Rodrigo Amarante de Castro Neves (born September 6, 1976) is a Brazilian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger. He is part of the bands Los Hermanos, Orquestra Imperial, and Little Joy, and released his first solo record, Cavalo, in Brazil in late 2013 and worldwide in May 2014. He also wrote and performed the (bolero style) narcocorrido "Tuyo", the theme song for the Netflix Original Series Narcos (2015) and Narcos: Mexico (2018), and wrote the score for the film Entebbe (2018).
Biography
1997–2007: Los Hermanos
Amarante was born in Rio de Janeiro. He studied Journalism at Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro ("PUC-Rio"), where he met Marcelo Camelo and Rodrigo Barba. After a few rehearsals with Los Hermanos, Amarante was invited to join the band.
On their debut album, Los Hermanos (1999), Amarante contributed very little, playing transverse flute and singing the backing vocals. There are only two songs written by him: "Quem Sabe", which turned out to be one of the CD's singles, and "Onze Dias".
On the band's second album, Bloco do Eu Sozinho (2001), Amarante was able to show his real musical quality, playing guitar together with Marcelo and writing more songs. He recorded "Sentimental" (considered by Dado Villa-Lobos from Legião Urbana to be the best song of 2001), "Retrato pra Iaiá", and "Cher Antoine" (sung in French). He also co-wrote with Marcelo "A Flor", one of the album's hits, and the instrumental part of the song "Mais Uma Canção".
With their third album, Ventura (2003), came Amarante's national recognition as a great songwriter; he wrote songs of indisputable quality, like "Último Romance", "O velho e o moço", "Um par", "Do Sétimo Andar", and "Deixa o Verão". His role as a sideman in the band ended, and he became recognized as one of the band's leaders, which role until then was attributed only to Marcelo Camelo.
On the group's fourth album, 4 (2005), Amarante wrote almost as many songs as Marcelo. Although 4 did not have as much success as the previous album, Amarante's songs are much more distinguished, like "O Vento" – the only hit in this album – and "Condicional". He also wrote "Primeiro Andar", "Os Pássaros", and "Paquetá" (Paquetá is a small island in Rio de Janeiro).
In 2006, Amarante won the prize of "Best Instrumentalist" in the Prêmio Multishow (Multishow Awards).
In April 2007 the band announced they were going on hiatus, since 2009, the band has been gathering from years to years for concerts and musical tours.
2002–2006: Orquestra Imperial
After a hiatus from Los Hermanos (in 2007), Amarante dedicated himself to Orquestra Imperial (a band in which he plays with Moreno Veloso (Caetano Veloso's son), Nina Becker, and the actress Thalma de Freitas) and went to California to record "Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon" with Devendra Banhart. There, he started writing songs with Fabrizio Moretti and Binki Shapiro, a trio that would soon become Little Joy.
2006–2010: Little Joy
In 2007, Amarante joined with The Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti and American musician, singer, and songwriter Binki Shapiro to form the trio Little Joy, a Brazilian/American rock supergroup. Amarante and Moretti had met in 2006, at a festival in Lisbon where both their bands were performing, and the idea came up to start a new musical project unrelated to their respective bands. When Amarante came to work in Los Angeles with Devendra Banhart on his 2007 album Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon they renewed the acquaintance and started making music, then Binki was brought on board. Little Joy was signed to Rough Trade Records label.
2010–present: Solo works
In 2014, Amarante released his first solo album, Cavalo, one of the first releases on the Easy Sounds Recording Company label. The album received strong critical reviews and featured as one of NPR Music's "50 Favourite Songs of 2014 So Far". He performed the album on tour in nearly 30 different countries and live in such outlets as Live Deezer Session, NPR Music, KEXP-FM, as well as jointly with Vincent Moon in IA Take Away Show – La Blogotheque.
In 2015, Amarante wrote and vocalized the Spanish-language song, "Tuyo"("Yours"), as the opening theme for the Netflix Original series Narcos. He was inspired by the thought of what kind of music Pablo Escobar's mother would have listened to when raising her son. The song debuted at No. 6 on the Latin Pop Digital Songs around the 2015 series premiere and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music.