With fellow Brazilian musicians Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Tom Zé, and Gal Costa, the band Os Mutantes formed an artistic collective known as Tropicália which sought a “cultural cannibalism” of traditional Brazilian art with foreign influences to create something that reflected the inherent contradictions of Brazilian society in the late 1960’s. Though the Tropicália movement lasted from just 1967 to 1972, the music enjoyed a renewed interest and the band reunited after Kurt Cobain mentioned Os Mutantes being a big influence on Nirvana’s music.
