After the success of Dark Was The Night, Red Hot had created a modest infrastructure to oversee distribution of the profits, which is an incredibly gratifying; but also difficult process that takes a great deal of care and administration. To take full advantage of having people in production, Red Hot also produced four additional new albums, follow ups to successful tributes to Brazilian and Afro-Beat music, a tribute to Arthur Russell and an instrumental album dedicated to the music of Bach.
Rio2 was the first to come out. During production on Dark Was The Night, many artists discussed their love for Red Hot + Rio and Brazilian music in general. For example, Zach Condon from Beirut, wanted to cover a Caetano Veloso song. This led to an exploration of the music that came from Brazil after Bossa Nova, often called Tropicalia led by Jorge Ben, Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Os Mutantes and others. The album gave Red Hot the privilege of working with some of those legendary artists including Tom Ze, Os Mutantes, Rita Lee and Marcos Valle.
