The objective of this dissertation is to critically assess the processes ofidentitarian construction of the black subject in contemporary Brazilian society, through thecareful analysis of images portrayed in Brazilian RAP during the course of a twenty-yearperiod (1990 – 2010). The central focus of the thesis problematizes and investigates the themeof “minorities” as well as the constructs attributed to them in a universe where projects of“resistance” function to maintain minorities in closed and protected “ghettos”. Ultimately, thisdissertation assesses possibilities for transposition of boundaries established between thecenter and the margins.RAP, constitutive of rhythm and poetry, is linked to a long historical tradition which revisitsand re-elaborates songs, dances, and drumming of black African culture since the sixteenthcentury. Based on this tradition, RAP emerges in Jamaica and the U.S. in the 1960s, arrivingin Brazil at the end of the 1980s.This dissertation attempts to contextualize this cultural production, providing themethodological tools to comprehend the panorama of RAP in Brazil and its connections toHip Hop and other black movements. The bulk of this project engages in a close reading oflyrics of selected songs composed by four RAP musicians: The band Racionais MCs, fromSão Paulo, and the following rappers: MV Bill, of Rio de Janeiro, GOG, from Brasília, andPiá, originating in Porto Alegre.The dissertation is divided into four chapters, each one dedicated to presenting specificcharacteristics of each of the artists within their respective geographic locales throughoutBrazil. In analyzing the musical production of the rappers, I selectively examine compositionsdeemed most pertinent to this work; i.e., those which highlight themes of ethnic and socialdiscrimination, urban violence incited by drug trafficking and murder, police corruption andbrutality, the negligence of the State in its role to uphold public order, political corruption,excessive consumerism as a marker of capitalism and social segregation, and finally, theprocesses which provoke the suffering and impoverishment of the country.This project explores the pedagogical roles of the discourse of RAP, examining proposalsvoiced from the artist designating himself as the spokesperson of the periphery, mostlyassessing the often contradictory proposals of the voice representing the margins, developingand empowering identitarian points of reference. I place special emphasis on representationsof the black artist in this process. To this end, the dissertation reflects upon the eminently oralnature of the compositions, founding a sociolect which manages to constitute itself as one ofthe principal identitarian referents of the community as a while simultaneously cultivatingresistance against hegemonic forms imposed by the center.
