http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/arts/music/31play.html

Márcio Local

Samba soul isn’t a new hybrid in Brazil. It has been around since the late 1960s, when Jorge Ben and others merged ideas from up north with the sounds of Rio de Janeiro. Márcio Local was born in 1976, and his album, “Márcio Local Says ‘Don Day Don Dree Don Don’: Adventures in Samba Soul” (Luaka Bop), is mostly a happy throwback. The instruments are hand-played: horn sections, twinkling electric piano and wah-wah guitars alongside Brazilian percussion and cavaquinho, the small samba guitar. Mr. Local sings in a roomy, long-breathed baritone that always sounds relaxed, sloshing over the beat or gliding into a nonchalant falsetto. The album was produced by Mario Caldato Jr., who has worked with the Beastie Boys. And every now and then Mr. Local raps, as he does in “Represento” — which, like many of the songs, is a manifesto of respect for homegrown Brazilian culture, for samba and for the joys of art that makes people want to dance.