MC Tha reinvents Alcione’s work with a critical eye in a new EP: “she is the reason”

It is looking at the present through the lens of the past that MC Tha presents, this Wednesday (29) My Saint is Strong, their new EP. following up on Rite of Passafrom 2019, the singer proposes a reinterpretation of five songs previously recorded by Hatch. The result comes in the powerful encounter of two black women, separated by a generation, but connected by similar experiences – racial, religious, artistic – of an anachronistic Brazil.

“I’ve been understanding more and more that Alcione is the reason, it’s the reason we focus on this Afro-Brazilian popular music”, says Tha, “She is positioned within the project as an ancestor, that we turned to her work , turned to these Afro-religious songs, to this repertoire that has already been part of her records from the 1970s onwards and thought of continuing”.

For the EP, MC Tha reimagines five tracks Hatch at the origin of what would become funk. Thus, he recreates “São Jorge”, “Figa de Guiné”, “Corpo Fechado”, “Afrekete” (produced by MU540) and “Agolonã” in his own way, together with the producer MahalPita.

The proposal to rethink Hatch extends to the audiovisual unfolding of the EP. In him, MC Tha imagine a TV show along the lines of General Alertfrom Rede Globo, presented at the turn of the 1970s to the 1980s. And it is at this stage of the project that the funkeira makes use of the most critical bias of the work:

“We turn on the TV and we can find channels of gospel music, we can find channels of evangelical religions, but we don’t have a space to expose the Afro-religious experience”, says Tha. So, instead of releasing clips for the songs, the singer “understood that it would be more interesting to create this universe, to direct to a time that already existed on Brazilian TV, where black women had a space on TV in the 1970s to present a program, to bring samba dancers, artists with a racial background, to talk about independent music, about racial issues”.

My Saint Is Strongis now available on digital platforms (listen below) and gets its first live performance this Thursday (30), at Cine Joia, in São Paulo.

Below is the full interview with MC Tha about My Saint Is Strong:

Rolling Stone Brazil: My Saint Is Strong comes in the wake of Rite of Passa (2019) in his discography. What connects the works – or how the listener of Rite of Passa will find you in this new EP?
MC Tha: Yeah, the EP My Saint is Strong has a lot of link with Rite of Passa. First, because it starts from the motivation of deepening the research that has already been started in Rite of Passa, specifically the track of the same name, which brings this junction between funk and Afro-religious music, right?! What is this mixture that people consider unusual, but that makes perfect sense to me because, right? One thing is inside the other, one in its most sacred sense, another in its most profane sense; one in its traditionality, the other in its contemporaneity. So all the tracks My Saint is Strong, which was produced by Mahal Pita, are an in-depth analysis of this funk research linked to Afro-religious songs. Even the creation of an imaginary, right?! To think of funk that is closest to these Afro-religions. And those touches too. in some ways, turn into more contemporary touches. and the album Rite of Passa, if we’re going to take the time he shot, it’s a very recent album, right? When the pandemic started, he had just been released, he was only six months old. So many cities still haven’t heard the songs of Rite of Passa, did not receive the show, the album. At the same time that we delve deeper into the research of Rite of Passa, My Saint is Strong also works like this renewal, this link from Rite of Passa for an upcoming album, right? It is the time of transition. At the same time that it updates, it is also the moment of transition.

Rolling Stone Brasil: Alcione is a constant presence in this work. Where does the decision to bring you thematically and artistically to the center of your second EP come from?
MC Tha: Alcione was very present in this process at the beginning of everything, right? I think I’ve come to understand more and more that Alcione is the reason, it’s the reason why we focus on this Afro-Brazilian popular music. She is positioned within the project as an ancestor, that we turned to her work, turned to these Afro-religious songs, to this repertoire that has already been part of her records from the 1970s and thought of giving continuity , huh? From MC Tha, who, as I usually say, is my ancestor of the future, right? It’s the strength that lets me sing, that lets me say things on stage, that lets me compose. So both Alcione and MC Tha are positioned in this project My Saint is Strong like two ancestors who communicate, each in its own time. Just as we are doing with funk and Afro-religious touches, the image of the two turns towards each other in this sense.

Rolling Stone Brasil: The EP proposes an interesting audiovisual extension here, which transports you to a program à la General Alert, a classic from the 70’s/80’s by Rede Globo. How did you arrive at this concept and how do you apply it here?
MC Tha: The audiovisual is something very present in my trajectory, right? I’ve never released a song without a video, so it’s a way that I also manage to illustrate beyond what I compose, in addition to this sound sense, how I manage to unravel other references and bring part of this story and in the My Saint is Strong we understood that it didn’t make sense to create music videos for the tracks, right? That it would be more interesting to create this universe so that people could be directed to a time that already existed on Brazilian TV, right? A time when black women had a space on TV in the 1970s to present a program, to bring samba dancers, artists with a racial background, to talk about independent music, to talk about racial issues, and that today I think that Brazil is very hard to make it happen again. Then My Saint is Strong, at the same time that there is this imaginary of this intersection of MC Tha and Alcione, there is also this intersection of invention of realities, right? To invent a new possibility. Especially nowadays, where cases of violence against terreiro, religious intolerance, religious racism have had a very significant increase here in the state of São Paulo, according to data from the Public Security Secretariat, there has been an exponential increase in the last two years. . Attacks on terreiros, attacks on people who practice religions of African origin, so to bring this aesthetic of this program of this Brazil that already existed with Alcione presenting the General Alert back in the 1970s, it’s also about creating this imaginary, right? Where are these artists who sing about their terreiro experiences, who don’t have space on TV, who don’t have space on radios and how can we, in some way, collaborate for this change, right? We turn on the TV and we can find channels of gospel music, we can find channels of evangelical religions, but we don’t have a space to expose the Afro-religious experience and we speak for ourselves, right? Whenever something comes out, it’s the misfortunes that happen, right? The terreiro burned, the person who lost his eye because the neighbor didn’t like to hear the neighbor listening to macumba music, in short, the children suffering religious racism inside the school, mothers losing custody of their children because of religion, so when I bring O Weather Hot Show (see below), I bring the figure of a presenter of a time, of a singer of the time of now and I can also unravel a little more about the My Saint is Strongabout the importance of this project, I think it goes through this current Brazil that we are living, in the sense of trying to create a new imaginary, a new reality for some improvement there.

Rolling Stone Brasil: This Thursday, the 30th, you will be playing the first show of this EP, yes? How do you intend to take the identity of this EP to those who will listen to you on stage?
MC Tha: Yeah, Thursday we do the first show of the tour My Saint is Strong. The new show is ready, we are rehearsing, this show will be very percussive. The percussion will be very evident and compared to the Rite of Passa, right, which is the rite of passage, which had this thing that came in the show too, of being a great ritual, of going through various energies, I think that after the ritual, now we are in the moment to celebrate. It’s the way I get to define this new show. So it will be a very powerful, fun and also educational show.