Jesse Brent: So, you’re in São Paulo now. What are you working on there?
Derek Pardue: I arrived the second of May on a three and a half month grant that is part research and part teaching. I'm an anthropologist, and I am teaching a mini-course--a seminar--for graduate students at the Federal University of São Carlos, which is about 125 miles or so from São Paulo. It's in the state of São Paulo, and it's in the sociology department there. It's about marginalization and cities and things like this... crime. Issues like this.
And then the other part of the grant is to do research. So, I'm here until mid-August doing research about these things called saraus, which are a combination of open-mic, slam, popular theater, poetry, that happen in the periphery of São Paulo, and they've become really really popular. I mentioned this in that little article on postcoloniast.com. So, that's why I'm here in São Paulo, this time around.
Can you tell me more about the saraus?
It's interesting, because sarau has a really long history in Brazil. It goes back to the 19th century, and, at that time, it was like... if you can imagine salons of the 19th century where the bourgeois would get together with their friends, and people would play popular piano--what we would consider light classical--or they'd get together and share their amateur poetry. Some well-known literature figures and artists would also come by as invited guests. And it would be a way that the bourgeois and the elite would feel like they're connected with art, that they'd be connected with Western Europe and all that stuff. So it has this elite tradition. All that kind of stuff wasn't very popular when you get into the 20th century. It sort of faded away.
But the turn, the 21st century--so fairly recently--it started to become this movement--not for elite Brazilians, but for poor working-class Brazilians, who lived out in the far-flung areas of the periphery. They turned bars--because that's all that's out there, other than residential housing--just bars and churches. They turned the bars into a space where people can get together and just say what's on their mind. They turn it into conventional poetry. Or it's like protest. Or just something they want to get off their chest in some kind of performative way.
And they become these spots for not just people of the neighborhood; people from other parts of the city start to know where these saraus are happening, and every day of the week has at least a few. So, it’s a new network, a new circuitry of popular culture that represents the periphery. It's music, it's theater, it's poetry, and my interest in it is geographical. I'm interested in mapping out all these saraus, and not just where they are, but the travel that people do to perform there or participate.
Is this only in São Paulo or is this in other cities of Brazil too?
As far as I know, it's mostly in São Paulo. And I know that just because when I ask people where they're coming from, to try and do this mapping, sometimes there are people that come from Curitiba, which is the city to the south, or from Rio. I have this sense that they don't have a big network down there or up in Rio, so they need to come to São Paulo.
Are there people that perform at these saraus that are more well known or is it like everybody is at the same level?
Right, that's a good question. It's a wide range. The well-known people, for the most part, are in the area in literature. The time that these saraus became popular converged with a movement called marginal literature. What they're calling themselves is marginal literature, and different authors start to use the saraus as a way to perfect their skills, and then they started to publish their poetry or their short stories, or even short novellas or short romances, if you want, and make books out of them. And those people have become somewhat well known, even to mainstream press. To give you an example, there's a guy, his name is Alessandro Buzo, and he now has--because of saraus and because of his books--he has a segment every Saturday on at noon on Global, which is the biggest TV station in Brazil. It's like if you took Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS, and you rolled them into one thing, that would be like Global, and so it's huge.
And on every Saturday at noon, he has this little segment where he talks--he has five or so minutes--where he talks about things that are going on in the periphery. Saraus or other cultural events or other musical events. And that's just to give you an idea of the penetration of this into even mainstream media.
Are any of the saraus recorded live or do any of these people record in a studio?
Mostly, the way that you can eavesdrop on them is through blogs--just still photographs. Maybe some videos of people reciting poetry, but nothing studio level of recording or anything like that.
People who organize those saraus... they all have their own blogs, and they all reference each other on the side bars. You can go to Sarau Do Binho, and you'll see on the sidebar various other saraus that are happening in the city. They create a network like that, but it's mostly still photographs and text and links.
The book that you wrote a few years ago was about hip-hop. Is there any overlap between hip-hop and sarau?
Most of the material from that book came from a time when the saraus didn't exist. In the late 90s and the turn of the 21st century, saraus didn't really exist. They just started happening in 2003, 2004, and then, just in the past couple years, have become prolific. The earlier saraus were much more just literary events, you know, and maybe some popular theater. You wouldn't see rappers there. Now, because of its visibility--and they have a lot of the same themes, common interests, they're from the same areas of the city--now there's a lot more crossover. Rappers see it as this is an opportunity for them to perform, to gain some visibility. People sell stuff. They're like, "Ok, I got my CD if you like that song. They're selling this for 5 reals or 10 reals, come and talk to us." Things like that. When I was writing the book, saraus didn't really exist, and in their early stages there wasn't much communication between the two communities, but that's changed quite a bit just over the past couple years.
And is there ever instrumental accompaniment--either recorded or live during the saraus?
Yes, you do see that. Certain saraus are known to be a little bit more music-friendly. They have more space for people to come in with the drum set or for people to have the wherewithal to amplify sound. Whereas other saraus are more just a simple corner bar. I saw one that was improvised. There was a group there to do soul-funk music. But there was also a rapper there. And they just, on the spot, joined forces. And the rapper rapped over the live band's funk track. And that just happened out of a coincidence.
You said that at these saraus, they’re mostly talking about social issues. Are people talking about the same things that protesters have been talking about in the past couple years?
Sometimes there's overlap with that, but most of the time they're talking about much more localized issues--things that are happening in their lives. Where it would cross over would be things about police violence. Because that's something that's day to day in periphery life. It raises up to national or international visibility, because now you see police exercising violence against protesters in big public areas. You know, like in front of Maracaña stadium. Yesterday, for example, in the hours leading up to the big Argentina-Bosnia match. These images have now been circulated all around the world. International press is there. You know what I'm saying? Their protests are on a much more local, intimate kind of level. And sometimes they may make links to what's going on, because people know that international press is watching Brazil, that they're very critical, that people are making connections between corruption of World Cup preparation and state violence and all that stuff. They may make some allusions to that, but, for the most part, it's more local, it's more personal, it's more periphery realities.
Can you talk a little bit about what life in the periphery is like? What people are experiencing there?
Brazil is very auto-constructed. The state just didn't do anything. City governments never did anything to deal with migrant labor. They just did the bare minimum, and sometimes not even that. So, people had to improvise their houses, and that's what you see, the kind of images that you see, both in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo and all around Brazil is that kind of improvised housing, people putting together corrugated metal and whatever.
There are a lot of issues of race and regionalism, since a lot of the people in the periphery come from the northeast, which has a very big stigma against it as being backwards--people who tend towards crime, that they need to be controlled, and all that kind of stuff. So, a lot of stigma, a lot of prejudice, just right upfront before there's any contact at all.
Are you still closely following hip-hop in Brazil?
I am, because there's this crossover, I have long-standing friends and colleagues, so I pay attention. Hip-hop and the saraus--they're not separate worlds. So, in that way I'm engaged. Plus, I have friends who have,relatively speaking, made it. They live off of hip-hop, so, through them, I try and keep attuned to what's going on.
In terms of what’s going on now in hip-hop, how would you say the scene is different from when you wrote your book?
I would say that, on the one hand it's much more eclectic. Rappers feel more at liberty to experiment with sounds--that they don't need to keep in the same kind of mold of very straightforward beats and very square rhyming patterns. The beats were very similar. Themes were very similar. So, I think, what you find in the last few years is many more artists who are getting to know the big variety of Brazilian rhythms and Brazilian music. I mean, it's such a rich country for music, and this was a big criticism for many many years--that Brazilian rappers just imitated Americans or Jamaicans, and that they didn't pay attention to their own country in terms of musical resources.
Those sorts of taboos have fallen by. You hear that a lot in more recent recordings, so that's, in my opinion, something really good. Another thing to add, though, is that many of the rappers feel at liberty not to be as polemic as they used to be. It's become more popular, you know? So, as rap becomes more part of a national palette of music, it's lost a little bit of its edge, rhetorically.
Production-wise, it's much better. People are much more attuned to technological advances and how to engineer their sound and appeal to different groups. They're not afraid of hip-hop as a market, which they used to be when I first got here.
Who are the artists that you think are doing the most interesting work in hip-hop right now?
Criolo, over the past couple years, has gained a lot of fame and notoriety. These people like Criolo, Emicida, Gaspar of the group ZAfrica Brasil--they're all from the periphery. They're not like some middle-class kids who've finally figured out how to rhyme, or something like that. They're all real genuine people with real genuine past experiences. They know what they're talking about, and they have been able to break out of the limited mindset of many of the kids from the periphery and have been able to articulate their experiences with serious poetic skills into an international palette of sounds, and stuff.
I just think of those three people: Criolo, probably the most well known; Emcidia, who has gained a lot of attention over the past two years; and Gaspar, who hasn't figured out the market so much yet, but his music could be very appealing to a lot of people. He has his own kind of reputation. He has a lot of recognition among Brazilian rappers and hip hoppers overall.
Some people might think that Criolo and Emicida sold out because they cross over with funk--the Brazilian version of funk--that comes from Rio de Janeiro, and has now become very popular in São Paulo. It's kind of like a Miami bass vibe with almost no political angle at all. Emicida has worked with MC Guime, who's super famous now. MC Guime has a song about the World Cup, and Emicida participates in that song. For some, that's crossing the line. These two communities should never meet. One is completely apolitical, and the other is supposed to be more radical and critical. But I think that Emicida is smart enough to be able to do that and still maintain some genuine credibility.
One of the things that I’m interested in for the show is the role of women in hip-hop. And from what I heard, there were very few of them a few years ago and that’s been improving a little bit. Do you have anything to say about that?
From the very beginning, there were women involved. They just had this big commemoration of 25 years of the first Rio rap recording, called Street Culture. It was a compilation album. There's a lot of machismo, so there are no women on that compilation album. But there were people like Sharylaine who, from the very beginning, were part of the movement.
So, that's important to know. It's not like something like young women just recently becoming involved. They've always been there, but there's been a lot of stigma and a lot of machismo, has been part of Brazilian hip hop like all around the world. The other thing that I would say--so there are people like Lady Chris, Sharylaine, that are rappers, DJs have been much more difficult, because the stigma is greater in that element of hip hop. People think that women can't be DJs, because they think it's like too physical of a job, you know, like to, to like carry around all the vinyl early on, and to have that technological knowledge is incredibly gendered, so that's been slower in changing.
And the same thing with graffiti. Graffiti is also heavily gendered, because it was thought of as, you know, you're supposed to do graffiti in the wee hours of the morning, and, you know, women aren't supposed to be in public space, you know, so that's also been slower in changing. But the other two elements of rap and b-boy, b-girl have had a more sustained, I guess, presence of women.
So.. what else can I say? That's my main point, to think about the elements as different in how they relate to gender. And that, at least within rap and street dance, women have always been there, it's just kind of more recently that hip hoppers overall have become more aware of feminism. This is in the last, I'm gonna say, just from the early 2000s. Overall, people have just been more attuned that feminism is something important, and they need to address this if they want to maintain any kind of reputation as like a critical, popular movement.
And that's helped young women have more visibility. This didn't exist at all. When I first got here, people had no concept of like, they didn't articulate at all about feminism. That wasn't a concern to them. They didn't think about that at all. And that changed by the early 2000s.
You’re in São Paulo right now. What have you been seeing out there with the World Cup starting up?
I would say that, I wanna add that, a year ago, in June, when the first... So this first spike of protest occurred, I was here, I was on Paulista Avenue, which is where they started this free-pass movement, because it all started with a rise in bus fares, transportation fares, and people were tired of this, because the cost of living--this is just facts, you know--the cost of living, the inflation, particularly with the cost of living and rent and food, and basic transportation has gone up so much more relative to minimum wage and, you know, average salaries of the masses that live here.
So, it's become just so much more difficult now, as the sort of straw that broke the camel's back. And there was this outcry. And it was a moment for all kinds of people of different political strifes to take this moment and be critical. And it happened so fast that it, you know, caused a big uproar. I wanna say that, within days, you know, the free-pass movement achieved its goal, because the mayor of the city of São Paulo, you know, he got rid of the hike and went back to the old price.
And that movement, to its credit, went on the main TV station, Global, and said, "You know, our strikes, our protests, have been successful. We did what we came to do. We've achieved our objectives, and we're done. All these other people out here, they may have, you know, important beefs, whatever, but that's not, we're done now as a formal protest." Because, what had happened is that, as I said, all kinds of people from the right and from the left, were just like, "This is the time." They were opportunistic, right? They were like, "This is the time when we can get in our agenda."
And this is my big problem. So that was a year ago. And there has been different little--different strikes have happened periodically, but, you know, since, I wanna say, like March, April, these months leading up to the World Cup become more and more intense.
I think this is the main message that I have for people who are not living here: is that things are much more complex than who is protesting. There's a lot of manipulation and a lot of opportunism going on connected with real problems of infrastructure and Brazilian cities. Real issues of like displacement for the construction of stadiums, and this is mostly in Rio de Janeiro.
In São Paulo, the construction of the big stadium, which is right next to where my in-laws live. I watched the whole thing happen over the past couple of years. As I would visit, I would see, you know, gradually, the stadium coming together. And that, the construction of that stadium, unlike places in Rio, didn't displace anyone directly. Like, they like didn't bulldoze neighborhoods like they did in Rio to make way for that stadium. The stadium was built in an old quarry, a rock quarry, like a valley, and there was nobody living there. However, it is important to say that, because of that stadium, it jacked up rent prices.
So when people start to, you know, they would renegotiate their contracts, the landlords would say, "Ok, you know, now this area's going to become more valued, because of the stadium, so I'm going to start charging you know, 100, 150 reals more a month." And that forced some people out, so that is an important displacement thing that's going on.
So, I mean, these issues are real and very important. What I see is like living downtown is a place where a lot of protests happen. So I've seen protests by bus, bus employees, I've seen protests by public schoolteachers. City public school and state public schoolteachers happening. And I've just kind of hung out and seen what they're saying, and things like that. And who shows up at these protests. And, from my point of view, it's a mixed bag, and it's smart opportunism.
People know that, you know, so the subway stopped here for like four days, and millions of people use the subway in São Paulo. And the people know this is a time where they can negotiate contracts. They know that there's been all kinds of international press linking political scandals and detours of, you know, millions of millions of dollars away from public infrastructure to serve the desires of FIFA and all of that.
People know that, so they're taking this time to try to better their situation. Um, I mean, I just would say that it's a mistake to link, let's say, subway strikes with, um, federal government proceedings, you know, federal government policies. It's not the same thing. There's different levels of government going on, and there's different agenda items going on.
It's not the case that the masses of people are against Dilma, the president. In fact, she's incredibly popular. It's just a certain kind of amplification of certain agenda items that all get linked together. And I think that’s the danger of what's happening now, in my opinion.
What would you say the level of political consciousness is now? How many people are just happy that the World Cup’s there and excited about football compared to people that are really upset?
Right, that's a great question, and I think that, what I've observed is a huge shift. You know, so, before the World Cup, until let's say, a week of something, maybe 10 days, the most, before the World Cup started, I didn't see one street in all my traveling around, downtown areas and periphery neighborhoods, I didn't see one street that was like decorated. And I've been here during World Cups of '98, 2002 and 2010.
My memory is that with, you know, a few weeks, if not several weeks, before the World Cup, which was not happening here, which didn't happen here, right, people were all into, you know, painting the streets and using the icons of the, whether its mascots or various country flags, of course the Brazilian flags or different star players... They would be all over the streets, you know. The neighborhood associations would come together and invest in that decoration and, you know, all kinds of banners and flags flying around from telephone poles and stringing it all together. Very festive atmosphere.
And so, people were not, in general, they were not mobilized. There was conflicts within the neighborhoods to make any of that stuff manifest. I know that from talking to people in my in-laws neighborhoods, because I was like, how does this stuff happen, and why hasn't it happened? And people would say, there's just this divide, you know? Based on all these issues that we're talking about.
Once it's really starting to happen, you know, my sense, my impression is that people are much more into it now. They are, you know, everything was quickly decorated, and at the street level, people were completely into it. People were realizing, like, this is a once in a lifetime chance.
I mean, when is the World Cup ever going to be here in Brazil again? Most of people's lifetimes... It's not going to happen in most people's lifetimes, you know? So, I think that they are embracing this. And they realize that, in general, international press is not going to understand all the complexity of the issues, and that the bottom line will be that Brazil will represent itself as some backward-ass, not ready for prime time, country. And nobody wants that image. In the end, the masses of people do not want to, like, they don't want people to go away from Brazil with that image. The people who want that are very extreme to the right and extreme to the left, politically, who want to sell that image, you know.
Now, the masses, all the people in the middle, are not, you know, they’re either on board or they're quiet. You see the numbers of, even from mainstream and white wing presses, tell you that, reported yesterday in Rio that the number is very very small of people who are protesting. There was this new story, because the stupid state of Rio sent in, you know, military police and attacked these protesters. And that’s what the story is, the story's about violence. The story's not about masses of thousands and thousands of people protesting this event. It's about violence and stupidity on the part of the state, you know what I'm saying?
The last thing I want to ask you is about the relationship between the World Cup and music in Brazil right now. I’ve heard a little bit--people talking about opportunism of some artists to make a hit out of the World Cup, to make a song about football, but also about how a lot of musicians are upset like the protesters.
Yeah, I mean, there's a whole, there is, there's some wonderful videos and stuff on, that are being shared through different social media platforms about alternative World Cups. So like, people who, so, for example, there was a big deal made out of a sort of landless... a landless movement or homeless movement that made a big camp in a public park a couple of kilometers away from the big arena in São Paulo, and there's some interesting video clips about them having their own kind of World Cup.
So, kind of parallel alternative World Cup. World Cup of the People, or whatever. And there's some songs that are going up. So there's like parallel universe. There's some, like, alternative parallel World Cups going on with their own games and their own songs. What's interesting about the clip of that particular group that has been held up as this major protest community is that the clip shows that when the games are televised, they watch them, and they are excited about Brazil and they're excited about different teams, and stuff like that. So, they're not separate. They will also cheer. You can do both, you know, you can criticize, and you can support Brazilian soccer. They don't have to be, you know, opposing entities, you know.
I think that, I mean, you're right, there's a lot of opportunism going on with the music side of the World Cup. A lot of people were critical, very upset that the official song would have, you know, these foreigners and have nothing to do with really Brazilian music, with J-Lo and Pitbull, and all that stuff. And that singer whose very recent and, I mean, just sort of like a flash in the pan pop person, Claudia Leitte. So, people were upset about that, they didn't represent Brazilian music and all that Brazil has to offer. So people were kind of upset about that.
But there's been, yeah, I mean, I just said, different Brazilian artists have used the moment to make a song and sell themselves, sell their stuff, and also sell a whole bunch of products. So Coca-Cola, for example, has a whole line of commercials that feature Brazilian artists and Brazilian traditions of music and folklore and all that kind of stuff that's put into a big sort of global envelope that shows fans from all the countries that are represented in the World Cup. You know, I mean, they're masters at doing this.
But the Brazilian artists have used it as a platform, as a stage, to get out their own style of music, as well. So yeah, there's a lot of, there's official World Cup music, there's commercial and strategic songs that are being produced and commodified, and there's definitely an alternative song list and music scene going on that's in conjunction with a bunch of kind of like alternative soccer like World Cups going on.
So, it’s a, yeah, it's a diverse scene, most definitely.
I hadn’t heard about those alternative World Cups before, but that’s pretty fascinating.
Yeah, there's a great... There's like cinematic production, as well. So, it's also a moment where filmmakers make either documentaries or sort of, you know, fiction, fictitious representations where soccer is a main theme. There's a great, there's photo essays of like, going back to the issue of gender, this is one thing of course in common between hip hop and soccer, is that soccer is incredibly machismo, even though Brazil's women's team is perennially up there at the top, and often is in the final against the United States and usually loses.
But they have no infrastructure whatsoever, unlike the United States. Still, Brazilian women... They have like almost no official space within the soccer world. It's very, you know, masculine. There's some interesting side bars going on in São Paulo, so there's a great photo essay--photo exposition--at a cultural center near downtown, near where I am, that shows, it's called Donas de Bola, it's like, instead of like, so donas like female owners of the ball. It has all these different women in different parts of the country and how they're connected to soccer, either as players or that they sponsor teams or they, you know... It's pretty interesting to show the female element that's unknown or, I guess, at the popular level. That's kind of cool, and there's a cool documentary film about all the construction workers who made all these stadiums and their own little World Cup.
They would, different construction teams would take on the national team, say France or Ghana or, you know, whatever. Or Portugal. And then they had their own World Cup towards the end of the construction phase. And there's a cool documentary about that, as well.
So, there's all kinds of universes going on, of expressive culture, music and otherwise, connected to this spectacular event.
