Simbora – Gloucestershire samba band.
Simbora loosely translates as “let’s do it”. The name was suggsted by Selva Samba and became the favourite out a few ideas.
The group was founded by Tom Stickland in October 2022. A dance teacher said “Stroud really needs its own samba drumming band” and Tom thought “I could do that”. The idea was announced on Facebook where a group was used to gather interested people. After telling people that he was starting a band then the next step was actually doing it. A workshop was held at Archway school, about fifteen came and ten signed up. Weekly rehearsals started and the band gradually grew in size.
The aim of the group is to play Rio samba and a few other compositions and grooves in a musical and pleasing manner and to perform this at local events.
Tom has drummed with several samba groups in Gloucestershire and Bristol over the last decade. There is a list here. He founded Kaboozle in 2018.
Logo designed by Sharon Dainton. Drums provided by JP Percussion.
Description by Laurence Kapoor for Melting Pot event at Stroud Brewery.
Simbora are Stroud’s very own riot of rhythm – a homegrown samba percussion and dance group bringing the electric energy of Rio street parties straight to the Five Valleys. Their sound pulls from Rio Samba, Brazilian Funk, Samba Reggae from Bahia, and rhythms like Ijexá, all reworked into their own irresistible arrangements. It’s loud, it’s direct, it’s groovy, and when they start playing, you feel it in your feet before you even realise you’re dancing.
The roots of what they do reach deep into Afro-Brazilian musical history. Samba itself grew from the drumming traditions carried to Brazil by enslaved African people – rhythms built on polyrhythms, call-and-response, communal energy and sheer resilience. Over the decades, those rhythms blossomed in the favelas, evolving through the 1950s into the layered, syncopated, percussion-driven sound now synonymous with Rio Carnival. Today, samba is the heartbeat of those legendary six-day street parades, where entire neighbourhoods come alive behind their samba schools.
Simbora tap straight into that spirit of community and celebration. Director Tom Stickland caught the samba bug back in 2014 after seeing a local band and thinking, “I want to do that.” A quick leap into Ola Samba turned into a full-blown obsession; soon he was playing with multiple Bristol groups, performing at festivals like WOMAD and Shambala, and travelling to Glasgow, the Netherlands and Coburg on percussion missions. Once you’ve felt the electricity of a live samba bloco, it’s hard to let it go – performing becomes addictive, every event its own adventure.
Now, with Simbora, he’s channelled that passion into something undeniably Stroud: inclusive, vibrant, community-powered and impossible to ignore. When Simbora step onto the floor at Melting Pot, expect carnival energy, deep grooves, and that unmistakable Brazilian pulse that turns any room into a street festival.