Hip Hop artists and producers carry out cultural projects in the Favelinha City Community

Discovering new talents in peripheral locations often takes place through programs that encourage culture. The Favelinha City Cultural Training Center Project emerged from the demand for actions, activities and cultural products from the residents and producers of Favelinha City Joaniza, created in 1992 by families from the sub-district of Cidade Ademar, in the extreme south of the city of São Paulo. The site’s activities are expanded by the community through the Luiza Mahin Community Library, located there for six years.

In addition to generating artistic products and services, the proposal also periodically carries out workshops, interventions and events within the site. Shows in other places on the outskirts of the city, through manifestations such as urban street dance, graffiti, stencil and lick-lick.

Also through the NFCFC – Joaniza project, contemplated by the Proac Favela 2021 public notice, it financially leveraged the collective’s actions with investment in purchases of materials for continuous use in actions and workshops, and the hiring of art educators from the favela itself and from the project’s partner network, that directly already developed projects in the place.

The nucleus generated the possibility of painting the alleys, with the creation of several drawings, and with the direct participation of the residents. These processes of continuous strengthening of cultural knowledge, with the direct action of children and adolescents, make them see our actions as another opportunity for social interaction and knowledge exchange in a continuous flow, after school hours.

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The graffiti and free drawing workshops took place between April and May with the graffiti artist and graphic designer Rizka, and with the support of the graffiti artist and muralist panther the resistantwhich, in addition to classes, periodically maintains and creates the free urban art gallery in Favelinha City – Joaniza (Cultura 100Cep), in partnership with the cultural manager Sandro Lobato.

They seek to confront structural racism, question the recent urban and social interventions that the favela has undergone, by guaranteeing the inclusion of piped water, but not basic sanitation, nor the creation of a CEP (Postal Code) valid for receiving letters. and correspondence from all residents who, even after 30 years, use a single mailbox as a form of receipt.

The community was born in the spring of 1992, and used the land on the banks of the Zavuvus stream (approximately 100 meters of bank) to build about 50 shacks. On the other side, there was a grocery store, and for many years the collective identity was the slum of the sacolão. During the 1990s, these became extinct and, with that, both the land and the structure were abandoned and the building of the old place passed to health. Today, there are four generations of residents, cases of children who grew up, got married, had children, and now, at 45, are grandparents.

It is mostly composed of black women, single mothers, with a monthly income ranging from one to three minimum wages, from various sources, whether from formal work or other underemployment. The level of basic literacy is, on average, up to eight years. Musicians, professional football players, entrepreneurs in the areas of aesthetics and female beauty in general.

According to the producers Bruna Oliveira and Sandra Lobato, there was a preparation before carrying out the activities. “We talked with the children and everyone interested in the project what we wanted to accomplish. We created a collective agenda of actions and decentralized ideas, with that we were able to adapt, bringing actions of drawings on paper, construction of fanzines, canvases and paintings with fabric painting, book reading session, films, documentaries, carnival balls with masks made by the children, easter dance and, above all, a lot of dialogue. It is enriching to hear the children and their proposals, the purity and simplicity”, they report.

Currently, the biggest struggle is to ensure continuity for the coming years. The support through the Proac 2021 public notice has a deadline of 2022, and makes the project, and the entire favela, create strategies for building dialogue on a daily basis.

“For us, the actions here remain essential, for the fight against the structural racism that surrounds us historically. Little by little, we are strengthening the formation of individuals who are more prepared to talk about these topics in our society, in order to build actions that make and reproduce these conflicts directly more efficiently.“, says DJ Llobatowhich has performed concerts, music festivals, audio workshops and artistic career guidance with the residents.

The project is managed by the residents themselves, who created a collective, with the objective of enhancing actions in partnership with the art educators and partner artists network, who see in these works, the reality of their music.

The challenges they face are not just in Favelinha City, and it’s not just the need for financial investment. It travels a lot due to the absence of public policies according to each region.

It is necessary to carry out these flirtations with cultural citizenship, in order to guarantee the right to it, as equal as education, and to deconstruct the false image that it is something distant, elitist and expensive. For the human being is culture in its essence. For those who live in a community, dialogues and collective constructions are favela cultures in their structures.

MC DJ LLobato, a 40-year-old artist who helped create Favelinha CIty Joaniza almost 30 years ago, saw many stories change, reinvent themselves, and continue to generate social support and empowerment for many families. “Our favela has grown, reinvented itself a lot. Our reality today is very different, where we didn’t even have light or water. There were many children far from school, without day care, unemployment. It was hard, but we changed and we are changing this situation daily, for almost six years we have remained firm, bringing culture and public policies, and this is also part of this fight for more rights”, he clarifies.

The artist will release his first official music project this year. He has already joined other RAP groups, including the Act of faithcreated in the early 2000s, and more recently the FAVEL (my light illuminates my path in FAVELA), created in 2005, with other young people living in communities close to Cidade Ademar. With them, Llobato published independently Afavel. In the 12-inch vinyl format, the group sold around 250 vinyls from hand to hand and over 2000 CDs, always actively participating in the peripheral cultural circuit in the last decade.

Part of it multiplies in graffiti artists, DJs, percussionists, producers and art educators. Today it is not just a RAP group, but a collective that accumulates and enhances different knowledge, always guided by practices and strategies to combat structural racism.

Recently, the music video “Até o Fim” premiered in partnership with the producers DJ Toni Di and See 77who officially begins his solo career in partnership with NDOTO Cultural, created by Brazilian and Angolan artists, with the mission of further promoting exchanges in these countries.

Another artist who, in addition to residing in Favelinha City Joaniza, also carries out ongoing actions in the favela itself, is the actress and singer Amanda NegraYes, which daily seeks the protagonism of peripheral black women, as well as the fight against machismo and the appreciation of cultures of African origins. Known in the Brazilian music scene, she released the album AfroQueen Sounds (2021) with contributions from DJ Llobato. Amandaas the community accepted it in 2017, holds conversation circles, soirees, social welcoming meetings, braiding and children’s musicalization workshops, as well as coordinates actions from the Luiza Mahin Community Library, based today in her residence.

During the pandemic, he was responsible for acts of the project Trançado Periférico Mulher Negra Cultura Criativa, with the production of shows in lives stream of various artists and workers from the community and the territory. He also distributed books, food baskets, hygiene and basic cleaning.

In “Lembranças”, produced with the audiovisual agent Lado Sujo da Frecência, in March 2022, and musical production by DJ Tony Dishe tells the relationships and coexistence between the residents, represented by children and residents, from meeting in the street to play, to the barbecue in the alley.

Several festivals often take place at the venue, including 99 Probl3ms Hip Hop, which, since 2020, has held in-person and online events with artists from Favelinha City. It is a party shared by several networks, with effective participation of the groups Identidade and Movimento de Danças Urbanas from the region of Vila Brasilândia (IDM), Lambidas Periféricas da Cidade Ademar by the urban artist Gisele pine100Crew (collective of graffiti artists), by the graffiti artist, urban artist and illustrator Crica Monteirofrom the hip hop collectives Sala Secreta, led by MC Don King and Rich, and the Risco Sul DJs Project, led by the DJs Sandro Lobato, DJ Simone Lasdena, DJ Guinabetween others.

www.instagram.com/99probl3mshiphop/

On July 10, Favelinha City – Joaniza, will once again host and receive attractions of the kind, among them: the groups Negredo, Mag B, Dexter, Amanda NegraSim, Philosophy Street, DJ Llobato, DJ Tony Di, DJ Dagoma, DJ Sandro Lobato, Peripheral Licks, Panther the Resistant, Rizka, Freedom Revolution, Identity and Movement, Sarau Facing Black, DJ Guina , DJ Simmone Lasdenas, Raul do Rap, Pretinho Black and many others.

“Through the culture that our children and grandchildren will create new narratives that will change their lives, and those of other people, because our culture is cyclical and its different turns, in addition to reinforcing strategies and constructions, provoke new constructions and new dialogues.“, concludes the graffiti artist, MC, rapper and actor from Favelinha City, panther the resistant.

The Favelinha City Cultural Training Center – Joaniza project is also distinguished by approaches of continuity and progression of its actions, there are many advances that always seek to reinforce strategies historically present in peripheral social movements, such as access strategies and the guarantee of rights social. Transcending the many theories of citizen training, to the real practice and strengthening of these technologies at the edge and at the extremes of vulnerabilities that can expose the society that borders it.

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Artists and actions that make up this collective:

www.instagram.com/amandanegrasim/

www.instagram.com/djluizllobato/

www.instagram.com/panther.afavel/

www.instagram.com/silva_lobato_sandro/

www.instagram.com/favelinha_fc_vj/