Coala Festival opened its 12th edition in São Paulo with Maria Bethânia, Emicida and encounters between generations of Brazilian music
The twelfth edition of Coala Festival began on September 12 at Memorial da América Latina in São Paulo, with a program that once again brings together historically important names in Brazilian music and performers shaping its contemporary scene. According to UOL's report, the first day was marked by Maria Bethânia, whose performance continues the celebration of six decades of her professional career, and Emicida, one of the most influential Brazilian rappers of his generation. The festival runs on September 12 and 13, 2026, and this year's schedule encompasses MPB, rap, samba-pop, piseiro, soul, alternative rock and electronic music. In doing so, the organizers continue the model on which Coala has built its identity since its first edition in 2014: placing established songwriters and performers alongside new names, while also creating collaborations that can rarely be seen on standard tours. Although Bethânia and Emicida were the headliners of Saturday's program, the festival day itself began earlier with a performance by Zeca Veloso and then developed throughout the afternoon toward the evening concerts on the main stage.
Maria Bethânia at the center of the first day
The greatest symbolic weight of the first day was carried by the return of Maria Bethânia, one of the key figures of Brazilian popular music. Gshow and Billboard Brasil state that her performance was conceived as a cross-section of different periods of a career that the artist dates from her national breakthrough in the play Opinião in 1965. In that context, the program is tied to the celebration of 60 years of her career, with a repertoire bringing together songs from different decades, including Cheiro de Amor, As Canções Que Você Fez Pra Mim and Não Dá Mais Pra Segurar (Explode Coração). Folha de S.Paulo, in an earlier review of her anniversary tour, recalls that Bethânia links the beginning of her career precisely to Opinião, the play in which she replaced Nara Leão in 1965 and almost overnight became a nationally recognized interpreter. That fact gives additional weight to the festival performance: it is not merely a retrospective of hits, but a presentation of an artist whose stage aesthetics have for decades relied on the connection between music, poetry, theater and the interpretation of text.
Bethânia's performance in São Paulo also marks her return to the Coala stage after four years. Billboard Brasil recalls that she previously performed at the festival in 2022, when she closed the program on the final day, in the edition with which the event returned to its full format after the pandemic period. According to the schedule published by Exame, Bethânia was set for the final slot on the main stage on September 12 at 8:40 p.m., after Emicida. In the program, she was thus given the role of the closing chapter of a day whose very structure emphasized the historical breadth of Brazilian music: from Zeca Veloso and Cícero with Duda Beat, through the meeting of Marcos Valle and Ana Frango Elétrico, to rap and the grand finale by one of Brazil's most recognizable interpreters. This arrangement of performers is no coincidence; for years Coala has built its festival story on the idea that different generations should not perform in separate niches, but within the same programming flow.
Emicida returned to Coala with the project "Racional MCMV"
Saturday's other major name was Emicida, who returned to Coala Festival with the Emicida Racional MCMV tour. Billboard Brasil states that the current project is connected to the release Emicida Racional VL 2 – Mesmas Cores & Mesmos Valores, a work in which the rapper re-establishes a dialogue with the legacy of Racionais MC's and with the music that strongly influenced his formation. Ahead of the festival, it was also announced that Jotapê and Puro Suco would join him on stage, further giving the performance the character of an intergenerational encounter within Brazilian hip-hop. According to an earlier announcement reported by Terra, the rapper emphasized that he was coming to the Coala stage for the first time since 2017, although he had attended the festival in the meantime as a member of the audience. The same source states that the concert connects newer material with songs from different stages of his discography, from the early mixtape phase to the album AmarElo.
Emicida's position in the program has a broader significance than merely the return of a popular performer. From the beginning, Coala has positioned itself as a festival of Brazilian music in a broad sense, without reducing that concept to a single genre or generation, and rap has become one of its important components over the past decade. In Saturday's program, Emicida therefore stood between the collaborative performance by Marcos Valle and Ana Frango Elétrico and the finale with Bethânia, bringing together within a few hours the songwriting tradition of MPB, contemporary alternative pop and hip-hop. UOL singled out encounters between generations as one of the main characteristics of the opening of the 12th edition. In that sense, Emicida's project, which consciously returns to Racionais MC's as a fundamental reference, fits even more closely into the festival's logic of connecting musical heritage with contemporary expression.
From Marcos Valle and Ana Frango Elétrico to Buraka Som Sistema
The first festival day was not limited to the two main names. According to the published schedule reported by Exame and Veja São Paulo, the main-stage program was opened by Zeca Veloso at 1:30 p.m., followed by Cícero with Duda Beat. Buraka Som Sistema performed in the afternoon slot, and UOL described that concert as one of the Portuguese group's rare performances in Brazil. Later, Marcos Valle and Ana Frango Elétrico took over the stage, before Emicida and Bethânia. At the same time, Rubel performed with an orchestra in the Auditório Simón Bolívar hall, allowing the festival to expand its main program spatially beyond the outdoor stage of Memorial da América Latina.
Particular attention was attracted by the meeting between Marcos Valle and Ana Frango Elétrico, two songwriters separated by more than half a century in age but united by a pronounced inclination toward studio experimentation, harmonic playfulness and Brazilian pop traditions. Folha de S.Paulo states that their collaboration developed after they connected with each other and through earlier joint performances, while the festival concert was conceived as a condensed version of their shared project. According to the newspaper's announcement, the repertoire included Valle songs such as Estrelar and Samba de Verão, as well as compositions by Ana Frango Elétrico, including Mulher Homem Bicho and Boy of Stranger Things. Such a combination illustrates Coala's editorial logic well: older discography does not appear merely as heritage to be reproduced, but as material that can be read from a new perspective.
Cícero and Duda Beat represented a different type of dialogue. Their joint performance had already been announced as part of Saturday's program in May, when Billboard Brasil reported that Cícero would come to Coala with Duda Beat as a special guest. Zeca Veloso, who opened the day's concert program, belongs to a younger generation of songwriters, while the inclusion of Buraka Som Sistema broadened the festival's sonic framework toward electronic music and the Portuguese scene. Saturday thus demonstrated that the concept of "Brazilian music", as Coala uses it, is not a closed repertoire framework, but a starting point for collaborations, influences and connections within the broader space of Portuguese-language music.
Sunday brings Criolo, Seu Jorge and João Gomes
The second day, September 13, continues the same logic, but with different genre emphases. According to Exame's schedule, the main-stage program begins with a performance by Sophia Chablau and Felipe Vaqueiro, followed by rapper Duquesa, Luedji Luna with the group Fat Family, João Gomes, Seu Jorge and Criolo. DJ sets and a baile bringing together Roma Santana and Edmilson dos Teclados are planned between individual concerts. In the Auditório Simón Bolívar hall, Tom Zé has been announced with a program marking the approach of his 90th birthday, once again establishing a connection with the earliest history of the festival itself: Tom Zé was among the performers at the first Coala Festival in 2014.
One of Sunday's key performances will be Criolo's concert dedicated to the 15th anniversary of the album Nó na Orelha. Billboard Brasil announced that the rapper and singer would perform that album in a special festival program, and Criolo himself was one of the major names at the first Coala twelve years ago. His return to material from 2011 further connects the current edition with the beginnings of the event. The final main-stage slot is reserved for Criolo, while Seu Jorge is scheduled before him. João Gomes, one of the most prominent representatives of contemporary piseiro, brings a different regional line of Brazilian popular music, originating in the country's northeast and in recent years strongly present on major stages.
An important part of Sunday's program is also made up of female performers who connect rap, R&B, soul and contemporary Brazilian pop. Luedji Luna performs with Fat Family, a group that left its mark on Brazilian R&B and soul in the 1990s. Billboard Brasil reported Luna's comment that Fat Family was among her early musical references, so their joint performance also has a personal dimension of transmitting influence between generations. Duquesa represents the newer wave of Brazilian rap, while Sophia Chablau and Felipe Vaqueiro bring an alternative songwriting expression. Sunday's schedule therefore does not function merely as a sequence of major names, but as a continuation of the festival's basic curatorial idea: to show how broadly the contemporary Brazilian scene extends between tradition, regional genres, urban music and experimental pop.
A festival that grew out of the need for a space for the new Brazilian scene
Coala Festival was launched in 2014 in São Paulo, and its history helps explain why programming "collisions" between different generations remain at the center of the event today. According to a retrospective by Noize magazine and earlier interviews with co-founder Gabriel Andrade, the idea for the festival gained momentum after the closure of the Studio SP club, an important venue for what was then the new Brazilian scene. The first edition was held at Memorial da América Latina itself, and the performers included Criolo, Tom Zé, O Terno, 5 a Seco and Trupe Chá de Boldo. From the beginning, the organizers combined better-known names with performers who needed a broader festival platform, which later became Coala's recognizable model. RTP, in a retrospective of the festival's history, also emphasized that since 2014 the event has grown from a local gathering into a broader music platform, and in 2024 it also gained an edition in Portugal.
That international expansion is important for understanding the brand's current position. Coala is no longer merely an annual weekend in São Paulo, but a platform that also organizes other concert projects, collaborates with performers and seeks to place the Brazilian music catalog in dialogue with other Portuguese-speaking scenes. Nevertheless, the São Paulo edition remains its historical center. Memorial da América Latina, in the Barra Funda district, is once again this year the place where, along the same programming axis, artists meet whose careers began in completely different social, technological and recording eras.
A broader cross-section of Brazilian music instead of a single genre formula
The 2026 program also shows how the definition of a major Brazilian music festival has changed over the past decade or so. MPB and samba are no longer the only natural centers of such an event; rap, piseiro, contemporary R&B, indie and electronic music occupy an equal place. Maria Bethânia and Marcos Valle represent songwriters and interpreters whose careers are deeply connected to the second half of the 20th century, while Emicida, Criolo and Seu Jorge belong to generations that broadened the image of Brazilian popular music around the turn of the 21st century. João Gomes, Duquesa, Ana Frango Elétrico, Luedji Luna, Duda Beat and Sophia Chablau represent different directions of the more recent period. The same program also features artists such as Tom Zé, whose experimental work connects the historical avant-garde of Brazilian song with a contemporary festival context.
For that reason, this year's edition feels more like a cross-section of musical lines than a program built around a single dominant genre. Saturday, September 12, offered continuity from Zeca Veloso to Bethânia, with Emicida and a series of collaborative projects in between. Sunday, September 13, continues that arc through rap, piseiro, soul and songwriting pop, ending with Criolo's return to the album Nó na Orelha. According to the information published so far, precisely such a schedule is the main message of the 12th Coala Festival: Brazilian music is not presented as a closed canon, but as a continuous conversation between performers who have built it for decades and those who are changing it now.
Sources:
- UOL / TOCA – report from the beginning of Coala Festival 2026 and overview of the main performers of the first and second days (link)
- Exame – performance schedule, times and program of the main stage and the Auditório Simón Bolívar hall (link)
- Billboard Brasil – announcement of Emicida's performance, the project "Emicida Racional MCMV" and guest appearances by Jotapê and Puro Suco (link)
- Gshow – confirmation of Maria Bethânia's performance and information about the program celebrating 60 years of her career (link)
- Folha de S.Paulo – context of Maria Bethânia's 60-year career and her national breakthrough in the play "Opinião" in 1965 (link)
- Folha de S.Paulo – context of the joint project by Marcos Valle and Ana Frango Elétrico and the announced festival repertoire (link)
- NOIZE – history of Coala Festival, the creation of the project in 2014 and the development of the curatorial concept of connecting established and new performers (link)
- RTP Antena 1 – retrospective of the history of Coala Festival and the festival's expansion from São Paulo toward Portugal (link)