Feature: Brazil's carnival, a century of samba

Brazil's Carnival, one of the world's most recognizable events which kicked off here Friday, is intrinsically linked to samba, a musical genre born in the favelas a century ago.

It was exactly in 1916 that the song, "Pelo telefone", was recorded by Ernesto dos Santos, also known as Donga. It is considered to be the first samba song to be distributed and which thrust this genre into the limelight.

The music, marked by energetic drum beats and sensual dance moves, became a passion for the poorer neighborhoods of Rio, mostly populated by descendants of slaves who were freed in 1888.

At a time when the country was living the death rattles of the empire and the first days of the republic, the elite of Rio de Janeiro began to organize carnival parades, inspired by similar ones in Venice, complete with ample costumes and masks.

Soon black residents of city's poorer neighborhood followed suit, creating their own joyous, chaotic party accompanied by the rhythms of samba. Hence the modern Carnival was born.

The first modern carnival parades began in 1932 with a competition organized by the Mundo Sportivo newspaper.

Historians say that this original parade included 23 groups, now known as samba schools, with around 100 dancers in each group.

The first parades took place in Rio's port area, where many poor residents lived and samba was created.

Differing from today, in the 1930s many of the male dancers wore suits while the women wore demure and simple costumes, without showing much skin and without large floats.

Back then, men and women participated in separate groups, a tradition now long gone except for the baianas. They are a group of older women who parade alone in the typical clothes that 19th century slave women wore in the state of Bahia, including the emblematic large skirts.

The popularity of these parades grew rapidly, while the samba schools formalized, grew in size and eventually became professional.

Up to the early 1980s, hundreds of thousands of people lined President Vargas Avenue, Rio's main thoroughfare, for the Carnival. However, authorities then decided to build a special zone for the parade in order to avoid excessive congestion in the city.

The Sambadrome was inaugurated in 1984 and designed by Oscar Niemeyer, Brazil's most famous architect. It has since been televised around the world as the home of the Carnival in all its riotous joy. Endi