Now that four years have passed since its appearance, it’s safer to say something that was previously just an assumption. João Gomes, the 23-year-old Piseiros singer from Pernambuco, is a once-in-many-years cultural success. And this must be respected beyond the seasonal rules which, although respectable, do not guarantee any immortality (Multishow Artist of the Year award, more than 16 million followers on Instagram, 10.3 million monthly listeners on Spotify and participation in Roberto Carlos’ end-of-year special show).
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The extraordinary aspect of João Gomes’ rise occurs for other reasons and begins with a question: when did the last national artist produced by northeastern Sertanism appear? Truly massive, filling public squares with crying fans. The lineage of Luiz Gonzaga, to which João belongs even without playing the accordion, ended with Mestrinho, a formidable musician who did not become an idol (perhaps because he did not convert to piseiro) after being welcomed as the successor of Dominguinhos, the last giant.
When I first heard João, I found his voice strange. It seemed too linear to me, nasal (a characteristic of piseiro singers) and with pronunciation that was sometimes almost incomprehensible. But after a conversation with Bahian singer and speech therapist Flávia Caraíbas, I started listening to him differently and noticed his rare bass (rare for us people from the southeast: Luiz Gonzaga was already singing in this region in the 50s). Its nasal sound is not that of a single voice, but of several. And here’s something that may have helped him go from TikTok phenomenon to bona fide heartthrob: By singing like he’s talking to his friends at Petrolina, João Gomes draws the crowd. Who else does this?
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By choosing his repertoire, he builds another bridge. Piseiro is a sort of update of the original forró pé de serra, even if its form seems so distant. Its creation in the early 2000s, with instrument sounds all coming from the same keyboard without disguising the fact that everything on it was just playback, was the alternative for rural artists who didn’t have the money to hire musicians and buy equipment. Over time, what was gambiarra became a musical style. Today, João is called King Piseiro.
Anyone who is a fan of the “organic genre” pé de serra does not look favorably on piseiro. But João does both and has also become an aggregator of almost polarized trends. With some optimism we can see the new people, who love piseiro, arriving in Jackson do Pandeiro after listening to “Meu Peça de Sin”. Just like, one imagines, anyone who listens to the xote “Membresi de nos”, released on the album “Dominguinho” (with Mestrinho and Jota.pê), will perhaps be less afraid when hearing the piseiro “Aquelas Graças”.
João Gomes has another rare element for his generation: a story that does not circulate on social networks. João Fernandes Gomes Valério is from Serrita, in the bright Sertão do Araripe, Pernambuco. His mother was a farmer and his father, a barber, taught him to listen and carefully observe others before saying something. For now, he continues to obey his father’s lesson. His charisma, which also seems to come from his homeland, helps make him the biggest pop artist in the North East for many years.
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