Besouro Mangangá (sometimes just called Besouro) is one of Capoeira's most legendary figures — a real Capoeirista from early 20th-century Bahia whose life has become wrapped in folklore. He's said to have possessed mandinga, a kind of protective magic or cunning that made him nearly impossible to capture, injure, or defeat, whether in the Roda or against the authorities of the time who actively persecuted Capoeira practitioners.
Some stories claim he could disappear mid-fight, turn into a beetle (besouro means "beetle" in Portuguese) to escape danger, or shrug off bullets and blades entirely. How much of this is literal history versus legend built up over generations is genuinely unclear — and that blurred line is part of the point.
Songs referencing Besouro aren't really teaching history in a strict factual sense. They're teaching respect — for the mestres and Capoeiristas who came before, who kept the art alive under real danger, and whose stories became bigger than life because the stakes genuinely were.
When you sing about Besouro, you're participating in that same oral tradition — passing the legend forward exactly the way it's always been passed, Roda to Roda.