It was the old neighborhood of Noel Rosa that sheltered the boy born during the 1938 Carnaval, Martinho da Vila. The "Vila" in his name was taken not from his father but from the samba school he joined in the mid-1960's, Vila Isabel. By the 1970's he parlayed samba composition success into the stratospheric record sales figures of a pop star. By the late 1980's he had organized amajor black heritage festival in Rio and reaffirmed his place in samba history with a relaxed vocal style over what was essentially the traditional samba rhythms.