Pedro Sorongo

Pedro Mello dos Santos (October 2, 1919 — February 23, 1993), also known as Pedro Sorongo and Pedro da Lua, was a Brazilian musician, percussionist, and visual artist. He was a virtuoso percussionist, composer, and inventor of percussion instruments such as the electronic bamboo and the mouth berimbau. He performed with renowned artists like Jacob do Bandolim, Baden Powell, Elis Regina, Elza Soares, Sebastião Tapajós, Roberto Ribeiro, Milton Nascimento, Clara Nunes, among others.

Biography Pedro Mello dos Santos was born on October 2, 1919 in the neighborhood of São Cristóvão, in Rio de Janeiro. After serving with the Brazilian Expeditionary Force in the Italian Campaign and returning from World War II at the end of 1945, he decided to dedicate himself to music. While working as a doorman for Rádio Tupi, he met important figures in the music scene of the time, to whom he would showcase his percussion rhythms as well as his compositions. During the 1950s, he saw his first songs recorded by artists such as Mário Mascarenhas, Orlando Silva, and Michel Daud.

Despite his significant contribution to Brazilian music, his album Krishnanda remained obscure until the mid-2000s, when it began to circulate on bootlegs in Europe and as MP3s on the internet. Krishnanda is increasingly regarded as a precursor of afrobeat and a lost masterpiece of Brazilian music, much like the work of Di Melo.