What is fado? Fado (pronounced fadoo) in Portuguese means fate or destiny and embodies the soul and spirit of the Portuguese people. It is one of the oldest styles of urban folk music, a mournful, melancholic style that became popular around the early 1800s in Lisbon, and could be found in tiny hole in the wall taverns, brothels, and street corners. Nowadays, one cannot sing fado on the street corner, as it is illegal. Fado is probably much older than that, and may have been originated from African and Brazilian slave rhythms, blended with the music of the homesick Portuguese sailors who had travelled the world, with some Arabic influences thrown in to the pot. It was the music of the working class of Lisbon, and like the blues music of the American south, was played both for pleasure and the relieve the pain and sorrow, and the unchangeable destinies of everyday life.
Fado was mostly the voice of the poor, and often sung about the trials and tribulations of an overly oppressive government. From 1926 to 1868, during the dictatorship of Salazar fado singers were forced to become professional and could only sing in fado houses, in an attempt to gain control of the content of the lyrics of the fado.
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