Rogério Skylab

Rogério Skylab was born Rogério Tolomei Teixeira in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on September 2, 1956, and is of Italian and Portuguese descent. He has degrees in literature and philosophy from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro,[4] and also began attending a law course, but never finished it.[5]

Prior to his musical career, Skylab worked for 28 years as a public servant at a Banco do Brasil agency in Maracaju, Mato Grosso do Sul.[6] After a brief stint as the vocalist of punk rock band Setembro Negro in the mid- to late 1980s,[7] in 1991 he participated as a solo artist in a music festival in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais; he won the first-place cash prize with the song "Samba do Skylab", from which he took his stage name.[7] Rogério used the prize money to finance the recording of his debut album, Fora da Grei, which was released the following year; it was very well-received by the critics, and awarded him many appearances on Jô Soares' late-night talk shows Jô Soares Onze e Meia and Programa do Jô in the 1990s.[2]

In 1999 he released his second album, the first one in a series of ten self-titled albums, Skylab. It was produced by Robertinho do Recife, but Skylab was slightly unsatisfied with the final result, saying that it had "too much keyboards" and that he was not too creatively involved with it. His third album, Skylab II, was his first live release; commenting about it, he has stated that "this is 100% Skylab. The other was 80% Robertinho".[8] Skylab II counted with a guest appearance by Löis Lancaster, vocalist of avant-garde group Zumbi do Mato – Lancaster would return for Skylab's second live album, Skylab IX, which also had guest appearances by Maurício Pereira (of Os Mulheres Negras) and Marcelo Birck (of Graforreia Xilarmônica).[9] Zé Felipe and Marlos Salustiano, respectively bassist and keyboardist for Zumbi do Mato, collaborated with Skylab on his 2007 album Skylab VII, which was nominated to the Prêmio Dynamite de Música Independente in the "Best Rock Album" category;[10] two years later, Felipe and Skylab made a collaborative album, Rogério Skylab & Orquestra Zé Felipe. In 2005, Skylab won the Prêmio Claro de Música Independente, in the "Best MPB Album" category, for Skylab V.[11]

After the release of Skylab X,[12] Skylab put aside his experimental sound to work on the "Trilogia dos Carnavais" ("Trilogy of the Carnivals"), which focuses more on traditional Brazilian genres such as samba, bossa nova and MPB.[13] The trilogy comprises the albums Abismo e Carnaval, Melancolia e Carnaval and Desterro e Carnaval, and included the guest appearances of many musicians, such as Jorge Mautner, Jards Macalé, Rômulo Fróes, Arrigo Barnabé, Fausto Fawcett and Michael Sullivan.[14][15] Between 2016 and 2018 he collaborated with Lívio Tragtenberg on a further trilogy of albums aptly titled Skylab & Tragtenberg.[16]

On March 7, 2018, Skylab officially announced that he began work on a new studio album, entitled O Rei do Cu, released later that year on May 17.[17] On a Facebook post he further elaborated that O Rei do Cu would be the first installment of a new trilogy, the "Trilogia do Cu" ("Trilogy of the Ass");[18] the second installment, Nas Portas do Cu, came out on January 1, 2019,[19] and the third, Crítica da Faculdade do Cu, on December 20, 2019.[20]

On March 19, 2020, he uploaded to his official YouTube channel the single "À Sombra de um Horizonte"[21] as a teaser for his album Cosmos, the first installment of a new trilogy entitled the "Trilogia do Cosmos". It was announced on his Facebook page on August 19[22] and released on October 2. The second installment, Os Cosmonautas, came out on December 24, 2020.

Outside music, Skylab authored the sonnet collection Debaixo das Rodas de um Automóvel, published by Editora Rocco in 2006,[23] and was the host of his own talk show, Matador de Passarinho, on Canal Brasil from 2012 to 2014.[24] In 2017 he debuted as an actor, portraying a history teacher on the Fabrício Bittar comedy film Como se Tornar o Pior Aluno da Escola, based on Danilo Gentili's eponymous book.[25] He also runs and owns the blog "Godard City".[26] In 2020 he published the essay collection Lulismo Selvagem through Kotter Editorial, who also re-issued Debaixo das Rodas de um Automóvel after many years out of print.

Skylab has been married to photographer, record producer and plastic artist Solange Venturi since 1983; Venturi has designed the cover arts for many of the musician's albums since then. He is a self-described agnostic[27] and has stated that "religion is a non-issue: it doesn't exist" in a 2003 web interview.[28]

Skylab is known for his extensive and varied musical and literary influences. Some of his favorite writers are Machado de Assis, João Cabral de Melo Neto, Clarice Lispector, Jorge Luis Borges, Rubens Figueiredo, Milton Hatoum and Cristóvão Tezza.[5] Musically, he cites Arrigo Barnabé, Os Mulheres Negras, Graforreia Xilarmônica, Zumbi do Mato, Frank Zappa, Jupiter Apple and Damião Experiença as influences;[4] his 2002 album Skylab III was dedicated to Damião.[29][30]

A life-long fan of Fluminense,[31] he has even recorded the club's anthem on the 2016 collaboration album Skylab & Tragtenberg, Vol. 1.[32]

Skylab has expressed admiration towards former Governor of Rio de Janeiro Leonel Brizola (dedicating to him the song "O Preto do Brizola" off his 2018 album O Rei do Cu) and former petista President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.[33][34] As of February 2019 he has a column in the left-leaning news website Brasil 247.[35]

• Fora da Grei (1992)
• Skylab (1999)
• Skylab III (2002)
• Skylab IV (2003)
• Skylab V (2004)
• Skylab VI (2006)
• Skylab VII (2007)
• Skylab VIII (2008)
• Skylab X (2011)
• Abismo e Carnaval (2012)
• Melancolia e Carnaval (2014)
• Desterro e Carnaval (2015)
• O Rei do Cu (2018)
• Nas Portas do Cu (2019)
• Crítica da Faculdade do Cu (2019)
• Cosmos (2020)
• Os Cosmonautas (2020)

• Debaixo das Rodas de um Automóvel (Editora Rocco, 2006; re-issued by Kotter Editorial in 2020)
• Lulismo Selvagem (Kotter Editorial, 2020)

• Official website
• Rogério Skylab at IMDb