Cutuca is a colloquial Portuguese word meaning "to poke" or "to prod." It's an onomatopoeic word that evokes a playful, insistent action.
In the context of the song, Maria Rita uses "Cutuca" repeatedly, almost like a chant, to encourage someone to engage or react. It's a call to action, urging the listener to stop the "bla-bla-bla" and address issues with love rather than rancor. The repetition and the word's unique sound make it very memorable and central to the song's message.
Maria Rita opens “Cutuca” with a promise to be direct: “Você tem que saber, não sou de bla-bla-bla” [You have to know, I'm not one for bla-bla-bla], “Eu não sei se me faço entender” [I don't know if I make myself understood]. She argues for choosing love over resentment — “Não vamos resolver na dor” [We're not going to resolve it through pain], “Melhor é resolver no amor” [It's better to resolve it with love] — so nobody regrets saying too much.
After three verses the song drops the argument and becomes pure chant: “Cutuca carindê, cutuca carindá” repeats through a long samba call-and-response outro. “Cutuca” means to poke or nudge — by that point the word is carrying the rhythm more than a literal meaning, closer to a dance-floor cue than a lyric.