Today Brazil takes on North Korea in both teams’ first matches in the 2010 World Cup hosted by South Africa!   And here in Brazil, everyone’s breathing World Cup season, especially sponsors and anyone who can make any money with “World Cup” specials.  And as usual, Nike has a pretty interesting campaign going on.  They’re putting together a documentary in honor of Jorge Ben’s song, “Ponta de Lança Africano (Umbabarauma)”(1976).  Which is a song about an African point man, but in reality speaks to any Brazilian who’s ever played pick up soccer in the middle of a dusty street.  This song practically predicted the world cup in South Africa over 30 years later perfectly mixing African and Brazilian and European beats.

Here’s a video from the 80’s (i.e., the image isn’t that great) produced by David Byrne and which alludes to everything that is Umbabarauma 🙂

And here’s the Nike remake with Jorge Ben Jor, Mano Brow and a number of other great Brazilian artists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQOOzvwW2Wk&feature=player_embedded#!