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Class, Place And Blackness In São Paulo's Gospel Music Scene

2008; Routledge; Volume: 3; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17442220802080584

1744-2230

John Burdick,

Latin American and Latino Studies

Abstract As public discussion of racial politics and affirmative action heats up in Brazil, it becomes increasingly important to ask what black Evangelical Protestants have to contribute to the debate. This paper argues that two recent variants of black music increasingly performed in São Paulo's Evangelical churches–black gospel and gospel rap–exert a significant influence over how their artists think about their own blackness. Black gospel, by placing their musicians' racial and class experience into the context of North American black churches, encourages a strong collective black identity; while gospel rap, in placing race and class experience into the context of Brazil's poor peripheral neighborhoods, dilutes the racial content of subjectivity, replacing it with a strong class identity. Keywords: Brazilracial identitymusicEvangelicalismspaceclass Notes Notes [1] I use the term 'Evangelical Protestant' to refer to churches and their members that embrace the mission of active, daily evangelization, and approve as normal and desirable the experience of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. [2] I focus on the making rather than the consumption of music because, I suggest, the effects upon subjectivity generated by making music are more readily traceable to the art form than are those generated by the more ephemeral process of consumption. I am especially interested in music-making because of the emotional and sacred meanings of music in Evangelical Protestantism. All informants spoke of the Biblical sanctions for making music: music is celebrated in the Psalms of David as pleasing to the Lord; the Levites in the Temple showed the faithful's love of God by playing music; through the hearing of music, hard hearts are softened and souls are won for the Lord; the gift of music is a divine anointment to spread God's Word by appealing to the emotions and senses; and, when a musician writes and performs, it is ultimately not the musician but the Holy Spirit that is working. It is no wonder that music fills over one-half of Evangelical church services, that pious Evangelicals can be heard 'sanctifying' their everyday lives and quietly evangelizing by singing religious hymns in the street and on the bus; and that Evangelical musicians precede every rehearsal and performance with intense rounds of prayer. [3] I also interviewed 40 gospel samba artists, but that material is not included here. [4] My focus on people who say they have always identified as 'negro' is motivated by the fact that Evangelicals who call themselves 'negro' are way over-represented among São Paulo's Evangelicals: while in 2004 only six per cent of people over the age of 10 years in the metropolitan region of São Paulo identified themselves as 'preto,' up to one-quarter of Evangelicals in São Paulo do so. See Oliveira (2004 Oliveira, M. 2004. A Religião Mais Negra do Brasil, São Paulo: Mundo Cristão. [Google Scholar]). [5] It has long been pointed out that musical genres are sites for the articulation of ideas about bodily capacities and dispositions, their historical causes, and their relations to 'blackness' (Middleton, 2006 Middleton, R. 2006. Voicing the Popular, New York: Routledge. [Google Scholar]; Radano & Bohlman, 2000 Radano, R and Bohlmann, P. 2000. Music and the Racial Imagination, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [Google Scholar]; Wade, 2003), such as the idea that blacks possess a specific vocal timbre (Olwage, 2004 Olwage, Grant. 2004. The class and colour of tone: an essay on the social history of vocal timbre. Ethnomusicology Forum, 13(2): 203–226. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). What has not been adequately theorized is how such ideas shape the racial subjectivities of people involved in making the music itself. [6] It would be a mistake to conclude from this analysis that place is the only dimension of musical thinking relevant to racialization. Although focusing on place in this paper, I am mindful of other everyday practices within musical genres that have effects on black subjectivity. In other analyses I address, for example, how musical genres may be distinguished from each other by their respective stances toward the body. [7] 'É preciso ter alguem próximo pra saber/Que essa porcaria mata e quer acabar com você/Tudo que eu falei, será que você entendeu?/Você precisa d'Ele, sua carência está em Deus/Jesus pode mudar a sua vida/Livra-lo do crime, das drogas/Desde que você queira mudar/Abrace a minha idéia, aproveite meu toque/Somos quase da mesma idade, tambem sou novo/Não deixe meu conselho entrar por um ouvido e sair pelo outro!' [8] In other work I investigate how such ideas translate into specific ideologies, such as a racial reading of the Apocalypse. [9] A recent short film made for the Movimento Cultural Cidade Tiradentes, for example, advertises itself as 'an audiovisual manifesto on the trajectory of Brazil's blacks, from senzala to periferia' (Alvez, Souza, & Hilario, 2006). [10] 'Não importa a sua cor, nem mesmo sua raça/Brancos e negros, jovens ou velhos/Onde todos sem exceção estão se autodestruindo/Quem deveria fazer não faz, só esta assistindo.' [11] 'Mais um corpo caido no chão/Ao lado dos PM se move a multidão/Em volta tumultuada, os olhos curiosos/Na indicativa de obter alguma informação/Dez minutos depois chega a mãe/Não acredita em que vê, não não!/Não foi por isto que ela viu seu filho crescer/Nove meses uma gestação/O que ela não imaginava, muito menos tinha desconfiança/A realidade, a fatalidade não ser infelizmente assim/Bala perdida, tiros, quem não tem nada a ver com isso/Está indo, o trabalhador, o morador/Direta ou indiretamente as drogas estão acabando com meus, com seus, com os nossos manos.'