The Chilean composer revealed that he used the pseudonym ‘Topinho’ to pass himself off as Brazilian and not be discriminated against on the radio for not being totally Brazilian music.
The Chilean composer Álvaro Scaramelli revealed that he posed as a brazilian producer using a pseudonym to work with the successful group of the 2000, Axé Bahía.
Topinho It was the name that the artist used to collaborate with the icon band of the Mekano youth program, as he confessed on the program More alive than ever of TV+.
“What do you have to do with the group and who is Topinho?”asked Mario Kreutzberger’s daughter.
“I am Topinho. If you look for the Axé Bahía album, it will say that the music producer and author of several songs is called Topinho”revealed Álvaro Scaramelli. “They are going to say ‘well, this is a Brazilian’, but in reality it was me dressed as a Brazilian”he added.
The reason behind this decision, he said, was go unnoticed while working with the group and also not be discarded by the radio when seeing that the mind behind Axé Bahía was a Chilean and not a Brazilian.
“I deduced that if I played Álvaro Scaramelli, the radio programmers were going to say ‘ah, this is not Brazilian music’ and they were going to discard it. So I hid behind a pseudonym.”he recounted.
A decision that obviously worked, since the group achieved absolute success in the country and in Latin America, which continues to this day.
The The composer’s role as Topinho began when Axé Bahía emigrated from Chile to Central America, Spain and the United States, which led them to even record with Celia Cruz on her last album before her death.
“We spent two years living and working there (in Mexico), a lot, because they gave us a television program, on Televisa, that went on every afternoon. The kids showed up and It was very similar to what they did in Mekano here, the same phenomenon. In a short time we had a full schedule“, reported on the television space Scaramelli.
The producer also said that the success of the band led them to settle for two years in Mexicowhich “opened many doors” for them.