Capoeira music is the traditional musical accompaniment used in Afro-Brazilian art capoeira, featuring instruments like berimbau, pandeiro, atabaque, agogô, and reco-reco. The music plays a crucial role in capoeira roda, setting the style the energy of a game.

Music in the context of capoeira is used to create a sacred space through both the physical act of forming a circle (roda) and an aural space that is believed to connect to the spirit world. This deeper religious significance exists more as a social memory to most capoeira groups, but is generally understood as evidenced in the use of ngoma drums (the atabaques of candomblé), and the berimbau whose earlier forms were used in African rituals to speak with the ancestors.

In early days, capoeira was accompanied only by the big drum (known as ngoma, conga or atabaque), hand-clapping and singing. Until the mid-nineteenth century, drums were a prominent musical instrument in capoeira. In the early to mid-nineteenth century Rio, capoeira was described by travelers as a war dance with drumbeats or hand clapping. In 1818, João Angola was arrested for possessing a small drum at a capoeira gathering. Playing a drum could lead to severe punishment, like on 5 December 1820, when Mathias Benguela, a slave, received 200 lashes for it. Despite punishment, drumming continued. An illustration from 1824 by Rugendas shows a participant in roda playing a drum.

In 1833, the playing of African drums in Rio de Janeiro was prohibited by law. Due to the drum's size, it couldn't be concealed, leading to clandestine drumming in remote locations at night. To evade arrest, slaves used makeshift percussion instruments like clay or metal pieces, shells, and stones.

In 1859, French journalist Charles Ribeyrolls described the Afro-Brazilian dances on plantations in Rio de Janeiro province, linking the conga drum to capoeira, and the berimbau to batuque:

Here, Capoeira is a type of war dance, accompanied by the powerful, militant rhythm of the Congo drum. Then there is the Batuque with its sensual movements, with the Urucungo intensifying or slowing down the rhythm.

Gerhard Kubik, a 20th century music ethnologist, saw capoeira as a discipline where the drum not only accompanies but also guides and controls the players' actions. The berimbau belongs to the candomblé tradition. It was not used in capoeira until the 20th century, and first appeared as an instrument accompanying capoeira in the early 20th century in Bahia. The transition may have been influenced not only by musical preferences but also by the berimbau's dual role as a weapon.

Mestre Pastinha formalized the inclusion of instruments into the capoeira Angola orchestra. He experimented with various instruments, occasionally incorporating guitars (viola de corda) and even introducing Spanish castanets into the roda at one point. The current standardized configuration of three berimbaus, two pandeiros, one agogô, one reco-reco, and one atabaque likely did not become established until the 1960s.