This piece draws on four artists – Ghoya, Mynda Guevara, Né Jah, Primero G – essential parts of creole rap, to tell some of the many stories of the Greater Lisbon area and the South Bank. I took inspiration from them, the neighbourhoods where they grew up and the interlocutors suggested by them, to create a cartography that has been their local everyday life since the revolution of 25 April, 1974, and that portrays the indivisible reality of the music that they make. These four artists participated in a concert and conference on 5 July, 2020, when the independence of Cape Verde was celebrated, within the Terra Irada [Irate Land] programme, which I developed for MAAT in that peculiar year. After gladly accepting Electra’s invitation to write a piece, I immediately wanted to continue exploring the subject through this medium.

Portuguese creole rap, which arose in the 1990s, is a programmatic and natural affirmation of the Cape-Verdean language within Portuguese rap and hip hop. It is a very long story that has only recently received proper attention and dissemination. For pluralist, micro-generational and age- related reasons, these are four figures who, in the eras when they emerged, affirmed new ways of being here, using language, parity and activism in equal measure. Each one maintains their complete artistic and civic pertinence, as well as a fierce independence. This is perhaps the most popular music in our country today, although you cannot listen to it on the radio or buy its albums in the few places that still sell physical records. By definition, it is the most relevant representation of the music of the young Portuguese working class across the country and one of the most cherished and listened to by teenagers from the North to the South.

Broadly speaking, the text strives to provide a record of the interview process. In using this technique, many conversations that determined the interviews have disappeared. What remains are edited (typed) statements on the many issues that were addressed, around the origins of the music itself and the areas that influenced it.

The piece is divided into the neighbourhoods where each artist grew up, or in Ghoya’s case, the neighbourhood that he chose for this purpose, among the many others where he has spent his life. Né Jah, who has lived in Paris for many years, was not in Portugal when these interviews were conducted. Instead, Diogo Simões and I spoke in person with his younger brother, Bebe, at his own suggestion, in the house where the two of them grew up with another brother. In the case of Primero G, Arrentela is his second long-term location, after spending a large part of his life in the Pedreira dos Húngaros neighbourhood, now demolished. Of the four, only Mynda grew up and remains in Cova da Moura.

I chose to disappear from the transcribed interviews as much as possible, only making an appearance when I believed it was necessary to impart rhythm and fluidity to the reading of the piece.

I found it extremely difficult to make cuts to the interviews and quotes, which has always been a problem for me. It is stifling (that is the proper word) to discard a series of remarkable arguments, deeply rooted in reality. The work of choosing between these fragments initiated, and in the end formed, the architecture of this piece. I will conclude by saying that for this oracle of subjects no number of pages is enough.

Creole. The Cape-Verdean language, right? By the way, the terminology of ‘creole’ carries a very negative historical weight. Because, from a linguistic point of view, all languages are creoles. These are external classifications which have been imposed on some groups. Take Portuguese, for example. How many languages have influenced and contributed to the Portuguese language? If I’m not mistaken, [there are] about four thousand words from the Portuguese lexicon that come from the Arab. Linguistically speaking, creole languages only exist because of the so-called ‘contact’ between European colonial powers and parts of African countries, the African peoples. From a historical and practical perspective, all languages received the contributions of many others.

Creole is a euphemism for lusotropicalism, miscegenation, the dematerialisation of people of African origin, those with black skin. It’s basically a historical construct. It had the contribution of both parties, even though we know it stems from an unequal power relationship.

Calling the Cape-Verdean language a creole is a reduction, a negation, a remnant of colonialism. The language studies that appeared at the time of the colonial invasion of Cape Verde simply called it the Cape-Verdean language, which is how the country defines it. And, contrary to what is said, Cape-Verdean is an official language in Cape Verde, according to article 9 of the Constitution of the Republic of Cape Verde.

The Cape-Verdean language is a statement. […] Keeping a language alive is an important issue, because it is a part of a culture that does not retain it. There’s always the movement that goes along with it, the development of history. So, the fact that in a society where kids are almost forbidden – not almost, explicitly forbidden – from talking among themselves in Cape-Verdean, the language of their parents and grandparents, the fact that they choose to sing in Cape-Verdean is a statement: ‘No, we’ll sing however we want, in the language we want. It’s our right, our truth.’ That is being-for-itself (if I were Hegelian, but I’m not).

You think writing lyrics is easy? It’s hard work. We need to research, observe everyday life, reflect on expression, diction, phonetics and metrics. All kinds of things. There’s maths to it. It requires calculation, a sociological vision, an answer to the psychological question ‘what am I feeling?’ There’s also music psychology, the consideration of how you’ll be perceived out there. Here in the neighbourhood, it’s simple, but ‘if I use this word, will the person on the other side understand?’ That’s the dialogue.

This decision to sing in Cape-Verdean is important because language is dynamic. Many words are incorporated here that derive from a process. It’s a form of Westernisation. In Portugal, there’s the influence of the social, political and cultural context. There’s also terminology, even if there are

What is lusofonia [community of Portuguese- speaking countries and peoples]? It’s an imperial hangover, as Eduardo Lourenço used to say. Nostalgia for the empire. A way to preserve symbolic borders, which is a privilege. Who speaks Portuguese in their everyday life in Cape Verde? Or in Guinea-Bissau? Only an elite with an inferiority complex, who are ashamed of it. They are the only ones.

The gaze directed at the African continent, for example, is a search for the primitive. It’s reductionism, it’s ‘trivialisation’. The others are things, curiosities. This is racism stylised as cultural interest, naivety. ‘Look at this lady, how sweet, the way she plays, she’s barefoot, she sings in a language, a creole’… that’s a gaze that endures. It’s the colonial gaze. It’s truly disgraceful. Cesária [Évora] becomes world music. There’s music to be distilled, called classical, and then there’s ours, the remains. World music means the exotic. That’s ‘exoticisation’ as a way to sell; it’s exoticism. Let’s call those people we don’t understand very well, who sing those songs, ‘let’s call the blacks’. That’s really what it is.

D  My name is Heidir Correia. I was born in Cape Verde. I came to Portugal when I was about one year old. I’m from the island of Santiago. I’m thirty-seven now and I’ve lived in Cova da Moura for thirty-five years. I’ve been a member of the Moinho da Juventude association for the past fifteen years. I worked on a project called Sabura, which intended to show the neighbourhood’s positive side and challenge the negative stereotypes about Cova da Moura. This project organised guided tours that allowed outsiders to get to know the neighbourhood and form their own opinion about it, instead of believing what the media told them. We knew what the goal was, especially of those who sent them here. The neighbourhood was the target of real estate speculation. It is built on a hill, we have access to everything, there are train stations, buses going around it, there’s the IC19 highway, the Segunda Circular [major urban road] right on our doorstep, a great view. So there was a great interest in this land. The more terrible things that were said about it, all the more reason for the Amadora City Council to tear it down.

I joined the association fifteen years ago. Here we don’t idealise something and then invite people to participate. No. We address real needs. We asked around the neighbourhood: ‘What would you like to do the most?’ And many wanted to be singers, DJs, producers, work primarily with music. So we realised that a studio was the best way to cover all of these areas. This is how we came up with the Kova M Studio. The first producer to work with us was Chullage, later came Machine, then Djoek, and finally Katana Productions [currently we have Siças Productions]. We made a song called ‘Fronta’, which had one million views after just two weeks. It wasn’t our first song but it was our first video clip and it became an instant success.

The city council hasn’t supported us in any way. We don’t get along with the Amadora City Council. In terms of helping develop the rap made in the neighbourhood, I believe we have achieved a lot. Even the youngsters who participated in it at the time continued working in the area. But then there’s the fact that you have to pay the studio to record your music. Right now, we have many young people doing nothing but with the will and the desire to record and produce. We’ve never just been a recording studio, we want to train them as well, so we’ll have someone teach them music production. The goal is to be completely independent and fully support these youngsters.

[...]