Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s far-right president, rose to power on the wings of contempt—contempt for the environment, for poor Brazilians of color, for those who don’t conform to traditional gender binaries or roles.
So, even though Cibelle decamped to Berlin back in 2015, that this collaboration with the German DJ and producer Daniel Haaksman arrives in 2019 lends the track extra significance.
The lyrics affirm self-determination over one’s own body, and “the strength to be neither what you call a ‘woman’ nor what you call a ‘man.’”
But the lyrics don’t feed into existentialism either. "A being is not their body/a body encases the self/the self is not their body/a being is way far beyond,” Cibelle sings. Variations on “it is only a body” repeat throughout the song.
The video is only bodies, and just bodies, as the artists reach for something universal beyond the differences.
The song appears on Haaksman’s album From Berlin With Love, a celebration and exploration of the city’s famous openness to outsiders, but also the limits of that openness.
The video's release is accompanied by a dembow remix from Dominican producer Kelman Duran.
