From the Margins of the Peripheries: Female Voices from Brazil's And
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From the margins of the peripheries: female voices from Brazil’s and Portugal’s hip hop scene Federica Lupati Tese de Doutoramento em Estudos Portugueses Julho 2019 Tese apresentada para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Doutor em Estudos Portugueses, realizada sob a orientação científica de Prof.ra Dra. Ana Maria Mão de Ferro Martinho Gale e a coorientação do Prof. Dr. Phillip Rothwell ACKLOWLEDGMENTS This work would not have been possible without the support of CHAM – Center for the Humanities and its incredible team. Some people from CHAM deserve to be mentioned: without their help and encouragement it would probably have taken much longer for me to finish this thesis than what it did. Among these, my friend, colleague and “partner in crime” Margarida Rendeiro, my supervisor and mentor Prof. Ana Maria Martinho, and Prof. Rosário Monteiro for always believing in me and motivating me. I also would like to thank my friend and colleague Márcia Leão, for giving me a home in São Paulo and accompanying me through my research there. Finally, I would like to mention rappers Telva TVon, Mynda Guevara, Capicua, Samantha Muleka, Rose MC, Lívia Cruz, Keli Rosa and Sharylaine for generously sharing their experiences and thoughts with me. They have given me much more than just “study material.” This project would not have been possible without all these great women. FROM THE MARGINS OF THE PERIPHERIES: FEMALE VOICES FROM BRAZIL’S AND PORTUGAL’S HIP HOP SCENE FEDERICA LUPATI ABSTRACT This research responds to the need to fill the void in terms of studies and scholarships on female rappers from Portugal and Brazil. Addressing issues such as racism, patriarchy, male hegemony and the silencing or underestimation of women’s contributions to the building and evolution of rap both in Portugal and Brazil, the aim is to offer a space where these issues can be discussed, while also acknowledging and understanding the works and experience of female performers. In addition to this, the present work aims at discussing the social, cultural and politcal importance of hip hop as a marginal, yet global, contemporary practice and its evolution into a mass-mediatic culture. Hip hop’s contribution to the building of new individual and collective identities, its unapologetic narratives and revolutionary messages are here understood as tools that contribute to the understanding of the dynamics that agitate the social and creative realities of today’s post-modern and post-colonial world. Through a methodological approach that looks at interdisciplinarity as its main feature, this work borrows its core ideas from fields such as Cultural Studies, Hip Hop Studies, Gender Studies, Feminist Theory, among many others, as well as from the informal conversations that I have been recording throughout these years with Portuguese rappers Capicua, Telma TVon, Mynda Guevara, and Brazilian rappers Samantha Muleka, Rose MC, Keli Rosa and Sharylaine. Despite the fact some interviews did not make it to this final text, they were all fundamental to it. KEYWORDS: Hip hop culture; Portuguese rap; Brazilian rap; female rappers; women’s voices; male domination RESUMO Esta pesquisa responde à necessidade de preencher o vazio em termos de estudos e investigações sobre rappers femininas desde Portugal e Brasil. Abordando questões como o racismo, o patriarcado, a hegemonia masculina e o silenciamento ou menosprezo das contribuições dadas por mulheres na construção e evolução da cultura hip hop, quer em Portugal, quer no Brasil, o objetivo é de criar aqui um espaço onde estas questões sejam discutidas, ao passo que são compreendidos e reconhecidos os trabalhos e as experiências dessas intérpretes femininas. adicionalmente, a presente investigação visa debater a relevância social, política e cultural da cultura hip hop como prática marginal, e ainda assim global. As contribuições dadas pelo hip hop à construção de novas identidades individuais e coletivas, as suas narrativas não apologéticas e as suas mensagens revolucionárias são aqui interpretados como ferramentas que ajudam a entender as dinâmicas que agitam as realidades sociais e criativas do atual mundo pós-moderno e pós-colonial. Através duma abordagem metodológica que olha para a interdisciplinaridade como a sua principal característica, as ideias centrais a este trabalho inspiram- se a campos como os Estudos Culturais, a Sociologia, os Estudos de Hip Hop, os Estudos de Género, a Teoria Feminista, dentro de muitos outros, assim como às conversas informais gravadas ao longo destes anos com as rappers portuguesas Capicua, Telma TVon e Mynda Guevara e as rappers brasileiras Samantha Muleka, Rose MC, Keli Rosa e Sharylaine. Apesar de que algumas gravações não chegaram a ser incluídas neste texto, todas foram fundamentais para a sua construção. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Cultura hip hop; rap em Portugal; rap no Brasil; mulheres rappers; vozes femininas; dominação masculina TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 1 CHAPTER 1: THE BIRTH AND SPREAD OF HIP HOP CULTURE .…………..………………………………...7 1. 1. HIP HOP’S FOUNDATION: THE HOLY TRINITY ……………………………………………………………………..7 1. 2. WHEN THE RHYMES MET THE BEATS: THE BIRTH OF RAP ………………………………………………………... 16 1. 3. FROM UNDERGROUND TO MAINSTREAM: THE EVOLUTION OF RAP ……………………………………………… 27 1. 4. HIP HOP CULTURE IN THE ACADEMIC ARENA ………………………………………………………………….. 39 1. 5. WOMEN RAPPERS: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………………. 50 CHAPTER 2: HIP HOP CULTURE IN PORTUGAL ………………………………………………….…............... 55 2. 1. IMMIGRATION IN THE POSTCOLONIAL WORLD ………………………………………………….......................... 55 2. 2. NATIONAL IDENTITY, LUSOTROPICALISM AND OTHERNESS ………………………………………...................... 58 2. 3. RACISM IN PORTUGAL ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 63 2. 4. YOUTH, URBAN TRIBES AND MUSIC SCENES: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION ……………………………...................... 74 2. 5. THE EMERGENCE OF THE HIP HOP SCENE IN PORTUGAL (1985-1995) …………………………............................ 81 2. 6. REVOLUTION AND POETRY: PORTUGUESE RAP AS A CONTEMPORARY PRACTICE OF PROTEST SONGS ………..... 98 2. 7. BETWEEN PORTUGAL AND BRAZIL: RAP AS A LÍNGUA FRANCA ………………………………………………… 111 CHAPTER 3: FEMALE VOICES FROM PORTUGAL’S RAP SCENE …………………………..………........ 121 3. 1. WOMEN’S STUDIES: GENERAL OUTLINES ……………………………………………………............................ 121 3. 2. FEMINISM: A GENERAL OVERVIEW ...…………………………………………………………........................... 129 3.3. HIP HOP FEMINISM: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION …..……………………………………………………………... 137 3. 4. INTRODUCING WOMEN MAKING RAP IN PORTUGAL …………………………………………………................141 3. 5. LOOKING INTO A DOMINANT RHETORIC: SILENCING WOMEN’S VOICES DURING RAP’S EARLY YEARS ............... 145 3.6. FROM RAP TO LITERATURE: CREATIVITY AS A STRATEGY OF RESISTANCE IN PORTUGAL THROUGH THE WORKS BY TELMA TVON ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 161 3. 7. RESTORING THE MUSICAL TRADITION OF PROTEST SONGS: CAPICUA’S INTERVENTIVE RAP ………………….. 169 3. 8. A CLOSER LOOK INTO EVA RAPDIVA’S SUCCESSFUL CAREER IN RAP BETWEEN PORTUGAL AND ANGOLA …... 179 i 3. 9. BREAKING BOUNDARIES, CHALLENGING MODERNITY, BUILDING REVOLUTIONS: RAP IN PORTUGAL AND ITS NEW GENERATION OF FEMALE VOICES …………...………………………………………………………………… 186 3. 10. TOWARDS A MORE DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN: PORTUGAL’S FEMALE RAPPERS THROUGH THE VOICE OF MYNDA GUEVARA ……………………………………………………..……………………………. 193 CHAPTER 4: HIP HOP CULTURE IN BRAZIL ……………………………………………………..…………... 197 4. 1. RACISM IN BRAZIL ………………………………………………………………………................................. 197 4. 2. COMMUNITIES CALLED FAVELAS ……………………………………………………………………………... 203 4. 3. MARGINAL LITERATURE ……………………………………………………………………………………… 208 4. 4. THE EMERGENCE OF HIP HOP CULTURE IN BRAZIL ……………………………………………………………. 211 CHAPTER 5: FEMALE VOICES FROM SÃO PAULO’S RAP SCENE ………………………………..……….. 233 5. 1. THE FIRST WOMAN TO RECORD A RAP SONG IN BRAZIL: SHARYLAINE AND HER FEMINIST MILITANCY ………. 233 5. 2. ROSE MC AND THE USE OF HIP HOP AS A PEDAGOGIC TOOL …………………………………... ……………... 242 5. 3. “WOMEN RAPPERS SHOULD HAVE THEIR OWN SHELF IN THE GLOBAL STORE OF RAP MUSIC”: LÍVIA CRUZ AND RAP AS A FEMINIST TOOL ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 249 5. 4. BUILDING A COMMUNITY OF WOMEN FROM THE HIP HOP SCENE IN BRAZIL: PERIFEMINAS I AND PERIFEMINAS II 255 FINAL CONSIDERATIONS .…..…………………………………………………………………………………..… 263 REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 267 ii INTRODUCTION Coming from different areas, scholars have drawn their attention to hip hop with increasing enthusiasm and have followed its growth through time and space. Today, thanks to their work and insight we can observe this global practice as a complex set of elements that interact in the building of one of the most powerful and successful popular cultures of all times. Over the past four decades, in fact, hip hop has evolved and evolved from a local phenomenon that gave voice to the U.S-born Blacks and first and second-generation Latinos, to an international multimillion machine that shocked and changed the music and entertainment industry. As a cultural and artistic phenomenon, it has reached youths all around the world, offering them the opportunity not only to express their struggles and ambitions, but more importantly to build a career out of them. Hip hop culture has its foundations in the social, economic, political and cultural realities and conditions of those who are marginalized and oppressed, providing those young generations with the means and methods of expression that thrive on social commentary,