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Music and antiracism in Brazil explores the contribution of Brazilian music-making to the antiracist cause between the mid-1960s and the early 2000s. Offering fresh, critical readings of the most representative compositions, performances and initiatives from the period, it comprehensively assesses how, during the 1964-85 Dictatorship and the democratic reconstruction that followed, musicians contributed to the development of an antiracist politics in their creative approaches, repertoires and interventions.
While often claiming music as evidence of the country’s mixed, racially ‘democratic’ character, the authoritarian state and its mestiço nationalist ideology actively sought to deny the selfhood of Black Brazilians as autonomous agents of their own history. But as David Treece shows, the musician-activists of the antiracist movement succeeded in giving voice to an insubordinate, insurgent Black subject while transcending the fantasies of ‘race’ and nation through class-based and cosmopolitan forms of solidarity.
"Sensitive observation and deep listening infuse this exceptional book. Brazil’s recent cultural history is presented through the nexus of musicking and extensive political struggles against the racial order. Insurgent sound fuelled the movement’s ability to inspire its affiliates, mute its opponents and animate the vital prospect of social transformation."
–Paul Gilroy, Emeritus Professor of Humanities, UCL
"A brilliant and original account of Black Brazilian music and its changing relationship to diverse forms of antiracism. Treece contends that this music promotes movements for social change that go beyond the confines of Blackness or Africanness to address social inequality and injustice in an inclusive style."
– Peter Wade, Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Manchester
"An indispensable book for anyone interested in the intersections of music, society, racism, and politics. Drawing on a wide range of musical traditions and a profound knowledge of musical repertoires and discourses, Treece offers a compelling account of music’s central role in political struggles surrounding race, in Brazil and beyond."
— Felipe da Costa Trotta, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, Universidade Federal Fluminense
"This incisive and compelling book reveals the important legacy of Brazilian music-making for the international antiracist movement by showing how, in the battle between dictatorship and democracy, music could be a powerful medium for forging shared resistance, proposing transracial alliances, and advancing solidarity across lines of oppression."
— Martha Tupinambá Ulhôa, Emeritus Professor, Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro
Introduction
I – A musical counter-politics
1 Love music, hate racism? Musical activism, Blackness and antiracism
2 Musical Blackness and mestiço nationalism in Brazil
3 Beyond body and soul: Against the colonial division of labour
4 Improvising freedom: Repetition, listening, community
II – Let us speak: Black subjectivity, agency and history in the era
of authoritarianism
5 Policing the racial regime: Antiracism and the State
6 Coming to voice in the language of soul: Música Popular Black and
the performance of antiracism
7 Quilombos and Marias: History and memory in the narrative of
Black resistance
8 Afro-Bahia, afrocentrism and Black radicalism
III – Struggles over space and power in a racialised nation
9 Musical community, citizenship and class
10 A place in the system? Hip hop and funk, between periphery
and centre
IV – ‘All the colours’ and none
11 Solidarity, cosmopolitanism and the gafieira universal
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index