Vai sabê! Rap, relatively regulated transformative power

Abstract

Rap has proliferated globally through a game of complicity and resistance in relation to the market. We can state that there is no substantive standard by which each rapper will perform in a given context. What this game establishes is precisely that the way rap is performed will vary depending on the location and historical conditions with which each practitioner is confronted. This paper draws on Halifu Osumare’s thesis (2007) to assert that rap is a cultural manifestation that has as its matrix an africanist aesthetic. This by no means asserts a fixed “African” type identity for rappers. In a variety of research, the American author has shown that this mechanism works in various places around the world in unique ways, developing different subjectivities. Based on this premise, we argue that through performance, rap enables young people from the periphery to take the position of subjects of their own history. The article demonstrates, through the analysis of the performance in the music video and lyrics of the song Vai sabê!, from the rap group Cria di Favela, how the dynamics of resistance and complicity with the market presents itself as constitutive of the notion of subject represented by the rappers.