The life and work of singer and composer Benito Di Paula were highlighted in 2025 in Nova Friburgo, in the Mountain Region, with the show “O Homem da Montanha”. The piece paid tribute to the artist from Friborg, author of classics such as Retalhos de Cetim, Meu Amigo Charlie Brown and Mulher Brasileira.
It was directed by Bernardo Dugin. On his social networks, Dugin wished Benito Di Paula "a path of great light" and expressed solidarity with the artist's son, Rodrigo Vellozo.
Benito Di Paula died on Sunday (18) due to prostate cancer, for which he had been undergoing treatment for a year.
According to director Bernardo Dugin, the preparation of the actors for the show was a dive into the history and emotional memory of Nova Friburgo. To compose the piece, the director listened to stories and talked to people who lived with Benito Di Paula.
"One of the most beautiful things is that, during rehearsals, someone always appeared with a new memory. Someone who said: 'Ah, Benito sang there, on top of a small box, on a stool'. We realized that Benito was not just that huge artist that the whole of Brazil knows. He was also a boy from our neighborhood, someone who was part of people's lives", said the director.
Dugin explained that, based on interviews with the people who were part of Benito Di Paula's story, they wanted to get to know Uday Veloso, the boy who was born into a large family, in a humble reality, surrounded by the love of his parents, the affections and the stories of his community.
"Deep down, Uday's story is also the story of so many of us. The story of someone who was born in a small place, who carries his origins and who, at some point, dares to dream beyond the mountains. Before becoming an icon of Brazilian music, Benito was a boy from Friburgo", concluded the director.
In February 2025, Benito Di Paula gave an interview to g1 and spoke about the emotional relationship he had with his hometown.
The artist commented that he was "the man of the mountain", referring to the song "Homem da Montanha", from 1976, which brings a declaration of love for Nova Friburgo, narrating the desire to return to the mountains in the face of life in the big city.
"It's my homeland, I'm the 'Man of the Mountain'. I miss it a lot, I have beautiful memories. I really like my homeland. Nova Friburgo is my home, it's in my heart", he said.
Benito Di Paula was born on November 28, 1941, in Nova Friburgo, with the name Uday Vellozo, and was raised in Rio de Janeiro. But Brazil already knew him as Benito Di Paula from the 1970s, a decade in which the artist achieved national success with a different samba, a new style.
Throughout his career, he became one of the prominent names in Brazilian popular music, especially in the 1970s and 1980s.
He had more than 50 million records sold worldwide, four million of which in Europe alone.
Among his successes are Retalhos de Cetim, Charlie Brown and Mulher Brasileira. His style, marked by the presence of the piano and romantic arrangements, contributed to consolidating his own identity within samba.
Benito Di Paula never considered himself a samba player from the dynasty of Martinho da Vila and Paulinho da Viola, singers and composers who also achieved great success in the 1970s in the samba segment. Benito has always publicly labeled himself as a samba player and a piano player.
It was with the percussive touch of the piano that Benito Di Paula performed his own batucada with a Brazilian swing that, in a way, anticipated the São Paulo pagode that would be propagated in the 1990s by groups like Raça Negra with arrangements full of keyboards.
And the fact is that the samba pianist left a unique signature on Brazilian music.
