Manezinho Araújo

Origin

Cabo de Santo Agostinho, PE

Years active

1930–1977

Genres

embolada, mpb, forró

Instruments

vocals

Biography

Manuel Pereira de Araújo, known professionally as Manezinho Araújo, was a versatile Brazilian singer, composer, journalist, and painter born in Cabo de Santo Agostinho and raised in Recife. During his youth in Pernambuco, he encountered the embolada singer Minona Carneiro, whose musical style he would come to master and enthusiastically popularize across the country. After joining the army and participating in the 1930 military coup, he was sent to Rio de Janeiro, where he initially performed in cabarets to survive before landing a contract with Rádio Mayrink Veiga and earning the legendary moniker "King of the Embolada".

Throughout his prolific musical career spanning from the 1930s to the 1950s, he recorded over fifty 78 rpm records and four LPs for labels such as Odeon Records, while collaborating with prominent figures of Brazilian music like Luiz Gonzaga. Alongside his radio and recording success, he co-owned a famous restaurant with his wife where he entertained luminaries like Carmen Miranda and Edith Piaf, and he achieved his biggest musical hit in 1945 with the recording of "Dezessete e Setecentos". After officially retiring from the music scene in the mid-1950s, he embarked on an entirely self-taught painting career in the 1960s, quickly establishing himself as a celebrated primitive folk artist with international acclaim.

His later visual art exhibitions earned him widespread prestige, including representation in Lisbon's Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, cementing his legacy as a multifaceted cultural icon of the Brazilian Northeast. He worked alongside numerous artistic luminaries throughout his varied pursuits, leaving a lasting impact on both Brazilian popular music and primitive painting alongside artists such as Gilberto Gil. Manezinho Araújo passed away in São Paulo in 1993, leaving behind an enduring body of work deeply rooted in northeastern folklore and imagery.