Igor Cavalera

Igor Cavalera — drummer and co-founder of Sepultura — is the author of one of the most influential rhythmic vocabularies in metal. He founded the band with his brother Max in Belo Horizonte in 1984 and stayed until 2006 — longer than Max, who left ten years earlier. He recorded from Morbid Visions (1986) to Roorback (2003), crossing the raw death metal of the beginning, the precise thrash of Beneath the Remains (1989) and Arise (1991), and the turn that would change metal worldwide. That turn is his decisive contribution. On Chaos A.D. (1993) and Roots (1996), Igor brought Brazilian rhythmic patterns — maracatu beats, percussion of Afro-Brazilian origin, mid tempos with displaced accents — into the structure of metal. It was not exotic ornament: it was a rewriting of what a metal drum kit could do, and the result influenced the whole following generation of American bands, from nu metal to groove metal. After Sepultura he formed Cavalera Conspiracy with Max — the brothers' reunion after years of rupture — and developed work as a DJ and producer of electronic music, an extension of his interest in rhythm that has little to do with metal and everything to do with his path.