Brazilian hip hop
Encyclopedia
Brazilian hip hop is one of the world's major hip hop scenes, with active rap, break dance, and graffiti scenes, especially in São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...

, where groups tend to have a more international style, influenced by old school hip hop
Old school hip hop
Old school hip hop describes the earliest commercially recorded hip hop music , and the music in the period preceding it from which it was directly descended . Old school hip hop is said to end around 1983 or 1984 with the emergence of Run–D.M.C., the first new school hip hop group...

 and gangsta rap
Gangsta rap
Gangsta Rap is a subgenre of hip hop music that evolved from hardcore hip hop and purports to reflect urban crime and the violent lifestyles of inner-city youths. Lyrics in gangsta rap have varied from accurate reflections to fictionalized accounts. Gangsta is a non-rhotic pronunciation of the word...

.

History

São Paulo's hip hop scene is largely influenced by social inequality and racial factors. Rappers like Racionais MC's
Racionais MC's
Racionais MC's is a hip hop group based in São Paulo, Brazil. Mano Brown , Ice Blue , Edy Rock and DJ KL Jay formed the group in 1988. Each member hails from the ring of favelas around São Paulo locally called the periferia...

 focus on criticizing the city's unequal wealth distribution, the lack of opportunity given to children growing up in the slums, and São Paulo state's
São Paulo (state)
São Paulo is a state in Brazil. It is the major industrial and economic powerhouse of the Brazilian economy. Named after Saint Paul, São Paulo has the largest population, industrial complex, and economic production in the country. It is the richest state in Brazil...

 corrupt government, and avidly promote an anti drug-use agenda. Brazilian slums known as favela
Favela
A favela is the generally used term for a shanty town in Brazil. In the late 18th century, the first settlements were called bairros africanos . This was the place where former slaves with no land ownership and no options for work lived. Over the years, many freed black slaves moved in...

s are frequently referenced in songs, as more radical types of Brazilian funk
Funk carioca
Funk carioca , favela funk and, elsewhere in the world, baile funk, is a type of dance music from Rio de Janeiro, derived from Miami bass....

 and hip hop have been used as a forum to speak out against local, regional, and national issues. Groups such as Cambio Negro and Chico Science
Chico Science
Francisco de Assis França , better known as Chico Science, was a Brazilian singer and composer and one of the founders of the Mangue Beat cultural movement...

 adhere to a musical style known as rap consciencia, or socially conscious rap.http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/arts/music/14gil.html In the mid-1990s, Brazilian hip hop and funk were advertised to the public as being connected to the drug scene in Rio de Janeiro. Reports in the press around this time classified both styles of Brazilian music as being rooted and funded by the main drug lords in Rio. Part of the speculation of the connection expressed in the reports came from a famous rap that came onto the scene in the early 1990s, entitled "Rap do Borel." Borel, a slum in the neighborhood of Tijuca where drug lorders are notoriously known to operate, was recorded by Brazilian musicians William Santos de Souza and Duda. It has been speculated that subsidized funk parties organized by the Brazilian crime group "Comando Vermelho
Comando Vermelho
Comando Vermelho is a Brazilian criminal organization founded in 1979 in the prison Cândido Mendes, on the Ilha Grande island, Rio de Janeiro, as a collection of ordinary convicts and left-wing political prisoners who were members of the Falange Vermelha , which fought the military dictatorship...

" (Red Commandoes) were actually parties in which Brazilian youth could be recruited for drug dealing. Brazilian rap, at least as it has developed in poor neighborhoods here in the country's largest city, tends to be highly politicized and scornful of lyrics that boast about wealth or sexual conquests. In contrast, the funk movement in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, also imported from the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 but centered in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

, is unabashedly about celebrating sex, bling and violence. Since established commercial radio stations and publishing houses have shown minimal interest in the music and poetry that new hip-hop artists are producing, or want to impose contract terms that are too stringent, rappers have developed their own channels to distribute their work. These range from selling their discs and books themselves on the streets and at shows to having the works played on a network of low-power but linked community radio
Community radio
Community radio is a type of radio service, that offers a third model of radio broadcasting beyond commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting. Community stations can serve geographic communities and communities of interest...

 stations. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/arts/music/14gil.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1203052426-13gYs9yOTCVYldEXW96KGw

Brazilian rap has served as a reflection of political, social, and racial issues plaguing the disenfranchised youth in the suburbs of São Paulo and Rio. The lyrical content, band names, and song names used by Brazilian hip hop artists often connote the socio-political issues surrounding their communities. For instance, Racionais MCs were "unanimously regarded as the voice of the suburbs," with songs such as Pânico na Zona Sul (Panic on the South Side) and Tempos Difíceis (Hard Times). Rapper Gabriel o Pensador titled one of his songs "Tô Feliz, Matei o Presidente" (I'm Glad, I've Killed the President), which addresses former president Fernando Collor's corruption-related impeachment.

Additionally, police brutality against poor black youth in Rio and São Paulo is also a salient issue incorporated into Brazilian rap. According to George Yudice, "in 1991 in São Paulo alone, the military police killed 876 street youth." With violence rates of such a devastating proportion, it is no wonder that impoverished Brazilian youth use hip hop as a voice to speak out. Markedly, Pavilhão 9, a live hip hop group, got their name from the exact location where about 100 convicts were murdered by the police inside the Carandiru jail.

In other major cities like Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

 and Recife
Recife
Recife is the fifth-largest metropolitan area in Brazil with 4,136,506 inhabitants, the largest metropolitan area of the North/Northeast Regions, the 5th-largest metropolitan influence area in Brazil, and the capital and largest city of the state of Pernambuco. The population of the city proper...

, hip hop also appears in fusion styles. Rio de Janeiro represents the largest urban area of national politics, and in popular culture (in general) in Brazil. Rio de Janeiro is portrayed as the headquarters for major corporations of the country's popular music industry. Rio is the most important place for new music composers to gain knowledge of the business, In Recife, manguebeat, a style which was born in the early '90s
1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...

, mixes regional folk styles as maracatu
Maracatu
Maracatu is a term common to two distinct performance genres found in Pernambuco state in northeastern Brazil: maracatu de nação and maracatu rural . A third style, maracatu cearense , is found in Fortaleza, in the northeastern state of Ceará...

 and coco
Coco
Coco, CoCo, Co-Co or similar can mean:*Co-Co locomotives, a code for a locomotive wheel arrangement with two six-wheeled bogies with all axles powered, with a separate motor per axle*Co-Co , a British pop group...

 with hardcore punk rock
Hardcore punk
Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...

 and hip hop. In Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

 in the late '90s
1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...

, MV Bill opened the way to hip hop. Brazilian funk was considered somewhat naive until its sudden "rediscovery" in 2000s, following the international fad towards the "exotic" style.

A new movement has started to make use of the Brazilian hip hop and creative music scene to keep favela residents out of trouble with the ever dangerous and ever evasive Brazilian drug lords versus the Brazilian police force drug war. A brave new documentary has been made about this subject entitled Favela Rising
Favela Rising
Favela Rising is a 2005 documentary film by American directors Jeff Zimbalist and Matt Mochary. It was produced by Sidetrack Films and VOY Pictures. It debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 24, 2005 where it won the award for Best New Documentary Filmmaker for Zimbalist and Mochary...

. The film is a documentary about the group Afro Reggae. Formed in 1993 by Brazilian José Junior, Afro Reggae is a non-profit organization that aims to take young favela residents off the streets and away from drugs through means of music.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455949/ As a hybrid of traditional Brazilian dance music fused with hip-hop and reggae, Afro Reggae's ultimate goal is to offer young favela residents something to do other than join the increasing ranks of drug dealers. In the face of adversity, the Afro Reggae movement offers hope and leadership to young Brazilians, and has moved from the favelas to actual stage performances, as they recently signed a contract with Universal Records. Their Afro Reggae movement's music features styles also interesting to avid listeners of Brazilian hip hop, as well as other genres too.

There are also artists of Brazilian heritage active in other countries, such as the UK grime
Grime (music)
Grime is a style of music that emerged from Bow, East London, England in the early 2000s, primarily as a development of UK garage, dancehall, and hip hop...

 MC Aggro, who burst onto the scene in 2006 with his hit song, Free Yard. The australian hip hop scene also harbors a group called Terrafirma ( Raph A.L. and Simplex the brazilian born mcs/producer ) who have been active in the underground scene and later on the charts since its establishment in 1995. they are also members of the Adelaide super crew, Certified Wise.

The aforementioned new movement has resulted in hip-hop stylings finding their way into the sub-culture of youth's throughout Brazil. In the TV series Cidade dos Homens we follow the lives of two best friends who struggle everyday to survive life in the favela and still manage to keep a smile on their faces. One of the mediums used to alleviate stress is hip-hop, although, since most of the episodes occur in Rio De Janeiro their music might be more attributed to Funk Carioca
Funk carioca
Funk carioca , favela funk and, elsewhere in the world, baile funk, is a type of dance music from Rio de Janeiro, derived from Miami bass....

. Nonetheless, it is the Hip-hop mind set and the idea of a "cypha" (a circle of MC's that spit together and maintain a particular tempo without stopping) that is ever incarnate in the youth of Brazil. This is particularly apparent in the episode Sábado. While the young men are re-telling the crazy and, consequently, exaggerated stories of their crazy night, they form a cypha and begin to rhyme. When one of the supporting characters by the name of Alex, breaks the cypha because he gets offbeat, he is rewarded by a barrage of boos.Cidade dos Homens further accentuates the universality of Hip-hop in the character of Larinjhia, who is the other protagonist of the show. When he finds himself feeling trapped by society and by his social status he turns to hip-hop as an escape. Much like the real life documentary of Favela Rising, we see Laranjinha using hip-hop as a way out of gang violence and into positivity and activism. The show also features many actual Brazilian Hip-hop Stars such as Xis and Thaide. The songs written by Laranjhia and Hip-Hop stars shown in the series are often based on the rough lives they faced in the Favela, just like many MC's in the United States base most of their material retelling stories of the places where they grew up. Another episode from the series of Cidade dos Homens that deals with the influence of Hip-Hop in Brazil, specifically in the city of São Paulo, is called "Hip Samba Hop," where the main characters are exposed to the magnitude of molding that Hip-Hop has caused in that community.

In addition to the above, periferia and marginalidade are some of the most prominent cores of Brazilian hip hop. In reference to Derek Pardue's article it is arguable that that most hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...

 promoters from the all major hip hop groups around Brazil, several years after the birth of hip hop in Brazilian society, were not very successful in co-modifying their understanding of slum
Slum
A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...

 reality within the domestic music economy
Economy
An economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area; the labor, capital and land resources; and the manufacturing, trade, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area...

 hip hop promoters in Brazil understand it to have a high sense of reality or one being real/truthful. Thus in terms of place prominent places are some of those which in general, are viewed as the "periphery" periferia, which also include residential areas of the metropolitan areas of São Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...

, Campinas
Campinas
Campinas is a city and municipality located in the coastal interior of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. is the administrative center of the meso-region of the same name, with 3,783,597 inhabitants as of the 2010 Census, consisting of 49 cities....

, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

, Curitiba
Curitiba
Curitiba is the capital of the Brazilian state of Paraná. It is the largest city with the biggest economy of both Paraná and southern Brazil. The population of Curitiba numbers approximately 1.75 million people and the latest GDP figures for the city surpass US$61 billion according to...

 and so on. This is further supported by Sansone Livio in his article as he talks about the influence of the youth culture in Brazilian Hip hop and funk
Funk carioca
Funk carioca , favela funk and, elsewhere in the world, baile funk, is a type of dance music from Rio de Janeiro, derived from Miami bass....

. One of the reasons why the periferia is a core of Brazilian hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...

 is because, the periphery/periferia turned into a mid-20th century boom of industrialization and place for migration. Additionally, it is also understood to have neighborhoods that vary significantly with regard to safety, architecture, community organization, and services rendered.

During the period 1985–1995, many Brazilian black pop musicians were quite active in the local adaptation of African-American musical trends such as funk and rap. While rock music in Brazil has been associated predominantly with the white middle class, funk and rap are heavily supported in big cities by people (and especially teenagers) of the lower socioeconomic class, primarily blacks. Funk musicians have frequently commented in their songs about the race relations in Brazil and have expressed black pride openly. Radical types of funk and rap meanwhile have been used mostly for sociopolitical messages about local, regional, or national issues. Brazilian rap, at least as it has developed in poor neighborhoods, tends to be highly politicized and scornful of lyrics that boast about wealth or sexual conquests. The funk movement in Brazil is unabashedly about celebrating sex, bling and violence. The rap scene in Brazil is a way for artists to express their political oppression, while funk music relates more to the part of American hip-hop scene of drugs, sex, and violence.

Artists

  • 509-e
    509-E
    509-E was a Brazilian rap group . Formed by Dexter and Afro-X as they were in Carandiru, was dissolved in 2003, when the musicians decided to go his own way.-Career:...

  • A Família
  • Ao Cubo
  • Black Alien & Speed
    Black Alien & Speed
    Black Alien & Speed was an independent Brazilian Hip hop duo active between 1993 and 2001. Made up of singer Black Alien and the late producer/musician/rapper Speed, they started out using the name "Speedfreaks" and around 1998 became "Black Alien & Speed".The group performed and recorded in...

  • Criolo(formerly known as Criolo Doido)
  • Dina Di
  • Jay Nano
  • Rashid
    Rashid
    Rashid or Rachid may refer to:*Rashid , people with the name*Rosetta, anglicized name of the city and port of Rashid in Egypt*Rashid, Yemen*Rachid, Mauritania, a town at the foot of the Tagant Plateau-See also:*Rashad...

  • Projota
  • Emicida
    Emicida
    Leandro Roque de Oliveira , better known by his stage name Emicida, is a Brazilian rapper. He is considered one of the biggest revelations of hip hop in Brazil in recent years...

  • Facção Central
    Facção Central
    Facção Central is a Brazilian rap group.It was formed in 1989 in São Paulo by Nego, Eduardo and Jurandir. Then Nego and Jurandir left the group and they were substituted by Dum Dum and Garga....

  • Gabriel, O Pensador
    Gabriel, O Pensador
    Gabriel Contino, Gabriel o Pensador , is a Brazilian rapper.-Biography:Coming from a unique background among Brazilian rappers, Gabriel, the son of a well known journalist in Brazil, hit fame in 1992 with the song "Tô Feliz " the debut single from his first...

  • Lords Of the South
  • Marcelo D2
    Marcelo D2
    Marcelo D2 is a Brazilian rapper.- Biography :A former vocalist of the band Planet Hemp, he started his solo career in 1998 with the album Eu Tiro É Onda. The album was recorded in his studio by David Corcos, and was mixed in New York and Los Angeles by Carlos Bass and Mário Caldato Jr...

  • MV Bill
    MV Bill
    MV Bill, real name Alex Pereira Barbosa, is a Brazilian rap singer and co-author of the best-selling book Falcão - Meninos do Tráfico. The initials "MV" stand for "Mensageiro da Verdade", Portuguese for "Messenger of Truth"....

  • Nitro Di
  • Planet Hemp
    Planet Hemp
    Planet Hemp was a Brazilian rock/hip hop musical group, known for starting the career of rapper Marcelo D2 and for its lyrics supporting the legality of cannabis...

  • Projeto Ladislau
  • Racionais MC's
    Racionais MC's
    Racionais MC's is a hip hop group based in São Paulo, Brazil. Mano Brown , Ice Blue , Edy Rock and DJ KL Jay formed the group in 1988. Each member hails from the ring of favelas around São Paulo locally called the periferia...

  • RZO - Rapaziada da Zona Oeste (Guys from West Zone)
  • GOG
  • Clã Nordestino
  • Reação
  • Parteum
  • Z'Africa Brasil
  • Black Alien
  • Thaide and Dj Hum
  • Faccão Central
  • Dj Jamaica

Films

  • São Paulo, le rap de la saturation. Directed by Yves Billon.
  • Favela Rising
    Favela Rising
    Favela Rising is a 2005 documentary film by American directors Jeff Zimbalist and Matt Mochary. It was produced by Sidetrack Films and VOY Pictures. It debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 24, 2005 where it won the award for Best New Documentary Filmmaker for Zimbalist and Mochary...

    . Directed by Jeff Zimbalist
    Jeff Zimbalist
    Jeffrey Leib Nettler Zimbalist is an American filmmaker best known for his films Favela Rising, The Two Escobars, and The Scribe of Urabá....

     and Matt Mochary.

External links

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