Monobloco is the Rio de Janeiro Carnival bloc founded in 2000 by musicians including Pedro Luís.
The group emerged from the musical world surrounding Pedro Luís e a Parede and became known for combining traditional Brazilian percussion with songs from samba, marchinha, funk, and other popular styles. Its performances helped demonstrate how a bloco could become a large, professionally organized contemporary Carnival attraction.
Monobloco is associated with a bateria-style percussion sound, but it is a street bloco rather than a Special Group samba school competing in the Sambadrome. That distinction matters: blocos generally parade through public streets, while samba schools present judged productions on the purpose-built avenue.
The name is sometimes confused with older Rio groups such as Banda de Ipanema and Cordão da Bola Preta. Monobloco belongs to the newer wave of major blocos that expanded Rio’s street-Carnival scene around the turn of the twenty-first century.