forró

João Gomes

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Brazilian accordionist who carried piseiro out of the northeast and into national pop, playing forró repertoire with a young bandleader's swagger.

João Gomes was born João Fernando Gomes Valério in Serrita, in the interior of Pernambuco. His father was a barber and his mother a farmer, and his middle name honors an uncle who worked as a cowboy, following a local custom of passing a name to a newborn relative to carry forward the qualities of someone who has died. He moved to Petrolina as a child and sang in the church choir from the age of seven.

He began recording videos while studying animal agriculture at the Federal Institute of Pernambuco in 2019, posting them online and building an audience before any formal release. His debut album, Eu tenho a senha, appeared in June 2021 and reached number 40 on the Billboard Global 200. One track from it, "Meu Pedaço de Pecado," became the most played song among Brazilian Spotify users and cracked the platform's global Top 50 that same month.

His repertoire draws on forró and its electronic offshoots, particularly piseiro, a keyboard- and programmed-percussion-driven strain of northeastern dance music, alongside older forró standards. Live, the accordion stays central, and the sets mix romantic material with faster dance numbers. He cites Luiz Gonzaga, Belchior and Cartola as influences.

His first DVD was recorded in Recife in August 2022, a concert at Marco Zero that drew an audience of 150,000 and featured guest appearances from Vanessa da Mata, L7nnon and Fagner. He has since been nominated for the Latin Grammy for Best Portuguese Language Roots Album three times, for the albums Raiz, De Norte a Sul and Dominguinho, winning with the last. In 2025 he opened NPR's Tiny Desk program in Brazil.

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