Rap, Política e Juventude Indígena: o canto enquanto ferramenta política

Abstract

The RID, Reserva Indígena de Dourados (Dourados Indigenous Reservation), in Mato Grosso do Sul brazilian state, was the place of birth for the first and most renowned indigenous rap group of Brazil: the Brô MC’s. Natives from the Bororo Village, the guarani and kaiowa rappers report with their verses the daily violence that perpass traditional lands and reservations, like the robbery of territories by the agrobusiness, the racism which targets them in the city, the State repression and religious intolerance throughout their communities. Reaching international success, the Brô MC’s were influential to posterior indigenous artists and groups of the RID to search in rap a form of expression, fight and political tool, referring to the daily life hassles experienced by young indigenous. Carrying the task of uniting their search for influence and success while artists to the recognition and respect while natives upfront the older indigenous, the Brô MC’s solidify the rap as an reinvention of the traditional practice of singing from their ancestors, the older generations. In this piece of work, I aim at the discussion of, other than the aspects cited above, the investigation of a second hypothesis: a possible relation between the chant and dance practiced by the elder, the chant and dance reinvented by the youth, and how both articulate with political actions and movements from the Guarani and Kaiowa, working as an alternative knowledge circulation tool in relation to the traditional practices, serving as a way of access to the youth and giving form to a generational bridge between the youth and the elder, allowing in some way the survival of traditions. While the elder make politics from the chant with the dead and the Jara, the younger ones do politics from the chant with the living, particularly with the indigenous youth. The rap and hip hop emerge as a new way of bringing transformations to their reality, at the same time valuing the demands and preservation of the traditional ways of living, demonstrating their importance as a generation which owns emergents languages and technology that reinvent the practice of the chanted word, exerting as young indigenous the function of messengers and sustainers of the traditional knowledge from the elder, putting themselves as protagonists of their own way of doing politics, made by the indigenous people, and for the indigenous people.