The recent production of the historical knowledge on Brazilian popular music stems from a generation of memoirists, chroniclers and journalists, whose works began to emerge back in the 1960s and 1970s. This collection of works remained as the main body of memory and history of popular music until the late twentieth century. Journalist and chronicler Jota Efegê (1902-1997), born in Rio de Janeiro, was one of the leading figures in this process. The course of his life was important for the establishment of part of this memory, and some of his works gained a prominent place in the development of the historiography of popular music. This article aims to critically examine aspects of this collection of works so as to better understand the role of Jota Efegê in building a historiography narrative that stabilized and "naturalized" itself over time as "the history of Brazilian popular music."
historiography; popular music; narratives; historians; Jota Efegê.