If Brazil’s pulse were audible, it would be a drumbeat. Undoubtedly, music breathes life into so many hallmarks of the country: the percussive twang in the African martial arts dance of capoeira, the batucada drumming in the soccer stadiums, the pop intellectuals of the Tropicalia movement and the world-famous samba of carnaval. But Rio de Janeiro’s Afro Reggae Cultural Group (GCAR) takes the concept of breathing life through music to new heights.
José Júnior founded GCAR after the 1993 massacre in Vigário Geral, a Rio favela (shantytown), which left 21 people dead. Most residents suspect the massacre was in retaliation for the murder of four military police officers by drug dealers allegedly based in the favela. Júnior, then 25, created the group to draw youth into music, dance and performance, and away from a life of crime, drugs and violence. As George Yúdice, who examines the development of GCAR in a section of his new book, The Expediency of Culture, writes, “At the heart of Júnior’s initiative was the idea that music…could serve as the platform on which favela youth would be able to dialogue with their own community and the rest of society.”
GCAR first started in Vigário Geral, but has spread to other poor communities in Rio, including Cidade de Deus, the favela protagonized in the book and hit film by the same name—City of God. The music and dance workshops are what first gets their foot in the door, but these youths are also exposed “to concrete civic action in health, AIDS awareness, human rights, and education, particularly training for a range of jobs in the service and entertainment sectors (percussion, dance, capoeira),” explains Yúdice. GCAR gives youth practical training and education while self-esteem is fortified and stereotypes debunked. The “educators” that facilitate the workshops are drawn from the favela communities and GCAR veterans—notably, people who have lived the same experiences as the youths they try to attract. Besides consciousness-raising, the workshops also feed a number of GCAR-affiliated bands—Afro Reggae, Afro Reggae II, and two made up exclusively of youths, Afro Lata (10-15 year-olds) and Afro Samba (7-12 year-olds).
The entire GCAR endeavor is financially sustained by its own ability to generate revenue through both local and international performances that combine music, dance, capoeira, circus acts and theater. And increasingly, GCAR receives significant support from national and transnational agencies helping them to expand their activities. Afro Reggae also finished recording their first album with the help of Brazilian music legend Caetano Veloso. But it is Afro Reggae’s socially charged songs and performances that remain central to their work. The group does not only entertain, they inform themselves and others about favela life: their experiences, frustrations and outrage. “The lyrics,” writes Yúdice, “put Afro Reggae at the center of a network of groups and individuals working to change their circumstances. If nothing else, we might say that Afro Reggae produces a culture of change, specifically in music and spectacle oriented both to attract youth and to entertain the local and foreign middle classes who are their accomplices.
“In ‘Som de V.G.’ (Sound of Vigário Geral), that struggle is identified with the new sound/new face of the favela, which brings justice via culture. ‘Through music and culture/this is one more movement/that struggles for peace, believe it/ bang, bang, bang, bang/that’s my message, message from Vigário Geral.’”
