Racionais MC's – Raio X Brasil - Liberdade De Expressão

In 1993, the second album of the Brazilian Rap group Racionais Mc's comes at a time when Brazilian Rap reaches its apex of releases, with national rap records released, basically, by five independent record companies in the city of São Paulo. They are: Kaskatas, Black Mad, TNT, Chic Show and Zimbabwe. Together, these five record labels held about 40 percent of all Brazilian rap production between the early and mid-1990s. Of course, the release of this Racionais record by the label Zimbabwe was the most impactful of the period.

This period also corresponds to a moment in which the public of Black Music in Brazil begins to be more directed to the city of São Paulo, considering that, in the decade of 1970, much of the records of Soul and Funk made in Brazil - Tim Maia, Banda Black Rio and Gerson King Combo, for example - were produced in Rio de Janeiro. In the initial phase of rap in São Paulo until mid-1992, even a good part of the São Paulo rap records brought some track directed to the public of Rio de Janeiro; we can note this in the records of Mike & DJ Bacana and Pepeu, among others.

In 1993, there is a change in the Brazilian music market that places the city of São Paulo as a highlight in Black Music productions in detriment of the city of Rio; this change can be interpreted through three factors: 1) the influence of Public Enemy and the black movement textually and aesthetically in the records made in Sao Paulo; violence and criminalization in the "Funk Carioca" scenario; the strong investment of the record companies of São Paulo in the national rap groups.

Racionais appears as a protocol of the streets of São Paulo, definitively placing the neighborhood of Capão Redondo, in the extreme south of the South Zone of São Paulo, in the map of Brazilian (and worldwide) Rap. This record represents the imagery of young people from the suburbs of the city's vast outskirts, who feel represented through verses, slang, rhymes and stories related to Rap by Mano Brown, Edy Rock, Ice Blue and KL Jay.

I , as it were today, when I first heard the track "Fim de Semana no Parque" and then "Homem.na Estrada". I was in fifth grade of elementary school. I was shocked by the lyrics and as the leader of the group, Mano Brown, was a sort of chronicler of the streets. Through this record, I was able to get a sense of what the geographic space on the outskirts of the city of São Paulo was, more than 20 km from my home, and I could imagine what the routine of people living in neighborhoods with high social vulnerability , oppressed by misery, violence and the absence of options for leisure, health and education.it is worth noting that in 1996 the Jardim Ângela neighborhood, a neighborhood very close to Capão Redondo, was considered by the ONU as the most violent neighborhood in the world. Racionais Mc's work, in a way, captured what was happening in its surroundings, adapting in music form the daily problems of the people who inhabited those places. The rapper does not influence the neighborhood; the neighborhood that exerts a strong influence on the lyrical content of each rapper.

Produced by the duo Vander and Newton Carneiro, in addition to the DJ KL Jay, this record rescued, in a way, the classic "Rational" album by Tim Maia, revived in samples in the music "Homem na Estrada"; the other classic the record - the track "Fim de Semana no Parque" -, brings samples of the track "Frases", of Jorge Ben. In contrast, the opening theme features the sample of the song "T Stands For Trouble" by Marvin Gaye; the artist Marvin Gaye still has one more used by them: the track "Cleos Apartment", that appears in the introduction of the track called "Parte II". The classic "Freddies Dead" by legendary Curtis Mayfield is used as a musical base on the "Mano na Porta do Bar" track. If, on the one hand, this production is undoubtedly ed by the samples of songs by Black Music Brazilian artists of the 70s like Jorge Ben and Tim Maia, on the other hand, this album shows that the group drank in references of great artists of the spectrum of US Soul / Funk, such as, for example, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield and James Brown. This perfect combination of bringing together, on the musical basis of a record, Black Music influences from Brazil and the US, was one of the gaps filled in this production. After all, in previous Brazilian Rap records, the samples were definitely based only on records by American artists.

In short, an indispensable record for fans of Brazilian Rap, and a record to be heard by the anthropologists, sociologists and scholars of Brazilian music scattered around the world. I believe that if you want to know what the real situation was like in the big cities of Brazil in the 1990s, this record, as well as the record "Dia a Dia da Periferia", released by rapper Gog the following year, show this reality stamped in the lyrics and are more necessary to understand the Brazilian landscape than a good part of the records that have been classified as "Funk Carioca" over the years. The Brazilian Rap of this period - especially found in these two works - came from a person who was telling a lived story, a person who was fulfilling the task of telling the society of his time. Whether it's good or bad, it's not a product, it's not a commodity. Anyway, just a point of view of a someone who lived that time. It's my opinion, and it does not mean that I'm right or wrong. I would never be able to speak well about a bad work, just for the pleasure of spreading it. It would be false.. I prefer to imagine that, regardless of my opinion, people continue to listen to records, watch movies and read books, and agree or disagree with that.

Racionais MC's is the best RAP group in Brazil!
Um Homem na Estrada and Fim de Semana no Parque are the hits from this album.