for the formation of the movement, whose genesis is the motto of the script for the first episode, “From the broken to the world”. This is when, in the opening episode, Fundo de Quintal – a group that revolutionized the way of playing samba in the second half of the 1970s, but which lost momentum in the market precisely with the explosion of the pagode in the 1990s – is paradoxically pointed out as the main initial reference for the stars of the 90s pagode. “The 90s pagode is the youth saying: 'now let's do samba our way'”, summarizes Netinho de Paula. And those young people did, with the help of names like Pelé Problema and Luizão (from the Chic Show team), among other producers and businesspeople who opened the first doors for groups looking for a place in the market in the wake of the Raça Negra explosion. The connection between pagode 90 and the black dance movement in São Paulo is a point of light that is illuminated by the documentary by Emílio Domingos and Rafael Boucinha. If Belo's own light is emphasized by several testimonies, Thiaguinho's strength with “Tardezinha” – the samba circle that ended up in arenas and stadiums such as the gigantism achieved by the project – is also highlighted throughout the series. Ludmilla is portrayed in the series as an artist who broke the male hegemony of the pagoda with the 'Numanice' project Reproduction / Video Theme of the second episode, “The explosion”, the explosion of the pagoda itself is told in this episode in which the social ascension of the protagonists of the genre becomes clear. With money came ostentation and rivalries, remembered by Netinho and Salgadinho (singer projected in the Katinguelê group), among other interviewees. It was when success and wealth sometimes meant that life was lived on autopilot, as Wilson Prateado, a key producer of pagode, recalls. But the media success passed – until it returned with force in the 2020s, with pagode 90 already having cult status in motion that generated million-dollar tours