This paper aims at presenting a study on the construction of discourses surrounding urban popular music in Brazil, from the formative moment with its first historiographical texts to the proposition of the "linha evolutiva" and the institutionalization of MPB (a segment of the Brazilian popular music). During this period, ranging from the 1930 to the 1960 decades, a lineage was established in the Brazilian popular music that had the samba from Rio de Janeiro as its central axis, around which a sociocultural system and a historical-sociological thought was constructed. The proposal of this lineage as the aforementioned axis of the Brazilian popular music tradition was a dominant idea about this kind of music until the 1980's. Although losing power and being submitted to criticism by recent studies, it remains as an important parameter for debate about music in Brazil.
historiography of popular music; history of Brazilian music; samba and Brazilian MPB