"Samba brings me joy and makes me happy," the 59-year-old crooner said in Portuguese, as he posed for photos in the shade of palm trees.
The entertainer in question isn't your average Rio samba star. In fact, he's a South Korean diplomat from a very different seaside metropolis on the other side of the globe. But Lim Ki-mo, Korea's Busan-born ambassador to Brazil, has sung his way to stardom since being posted to the South American country three years ago, with a series of viral performances in which he has belted out Brazilian hits.
Last month, Lim's singing career hit new heights as he took the stage at one of Rio's most illustrious samba spots, Renascença Clube, to perform with one of its top samba groups. Hundreds of samba connoisseurs danced euphorically as Seoul's man in Brasília sang tracks by the legendary composer Adoniran Barbosa and the chart-topping combo Grupo Revelação.
"The crowd went berserk," said Gabriel Cavalcante, the singer who invited ambassador Lim to perform with his group, Samba do Trabalhador.
Footage of the diplomat's impassioned presentation exploded on social media with critics giving him a unanimous thumbs up. "His performances... are filled with emotion and energy," said Rio broadsheet O Globo.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der May 03, 2024-Ausgabe von The Guardian Weekly.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der May 03, 2024-Ausgabe von The Guardian Weekly.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
'Pretendians' Controversy Over Formerly Unheard-Of First Nation
Local chiefs claim Kawartha Lakes group is part of wave of cases in which people falsely claim Indigenous identity
This Is The Emptying Of Rafah
Thousands of displaced Gazans are on the move again, packing their lives into carts and pickup trucks, as Israel's campaign against Hamas rages on
Vast Online Scam Dupes Thousands Of Shoppers
More than 800,000 people in Europe and the US appear to have been duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a vast network of fake online designer shops apparently operated from China.
Why Didn't Netflix Do More To Avoid The Baby Reindeer Furore?
What will happen next in the Baby Reindeer saga? Probably one or more bad things.
Picture this
From the galleries and squats of the 90s London art world to the riches of Covid-era New York, a tale of reunion, fame and fallout
Hit and miss Goths, glory and plenty of gimmicks
It was the most politically charged Eurovision song contest in memory-but it was won by a famously neutral nation. As the glittery dust settles from Saturday night in Malmö, Sweden, here's what we learned
Rose Boyt, daughter of the artist Lucian Freud, sat for her father three times.Now 65, she has written a remarkable memoir based on diaries she kept while being painted
ROSE BOYT'S MEMOIR, Naked Portrait, is, in the narrowest sense, her account of sitting for three paintings for her father, Lucian Freud.
A failure to reckon fully with the Troubles fuels distrust and discord
Fifty years ago, on 17 May 1974, my father, a bus conductor, was out on strike.
Believe it or not
Raffaella Spone was accused of faking an incriminating video of teenage cheerleaders. She was arrested, outcast and subjected to death threats. The problem? The video wasn't fake after all. She talks for the first time about being the centre of a story that created headlines around the world, yet nothing was as it seemed...
'HOPELESS AND BROKEN', 'I WORRY ABOUT THE FUTURE MY CHILDREN ARE INHERITING', 'I AM SCARED I DON'T SEE HOW WE CAN GET OUT OF THIS MESS'
We asked 380 climate scientists what they felt about the future.