Mamonas Assassinas was a satirical Brazilian rock band. Their lyrics, music and live performances were as famous as their tragic end: on March 2, 1996, the plane in which they were flying crashed into the Cantareira mountain range, near São Paulo, causing the death of all the band members. The short lived band enjoyed a "meteoric" success, being celebrated for decades after its end. The band's name carries a double-entendre as, in Portuguesemamonas can be either the name of the Castor oil plant, which contains the highly toxic comount ricin or the augmentative for mamas, meaning breasts. The band mentioned model as an influence to the name, and even translated the name into English as "Killer Big Breasts". The musical style of Mamonas Assassinas members employed a humorous mixture between rock and a wide range of styles. They often borrowed elements from other music, among which were the main riff of the Portuguese Vira, Northeastern Brazilian rhythms like forró, Mexican music, heavy metal, sertanejo, and even pagode. This combination can be easily checked at their videos, where various references to many cultures were found.
The band started its activities in 1989 without Dinho, in a band called Utopia, performing covers of Legião Urbana and Rush. Soon Dinho was incorporated, and Utopia performed in the suburbs of São Paulo. They even did release an album, but it sold less than 100 copies. Just as the band noticed the comedical intromissions and songs on their concerts were better accepted than the serious performances, the band decided to fully embrace the comedy on their music, including a change to a double entendre name. Their first demo reached Rafael, son of the artistic director of EMI-Odeon, João Augusto Soares. João Augusto hired the band afterwards
The band's successful 8-month career came to an end along with all band members' lives on March 2, 1996, due to a plane crash. After a show in Brasília, the band was flying to São Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport, in Guarulhos where they were to embark on a journey to Portugal. Twelve hours before the band met their untimely end, band member Julio Rasec told reporters he'd had a nightmare the previous evening about the plane crashing - but laughed it off. The aircraft was a Learjet 25 that was having multiple radar problems even prior to takeoff. On final approach to land on runway 09R, the pilot decided to abort the attempt and went-around. As it flew around the runway for a second attempt to land, it crashed into the side of a heavily forested mountain in the Cantareira range, at 23:16.
