The bedrock of Brazilian music is the apparently inexhaustible fund of "traditional" popular music . There are dozens of genres, most of them associated with a specific region of the country, which you can find in raw uncut form played on local radio stations, at popular festivals - Carnaval is merely the best known - impromptu recitals in squares and on street corners, and in bars and dancetarias, the dance halls that Brazilians flock to at the weekend. The two main centres are Rio and Salvador. There's little argument that the best Brazilian music comes from Rio, the Northeast and parts of Amazônia, with São Paulo and southern Brazil lagging a little behind. Samba, and later bossa nova, became internationally famous, but only because they both happened to get off the ground in Rio, with its high international profile and exotic image. There are, though, less famous but equally vital musical styles elsewhere in Brazil, and it's difficult to see why they remain largely unknown to audiences outside the country - especially given Western music's current obsession with the Third World. Each local musical genre is part of a regional identity , of which people are very proud, and there's a distinct link between geographical rivalry and the development of Brazilian music. Nordestinos, in particular, all seem to know their way around the scores of Northeastern musical genres and vigorously defend their musical integrity against the influences of Rio and São Paulo, which dominate TV and national radio. A lot of people regret carioca and Paulista domination of the airwaves, fearing that it's making Brazilian music homogeneous, but if anything it has the opposite effect. People react against the Southeast music by turning to their local brands - which often develop some new enriching influences, picked up along the way.