Samba-enredo

Samba-enredo is a subgenre of Samba in which songs are performed by a samba school (or escola de samba) for the festivities of Carnaval. "Samba-enredo" is the Portuguese equivalent of "samba in song", or "song samba". It is one of the 8 or even 10 different styles of samba music, which also include, the following subgenres:

Choosing a samba-enredo is a long and tedious process. Before the Carnaval parade itself (February or March), a determined samba school holds contests for writing the song. The song is written by samba composers from the school itself, ("Ala dos Compositores") or sometimes from outside composers, normally in "parcerias" (partnerships). Each school receives many, sometimes hundreds of songs, hoping to be the next samba-enredo for that year. The samba-enredo is written by these numerous composers mentioned above ONLY after the Carnival Art Director, or "Carnavalesco" officially publishes the Samba school parade theme synopsis. After a careful explanation of the parade-theme, many times done by the Carnival Art Director himself, composers may ask questions in order to clarify the synopsis, so they could start writing the samba-enredos.