Tim Lopes - Early Life

Early Life

Tim Lopes was born Arcanjo Antonino Lopes do Nascimento in Pelotas, Brazil, the fourth child of a family of twelve. When he was 8 years old, his parents moved the family to Rio de Janeiro, where they lived in humble circumstances in the Mangueira favela in a three-room shanty.

Mangueira is famous for being home to the samba school, Mangueira and is located on a hill near Maracanã soccer stadium.

Years later as a journalist, Lopes would produce a piece about Mangueira samba and one of its famous founders, the Carioca sambista Carlos Cachaça (cachaça is a type of liquor made from sugar cane). Cachaça saw the story and commented to a sambista friend, Monarco, of the Velha Guarda da Portela, that Lopes' reporting was "the best material that he had ever seen" done on Mangueira. In 2002, Lopes was co-writing a book, about Mangueira samba school and his experience growing up there, with Alexander Medeiros.

Lopes was one of the founders of the Carnaval bloco, “Simpatia é quase amor” of Ipanema, and had served as an official judge of the famous annual carnival procession at the Sambadrome Marquês de Sapucaí. He was a dedicated fan of the professional Rio futebol club, Vasco da Gama.