Largest Blues Festival in Latin America Comes to Rio this Week

By Jack Arnhold, Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – This Thursday, May 23rd until Saturday, May 25th, the HUB RJ in Santo Cristo will be hosting the very first Rio-based edition of the internationally-renowned Mississippi Delta Blues Festival, usually held in Caxias do Sul, Rio Grande do Sul.

“The idea is to provide the public with three days of immersion in blues culture through the music, art, and cuisine that is typical of the southern United States,” explains Toyo Bagoso, the festival’s founder.

A musician, entrepreneur, and great enthusiast of the genre, Toyo Bagoso has lived a love affair with the blues for more than twenty years. He organized the first Mississippi Delta Blues Festival in 2008 as an extension of his Mississippi Delta Blues Bar in Natal, Caxias do Sul. And after eleven successful years, the festival is now considered the largest blues festival in Latin America.

While the original festival attracts around 10,000 people annually, Bagoso is looking to get an audience of about 3,500 people to this first Carioca incarnation.

To bring in the crowds, the festival will be erecting a megastructure inside HUB RJ with six themed stages, as well as spaces for graffiti, art installations, workshops with musicians, plus a food court with food trucks serving up the best Southern cuisine.

The entire structure of the festival site is designed to take the public on a journey through the history and mythology of the blues, which originated from African slaves who worked the cotton plantations in the Mississippi Delta.

The Bottle Trees Stage, for example, is dedicated to the roots of blues music. It takes its name from the centuries-old African tradition of placing glass bottles on the tree branches outside a house to ward off evil spirits.

The Magnólia Stage is dedicated to the divas of blues, with Magnolia being the official flower of the state of Mississippi. Celebrating strong, independent, and talented women, the stage will pay tribute to blues legends such as Mamie Smith, Bessie Smith, and Memphis Minnie.

The Front Porch Stage will highlight the importance of the early blues shacks that helped young musicians learn from older hands and disseminate the music far beyond its places of origin.

There will also be a stage especially for Rio called the Quiosque Quase 9 Stage, which will be located on Ipanema beach. This informal setting will be used to showcase the best of the blues musicians from the Cidade Maravilhosa.

Plus, the festival will be making good use of some existing Rio hot spots for live blues music. Both Banca Do Blues, the newsstand in Rio’s city center that regularly hosts blues performances, and Mississippi Delta Blues Bar in Gamboa will be taking part in the festivities.

What: Mississippi Delta Blues Festival
When: Thursday, May 23rd, until Saturday, May 25th; performance times vary
Where: Hub RJ, Av. Prof. Pereira Reis, 50 – Santo Cristo, Rio de Janeiro – RJ, 20220-800
Entrance: Tickets on sale from R$110; available here