"Mas Que Nada": Jorge Ben’s New Kind of Samba

Of all the songs Brazil has exported, few are as instantly recognized around the world as "Mas Que Nada." Written and recorded by Jorge Ben in 1963, it announced a fresh approach to samba — and went on to become, through later covers, one of the most globally beloved Brazilian tunes of all time.^[1]

A new kind of samba

"Mas Que Nada" was the standout track on Jorge Ben’s 1963 debut album, Samba Esquema Novo — literally "New-Scheme Samba" — a record that signaled a shift in Brazilian popular music.^[1] Ben’s style did not fit neatly into existing categories. As he himself recalled, people told him his music "was a samba that was not a samba, but that was a samba" — a new sort of samba.^[1]

The innovation lay in the groove. Ben played with a distinctive thumb-and-forefinger guitar technique that drove the rhythm forward, and he simplified the lush, sophisticated harmonies of bossa nova into something more propulsive and percussive.^[1] The result sat between the intimate cool of bossa nova and the older, more festive samba — danceable, infectious, and unmistakably modern. The song’s very title and refrain, an exuberant call to not let anything get in the way, captured its joyful momentum.

From Brazil to the world

While "Mas Que Nada" was a hit in Brazil, its global fame came through one of the most important figures in exporting Brazilian music. The pianist and bandleader Sérgio Mendes recorded it with his group Brasil ’66 on their 1966 debut album, and that version carried the song to international audiences, making it a staple of the worldwide bossa-and-samba repertoire.^[1]

The song proved remarkably durable. It was reinterpreted by major jazz artists — among them Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, and Oscar Peterson — and decades later it returned to the global charts: a 2006 remake by Sérgio Mendes with the Black Eyed Peas, used in a Nike advertisement during that year’s FIFA World Cup, became an international hit, reaching the top of the charts in the Netherlands and the Top 10 across several European countries.^[1]

Why it matters

"Mas Que Nada" matters because it expanded what samba could be at a pivotal moment. Where the classic samba of the morros and the cool of bossa nova had each defined an era, Jorge Ben fused and propelled them into a new, groove-driven samba that pointed toward the samba-rock and MPB of the decades to come.^[2] And through Sérgio Mendes and a half-century of covers, it became Brazil’s great musical calling card — for millions of listeners worldwide, the first and most familiar sound of Brazilian rhythm, a modern companion to grand classics like Aquarela do Brasil.