Biribá Union

• Global
• Jazz
• Pop

Borrowing its name from a Brazilian wild sugar-apple, Biribá Union features Mike Block (cello, vocals), Christylez Bacon (beatbox, guitar, rhymes) and Patricia Ligia (electric bass, vocals). The trio met through Silkroad’s Global Musician Workshop, initially bonding over their shared love of Brazilian music. They quickly began co-writing new music that draws on the freestyle theatrics of hip-hop and Go-go music; the effortless beauty of Brazilian forró and choro; the earthiness of American roots music, and the improvisational spontaneity of jazz.

Biribá Union makes a unique rhythmic cocktail with Bacon’s inner-city DC hip-hop and go-go rhythms entwined with Ligia’s subtropic bass lines. “Everyone feels safe to switch roles and go to unknown places,” Ligia explains. Block agrees. “We all have a lot of room to breathe,” he says. “We can each shapeshift yet magically never get in each other’s way.” Bacon says that meeting Block was “like finding a twin spirit.” “He’s an emcee in the original sense of the word. A true master of ceremonies who can take the crowd on a mission with him.”

Biribá Union is certainly on a mission — to embody cultural acceptance and unification through music — but always with an infectious groove to hook audiences in. Take their rendition of “Lamentations,” a well-known classical cello composition, is a case study in experimentation and integration. The piece was written by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, an African-American composer who wrote arrangements for Marvin Gaye and Harry Belafonte. Biribá Union bends the piece into radically new shapes with beat-boxing, freestyle rapping and collective vocal lines harmonizing the cello. Or their take on “Santo Antonio,” a tune by Hermeto Pascoal based on rural forró rhythms that gets elevated with three-part harmonies and extended improvisations. Their debut album was released on the Bright Shiny Things label in the fall of 2025.

“a dynamic trio, blending original music with world fusion influences”
— SARASOTA HERALD-TRIBUNE