By Ricardo Franca Cruz (Editor-in-chief of Rolling Stone Brazil, 2007)

Man's best friend isn't just any dog. Man's best friend is the stray dog.

The stray dog will elect his owner and not the other way around. Should he choose you as his owner, he will become your most faithful companion, the defender of your home, the guardian of your loved ones, while retaining his peculiar street style and credentials.

Rodrigo Leão is a stray dog. He chose Brazilian Music as his owner. He will beforever faithful to her. She takes good care of him. He sleeps comfortably on pillows filled with the best GrooveBrasilis — the strumming that makes the whole club dance, a mix of soul,funk and samba-rock swing, derived from the rhythms of masters like Jorge Ben,Cassiano, Hyldon and Banda Black Rio, amongst others —, by the romantic music of Roberto Carlos, yet not immune to the sounds coming from the streets allover the world, from the jamaican sway of Marley and Lee Perry to the calm acoustic tides of Ben Harper and Jack Johnson; he is well fed by a banquet of references that go beyond music, from cinema to literature — in books,magazines and blogs —, photography and the graphic arts.

There is nothing more modern than the retro Brazilian style Rodrigo Leão presents on his first solo bark. Vira-lata (Stray Dog), the album that marks his territory, or better yet, his solo career debut, brings something of everything he ever did, not only musically.

From his work as a journalist, he brings his knowledge of the power of words and the possibility of rhyming them uniquely and masterfully in the form of beautiful stories —he is the author of some of the best "tales" of recent brazilian music, such as Rainha da Laje (Rooftop Queen),everybody's urban muse, a blend of soft porn actress Adele Fátima and Brigitte Bardot, bronzing her body atop a shack in one of São Paulo's slums; Domingo na Liberdade (Sunday at Freedom), a stroll around the japanese neighbourhood of Latin America's largest city; O Sono dos Vigias (The Night-watchman's Sleep) about the platonic security-camera love of a doorman for the rich girl who lives at the building where he works; and the title track, Vira-Lata (Stray Dog) a survival guide for those hoping to keep their dignity on the angry streets of any big city, a samba/soul/rap invitation to enter the well vaurnished wooden dance-floors of the ballrooms on the outskirts of São Paulo.

And of course, he sings, plays, produces and lets himself be swayed by the truth a song brings upon its first arrival. His AK-47 loaded with roses he picks out of the air.

And if romances and love affairs are always lurking around the next corner, in Vira-lata the story isn't any different. Tudo que se pode ter (All That You Can Have) evokes Roberto Carlos from the late 60's, with a touch of Roy Orbison, with an opening Hammond organ laying the grounds for an universal truth: "True love is all that you can ever have." Em Busca de um Autor (In Search of an Author), a song with one of the best hooks in recent years, is a ballad of modern love and disillusionment. And the dense pulse of Amor Irracional (Irrational Love),homage to the master Tim Maia, from whom Rodrigo borrows the deep tone and the title reference to Maia's cult classic LP Tim Maia Racional.

Don't be fooled. Rodrigo Leão's Vira-lata has great pedigree. Signed, tested and sworn by the crowds dancing till their bones melted and being moved, till their tears turned into smiles, during his recent concerts in São Paulo in September and October of 2006. I was there.

Performing live, Leão and his band — a combo like the one on Curtis Mayfield's CurtisLive (1971); Rodrigo on guitar and vocals, drums, electric piano, bass, and a stylish trombone player/percussionist — prove that less is more. And that the God of Music is in every detail of the simple and certain arrangements, the innate groove of the man's musical path, and the sincere new swing of the old roots he loves so much.

In the Far East, those dragon faced dogs guarding the entrances of temples you so often see on tattoos are, in fact,Lion-dogs. Rodrigo is almost that: a Lion-man, roaring and barking and, may be without knowing, calling upon himself the job of guardian of the beloved and sacred brazilian music. No evil shall enter her house.