When the first official parade of samba schools took place in 1932 at Praça Onze, samba already had a long history in the city's streets, homes, and terreiros. Before that, samba was already circulating through circles, terreiros, communal houses, zungus, ranchos, cordões, and the streets of Pequena África.
At the turn of the 20th century, Praça Onze and its surroundings brought together a vital part of Rio's Black culture. There, workers, musicians, baianas, spiritual figures, sambistas, and carnival designers kept practices in motion that helped shape modern Carnival. Tia Ciata's house, the ranchos linked to Bahian leaders, the batuques, the circles, and the popular processions paved the way for samba to become deeply intertwined with the festival.
The ranchos played an important role in this transition. They brought to the street a form of parade with a theme, costumes, a banner bearer, instruments, and marching evolution. Hilário Jovino was a decisive figure in this process, helping ranchos gain greater organization and presence in Carnival. It was a Black popular festival taking over the city with music, narrative, and movement.
In the 1920s, Estácio took another step in this story. Ismael Silva, Bide, Nilton Bastos, and other sambistas developed a beat better suited for the group to sing and march together. The so-called samba amaxixado gradually gave way to a more marked cadence, offering rhythm for the body and pace for collective movement. The surdo bass drum helped establish this new step.
It was in this context that Deixa Falar emerged, remembered as the first group to call itself a samba school. The name was witty and clever: if there were schools to train teachers, Estácio also had its masters of samba. The curious thing is that in 1932, the very year of the first official competition for the schools, Deixa Falar entered the rancho category. In other words, it went down in history as the first samba school, helped create a new parade language, but chose a different path at that decisive moment.
The 1932 competition was organized by journalist Mário Filho, owner of the newspaper Mundo Sportivo. The idea was to bring together in an official contest groups of sambistas who were already parading informally through Rio's neighborhoods. Praça Onze welcomed still small schools formed by communities connected to samba circles, terreiros, and carnival ranchos. Among the pioneers were Estação Primeira de Mangueira, the first parade champion, and Vai Como Pode, which later became Portela.
The parade was very different from the Carnival we know today. Participants wore simple clothes, often everyday garments with a carnival touch. The wings still had a looser layout, and the dance was born from swing and improvisation. The public watched up close in the street, without the distance of giant bleachers.
The samba sung by the schools was not yet the samba-enredo we know today. The composition did not necessarily relate to the proposed theme, featuring a fixed first part sung by the lead singer and an improvised second part. Gradually, this practice changed: the samba began to be written in its entirety before the parade and to clearly tell the story of the theme presented by the school.
Within the structure of samba schools, the presence of the baianas earned its own special place. The ala das baianas established itself as a tribute to the matriarchs who welcomed sambistas, opened their homes, cooked, prayed, and helped protect samba in times of repression. With the institutionalization of parades, their presence became mandatory, preserving on the avenue the memory of these women who were vital to the shaping of Rio's samba. As each school parades with its baianas, it reaffirms this commitment to memory, ancestry, and the feminine strength that helped Carnival reach where it is today.
The judges mainly valued harmony, the quality of the samba, and the authentic popular feel of the groups. Visual luxury would only take center stage in the following decades. In 1932, the core of the competition was samba, community presence, and the ability to process down the route singing, playing, and keeping the school united.
Starting from that contest, Carioca Carnival began to organize a new form of popular spectacle. In Praça Onze, samba found a new way to present itself to the city. The audience began to realize that those small schools held immense community and cultural strength.
Before the Samba Schools+
Carioca Carnival began long before the samba schools, Sapucaí, and the parades that today showcase Rio to diverse audiences. The celebration took shape gradually, through street revelry, music, masks, rivalry, popular organization, Black presence, and successive attempts at control.
Around 1600, the first records of the entrudo appeared, a street play involving water and scented wax lemons, which often crossed line and could also involve stones, waste, and violent incidents.
↓Download PDF: Before the Samba Schools(13 pages, 2.7 MB)
↓Download PDF: 1932: samba in competition(7 pages, 0.7 MB)
