Written by Brazilian journalist, researcher, writer, and singer-songwriter Chris Fuscaldo, the bilingual book “Discobiografia Mutante: Albums that Revolutionized Brazilian Music” celebrated in 2018 the phonographic legacy left by the Mutantes. After all, it was the year that Os Mutantes, the first album by the band that revolutionized the history of national music, turned 50 years old. The book tells the story of the albums recorded by Arnaldo Baptista, Sérgio Dias, and Rita Lee, along with many others who walked with the trio, highlighting very curious yet little-known stories. Among them are some quite amusing, such as the cover photo of the band’s debut album, in which Rita posed wrapped in a tablecloth bought by her mother at a church fair. There is also a passage about Jorge Ben (Jor)’s participation in this album: “Not only did he compose ‘Minha Menina’, but he also played guitar and sang while imitating TV host Chacrinha during the recording. Jorge is the voice that precedes Sérgio Dias’s solo saying ‘Cough! Everyone coughs!’,” Chris states in the book.
Mrs. Fuscaldo came to New York for a special launch event that took place at the iconic Greenwich Village bookstore, Unoppressive Non-Imperialist Bargain Books, on January 30. In a conversation moderated by Paula Abreu, programmer of the SummerStage festival, and accompanied by the guitarist of the Mutantes, 
Sérgio Dias, via Skype, she spoke about her writing process and her knowledge of the band.
The Band that Caused Controversy
The year 1968 was different for Rita Lee, Arnaldo Dias Baptista, and Sérgio Dias Baptista, who recorded their first album as Os Mutantes (which later became just Mutantes) to never be forgotten. The band caused controversy, innovated Brazilian popular music by introducing electric instruments at song festivals, musical events that attracted audiences as large as a football championship final. While Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso tried to dodge the censorship of the dictatorship and the risk of being arrested at any moment – which 
eventually happened to them -, the boys were still living a youth that, one could say, transitioned from teenage rebellion to counterculture.
The album covers of the Mutantes give rise to speculations, debates, and, as Rita even jokes, “even a doctoral thesis.” However, research results show that the trio joked so much that the covers were mere summaries of what they really were. The irony is evident in most of them. In “A Divina Comédia ou Ando meio Desligado,” for example, Rita, Arnaldo, and Sérgio wanted to confront conservatives with a photo of the three in the same bed. With this irreverence, as reported by The New York Times, the band even won over foreign artists, from David Byrne to Kurt Cobain. The Nirvana frontman even wrote a letter to Arnaldo Baptista and stated in an interview: “I know they 
were very revolutionary, created their own effects. And they caused a lot of controversy, had the courage to do what they did during the military regime.” Son of John Lennon and musician, Sean Lennon, who invited Arnaldo to play with him at one of the editions of the Rock in Rio festival, praises the work of the Mutantes: “I didn’t know there was a band like this in the world. It was one of the best recordings I had ever heard. It seemed like they had noticed British psychedelia, but they had a very particular sound.”
Discobiografia Mutante: Albums that Revolutionized Brazilian Music
Portuguese / English – 243 pages
Author: Chris Fuscaldo
www.discobiografiamutante.com