2 THE RECORDING INDUSTRY

The Brazilian Music Industry in a World Context
Andre Midani
by Israel do Vale
Journalist and cultural producer, editorial director of the online magazine Cultura & Mercado and collaborator with
“Folha de S.Paulo” newspaper.
André Midani has lived and worked through the most significant movements of Brazilian music in the last four decades.
Having played an important role in the creation of the local record industry, he was an important, if at times
controversial, figure throughout the explosions of Bossa Nova, tropicalismo and rock in the 1980s.
Of french-syrian origin, Midani started his own career packing crates for a small record company in Paris–a step up from
his previous employment in a bakery where he worked after leaving home. He arrived in Brazil by chance; avoiding
conscription into the French army during the war with Algeria he decided to abscond to Argentina. The ship stopped in
Rio and he cut-short his journey, making Brazil his home.
An executive in Odeon (EMI) in the 1950s, Philips (Universal) throughout the 60s and 70s, and responsible for the
establishment of Warner in Brazil in 1977, he has been a driving-force behind the careers of many of the elite of MPB -
Tom Jobim, João Gilberto, Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Tim Maia, Nara Leão, Mutantes, Jorge Ben,
Elis Regina, and many others.
Experienced in working with the majors in the US and Mexico, André Midani has seen at first-hand the transformation
of the record industry from its days of glory to its decline in the on-line era.
Seventy-one years of age, Midani is currently heading the Brazilian committee which is organizing, together with the French