Samba From Bahia to Baltimore

The East Side Thunder is a spin on an hardy Baltimore tradition, the Community Marching Band.  Baltimore has a strong history of community marching bands, most notably the Baltimore Westsiders, the Edmondson Village Steppers, and more recently, the Baltimore Entertainers. However, there are no active community bands on the east side of Baltimore.

The East Side Thunder (EST) is a youth project that intends to produce a knowledgeable, physically fit, cohesive performance group through the practice and propagation of Brazilian Samba music. Samba was developed in Brazil by Africans and refined as various cultures assimilated into Brazil. The model for EST group is the Afro-Bloco, which is a type of Samba troupe that often functions as an educational institution in Black communities, particularly in the state of Bahia in Brazil. Samba is a collaborative music endeavor that takes a multilayered rhythm and breaks it into parts for an ensemble to perform.