São Paulo radio stations
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Culture
São Paulo was born on 25 January 1554, when Jesuit priests, among them Manuel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta, founded a school on a hilltop where Pátio do Colégio stands today. For a long time it was a modest town. Coffee money in the late 19th century, and then industry, transformed it, drawing Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese and Arab immigrants and millions of migrants from Brazil's Northeast. That is why each neighbourhood has its own accent: Liberdade, home to Japanese and other Asian communities; Bixiga, with its Italian cantinas; Bom Retiro, for the clothing trade; Vila Madalena, for bars and street art; and Avenida Paulista, which closes to cars on Sundays and becomes a promenade. The Theatro Municipal hosted the 1922 Modern Art Week, a milestone of Brazilian modernism. The calendar includes the Virada Cultural, with free shows day and night, the LGBT+ Pride Parade on Paulista and the São Silvestre road race, which closes the year on 31 December.
Things to see
Local food
- Pizza — An Italian legacy taken seriously. On Sunday nights the pizzerias are packed.
- Mortadella sandwich — A bread roll with a towering stack of mortadella, the Mercadão classic.
- Bauru — Roast beef, tomato, pickles and melted cheese in a bread roll. Created in the 1930s at the Ponto Chic bar.
- Virado à paulista — Bean and cassava-flour mash, rice, greens, pork chop, sausage, egg and crackling. The Monday dish in local restaurants.
- Pão na chapa and pingado — Buttered bread toasted on the griddle and coffee with a splash of milk, at the bakery counter.
Accent and slang
- “Meu”
- A way of addressing someone, like "man". "Meu, what traffic!"
- “Mano / mina”
- Guy / girl.
- “Da hora”
- Cool, great.
- “Rolê”
- An outing. "Shall we go for a rolê?"
- “Trampo”
- Work, a job.
- “Farol”
- Traffic light (called "sinal" in other Brazilian cities).
Tip: play a local news station to hear the accent.
Local music
Adoniran Barbosa gave São Paulo samba its voice with songs such as "Trem das Onze" and "Saudosa Maloca", singing about the city in the accent of its Italian neighbourhoods. In the 1960s, TV Record shows launched Jovem Guarda and the great MPB festivals, and Os Mutantes took São Paulo rock into Tropicália. In the 1990s rap grew strong in the outskirts, led by Racionais MC's. São Paulo radio plays plenty of sertanejo, rock, pop, news and live football commentary.
More cities
Sources: Wikivoyage — São Paulo (CC BY-SA) · Wikipedia — São Paulo (CC BY-SA) · Museu da Imigração do Estado de São Paulo.