Talk:Mas que Nada

Requested move: Mais or mas?

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

Moved. —Centrx→talk • 20:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, my name is LeRoc. I live in Brazil, and I did some work on the Dutch version of this article. Excuse me, but I am pretty sure that the correct title of the song is Mas Que Nada. The confusion arises because Brazilians usually pronounce the word mas (but) as mais (more), and will sometimes erroneously write it in this way. I am quite sure however that both Sérgio Mendes and Jorge Ben Jor used the correct spelling in the title. Besides, the expression Mais Que Nada would not mean Yeah, right! in English; it means More than anything else.

LeRoc 09:57, 24 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with this. It is definitely "Mas Que Nada," not Mais. GassyGuy 10:08, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
 * agree (see other languages) Aleichem 06:21, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm Brazilian and the song's title is Mas que nada, "mas" meaning "but" and not "mais", that would mean "more". --Dantadd 12:32, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Hello Guys. I'm the US representative for Nagoya Edições e Produções Musicais (http://www.nagoyamusic.com.br), Mr. Ben Jor's management firm. I can assure you that the song's original title is "Mas que nada". I also wanted to mention that there's an interesting story behind the song’s creation, and I will be adding it to the entry soon. What kind of "documentation" should I provide to sustain the story? Please feel free to email me at tomaso@jorgebenjor.com in case there are any queries.

Regards to all,

Tomenezes 21:36, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Who's that?
Who's the female vocalist on the track (not Fergie)? She doesn't even get a mention on this page!

It's Gracinha Leporace, Sergio Mendes wife, singing the Portuguese chorus ("Este samba que e misto de miracatu..."). Fergie has a solo a little past midway (in the music video and Letterman appearances, she does quite a lot of vampy hip-swaying) and contributes the "la la la"s.

Thanks. It's good to see she's added now. -Anthony- (talk) 07:06, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I think there are two singers: Lani Hall and Gracinha Leporace, but that's hard to verify.

English lyrics
Ella Fitzgerald sing this song with english lyrics in the album Things Ain't What They Used to Be.

To Brasilian speakers : What does the name of the song means ?
An anonymous editor has replaced this sentence : A brazilian-portuguese equivalent to : No Way, Man or Oh, Come On by this one : the name actually does not mean anything ! is this true or just vandalism ?--Khalid hassani 11:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Vandalism.Macgreco 15:45, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

that was probably vandalism. the song roughly is translated to no way, or yeah right in the ironic sense. it's a phrase that can never truly be translated. we brazilians have a unique was of speaking. it's like saudade or malemolencia.


 * hmmm... not so unique. The French would say "Mais que non", the Italians "Ma che no", the Spanish "Ma que no". It would be perfectly fine. It's just in non-Latin languages that the phrase becomes hard to translate exactly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.2.155.35 (talk) 07:56, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

We brasilians use "Mas que nada" colloquially to disagree with someone, for example: -"X is much better than Y." -"Mas que nada, Y is much better." Nowadays it's more common to use just que nada, but mas que nada is also used. I think "no way" is the better translation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BRtkk (talk • contribs) 03:00, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Writer of Black Eyed Peas version
Who is the writer of the Black Eyed Peas version, I doubt it was Jorge Ben.

The question arises, what do the introductory words mean, if anything? 'O ariá raio' etc.?

Meaning
The article as of now contains the following explanation:


 * "Mas que nada" is an expression used by some Brazilians that means 'more than nothing', the same expression in English-speaking countries as "The bare minimum".

I am pretty sure this is wrong, and is based on the misconception that mas (but) is assumed to be mais (more). The correct title is Mas Que Nada, but I am not sure what "But than nothing" means, if anything. Rklz2 (talk) 16:03, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

"mas que nada" in Spanish
I believe the Spanish phrase "mas que" spelled without the accented a (á) means something more akin to "but." It is possible that the phrase "mas que nada" has similar meaning between Spanish and Portuguese, if we are to leave the accent off of the word "mas." Of course, the use of the word "mas" in Spanish is somewhat dated and is more likely to appear in literature than in everyday use. I just wanted to point out the common linguistic ancestry of these two languages in order to propose that "mas que nada" can mean the same thing in Spanish and in Portuguese.

Cyprosity (talk) 15:47, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much everybody!
That really went perfectly - I completely fell for it too! That is, confusing Spanish más with mas. I'd have been 99% sure it must be "mais", but I stand corrected! -andy 92.229.243.26 (talk) 14:08, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Rio Soundtrack
This song is also included on the soundtrack for the movie Rio (2011). I don't see this version mentioned on the page. Is this omission intentional? Mgg4 (talk) 23:59, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Propose merging sections
I would like to propose merging the info under the section Other uses into the last paragraph of Sergio Mendes version (or else moving the info about the song's uses in films to the Other uses section). I always find including exhaustive info like this problematic because it's usually glorified trivia (and Wikipedia discourages lists of trivia). However, encyclopedias are by their very nature exhaustive, so I'm not proposing deleting this info altogether. Rather, I propose moving/merging it and streamlining it for brevity and readability. Thoughts anyone? Kinkyturnip (talk) 17:55, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Cases of Mais instead of Mas
I discovered a case where the title of the song was given as "Mais, que nada" instead of "Mas, que nada" and tried to add this to the article as a reference, but the bot apparently doesn't allow links to Discogs. Although I wonder why Discogs is not a reliable source I thought we could collect cases of the title erroneously misspelled in this section. ENiG (talk) 09:41, 12 October 2021 (UTC)


 * https://www.discogs.com/release/628818-Sérgio-Mendes-Brasil-66-Foursider (Especially interesting, as this is a record by Sérgio Mendes himself, illustrating that even native speakers can get it wrong)
 * https://www.discogs.com/de/master/321822-Sérgio-Mendes-Brasil-66-Mais-Que-Nada (Here an instance where it is spelled wrong on the cover!)
 * https://www.discogs.com/de/release/8013871-Adriena-Bartošová-Mais-Que-Nada (Also spelled wrong on the cover)

Is it 'Mas, que Nada' with a comma, or 'Mas que Nada', without a comma?
This article, and other refernces elsewhere, are inconsistent. Masato.harada (talk) 14:54, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Note that Portuguese Wikipedia does not use a comma, so does that answer my own question? Masato.harada (talk) 15:02, 19 October 2022 (UTC)