The documentary “AmarElo – It’s all for yesterday”, by rapper Emicida, is not just about an important part of the history of Brazilian popular music. It's a class about the History of Brazil. The first teaching arrives even before we hear his voice in a historic show at the Theatro Municipal de São Paulo, in November 2019: “I have been bleeding too much, I have been crying to the dog, last year I died, but this year I will not die.”
“I don't feel like I came, I feel like I came back. And that, somehow, my dreams and my struggles began long before I arrived. But for this to make sense, you have to contextualize some stops.”
Emicida lists ten points that explain the structural racism of our society:
“First: I'm talking about the last country on the American continent to abolish slavery. Second: from a city that has its wealth based on the golden age of the coffee cycle, which has this same slavery as its workforce. Third: this abolition leaves millions of black people to their own devices and is followed by whitening policies through the encouragement of European migration, the demonization of African and indigenous cultures and the total erasure not only of the memory of slavery but of all non-white contributions to slavery. development of this country”. Emicida, born Leandro Roque de Oliveira, talks about the violent gentrification process in the city of São Paulo, which pushed the poorest population to the outskirts and margins. Talks about rap, breaking and graffiti. And he summarizes: “Winning is much more than having money, what young people want is to rewrite the history of this country.”
Unmissable and exciting. To yesterday.
