MV Bill Brazilian Rap Activist

Do you love Brazil? Are you infatuated with their music? How about their dances like capoeira and samba? How well do you know about Brazilian stuff? As for me I am enchanted by their fusion of hip hop. That’s why I find myself searching and dissecting the know-about of Brazilian rap. And here are some interesting things that Brazilian hip hop fans like me might appreciate.

Well, according to my research the hip hop culture appeared in Brazil in the early 80s - shortly after in the US, more prominently in São Paulo. Actually, it arrived in Brazil by the hands of teams that arranged soul balls and parties. The first ones to appear were the break dancers, who were thrown out of the region by shop owners and the police.

Soon there was a clash between the break dancers and rappers (aka babblers). As the rappers were just starting to craft their verses they had to move away to Roosevelt square. Then they became the strongest faction within hip hop in São Paulo, and even some of the break dancers were turned into rappers. Sounds interesting? Here are more trivia for you Brazilian rap fanatics.

So just you know, the first registration of Brazilian rap is a compilation Hip Hop Cultura de Rua  in 1988. It was the Brazilian debut of a style based on rhyming speeches delivered over dance sampled from funk albums.

In Rio de Janeiro in the late '90s, the esteemed MV Bill opened the way to hip hop. Brazilian funk was considered somewhat naive until its abrupt "rediscovery" in 2000, following the international trend towards the "exotic" style.

Since then, a new movement has started to make use of the Brazilian hip hop to keep favela residents out of trouble with the ever dangerous Brazilian drug lords – between the Brazilian police force drug war.

The greatest moment for Brazilian rap was in 1998, when Racionais MCs released the album Sobrevivendo no Inferno (Surviving in Hell). It is a masterpiece that went beyond the barriers of the suburbs of São Paulo featuring the song Diário de um Detento (A Convict’s Diary).

MV Bill had a second release for his debut album, Traficando Informação, on Natascha Records. While Planet Hemp vocalist Marcelo D2 released his first solo album, which featured an inspired fusion of rap and samba.

Nevertheless, São Paulo has remained the greatest rap production center in Brazil. Some of the names that emerged in the region are may be familiar to you like DMN, De Menos Crime, RZO, Xis, Dentinho and Detentos do Rap.

This fascination with gangsta rap encouraged a number of rappers to pull together a CD with songs by one of the most famous gangsters from Rio, a  former drug traffic king José Carlos dos Reis Encina (a.k.a. Escadinha). And the rest is history.

There you have it, some tidbits of facts for you guys that share the same interest with me. With history as colorful and momentous as this, Brazilian rap indeed rocks!