Pop Music : Explosive, Erotic Margareth Menezes at Music Machine

Brazilian singer Margareth Menezes burst onto the music scene with a major-league bang last fall when she nearly stole the show on David Byrne’s “Rei Momo” tour--the rock star’s plunge into South American music. In her first solo local appearance on Friday at the Music Machine, Menezes displayed the explosive, wildly eclectic style that’s begun to earn her the title Queen of World Music.

Sounding at times like Aretha Franklin or Chaka Khan, moving around the tiny stage with the sheer physicality of Tina Turner, Menezes was a pyrotechnic ball of energy. Her voice, a rich, dark-hued instrument, shouted and popped on the up-tempo tunes, and purred with feral sensuality on the slower numbers.

Much of the material came from Menezes’ new album, “Elegibo.” The title track, Menezes’ version of a 1987 Brazilian hit by a blocos afros percussion group called Araketu, was typical of the mixtures of sound and style essential to her performances. Mixing Afro-Brazilian pop with the soaring group song of samba, it immediately brought the audience into a carnival-like sharing of the show.

Other pieces flashed and glowed with equally volatile mixtures: Samba-reggae, technolambada, funk-samba, electric afoxe . Menezes sang them all with unrelenting intensity and remarkable command of a variety of styles. The inevitable comparison with American soul and gospel singers is one that in no way diminishes the importance or vitality of Menezes’ creativity.

But there was a problem: Her insistence on singing everything in Portuguese. Much of her material is rich in social messages, and in her own country--as with most Brazilian singers--the impact of her work reaches well beyond the arena of entertainment. Without translation, what emerged from the stage of the Music Machine was basically nonstop, danceable, erotic energy.

That’s too bad, because Menezes is clearly an artist with a message that’s worth hearing on more levels than one.