Gringos, nomads, black – on the politics of African music in São Paulo

Abstract

Following African musicians who arrived in Brazil in recent years, we observe how their musicking in São Paulo creates a world of imagination and political potential, a space for solidarity, inhabited by African and Afro-diasporic entities from past and present history, of anti-colonial, anti-slavery or Afropolitan struggles and artistic manifestations (Mbembe, 2015). How do these musicians deal with the racial and cultural politics in the country? How do racism and Afro-Brazilian movements challenge them? What transcultural capitals (Glick-Schiller and Meinhof, 2011) or forms of “social action” (Blacking, 1995) are mobilized to navigate the Brazilian art scene? How do they deal with cultural institutions and social movements? Being African in Brazil - whether on stage, in the recording studio, in artivist or solidarity events - is always an act of resistance. “Gringos” or “nomads” these artists constitute a “musical community” (Shelemay, 2011) with whom we dialogue in a shared and filmic ethnographic making.