Heavy beat and key hair cut - funk, trap and the construction of masculinities

• Grant number: 23/10671-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: February 01, 2024
• Status: Discontinued
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Music
• Principal Investigator: Suzel Ana Reily
• Grantee: Paulo Menotti Del Picchia
• Host Institution: Instituto de Artes (IA). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/16757-8 - Funk, Trap and Kuduro - Afro-diasporic musicking and locality, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

The central objective of this project is to carry out a musical ethnography of an independent funk and trap label called Helipa Records. The label was created by MC Lanzinho, an artist from Heliópolis who started his career singing funks. Lanzinho also owns a barber shop located in the same space as the record label. This peculiarity opens up the possibility of an investigation into how musical and body aesthetics (haircuts) are related within a place that is both a recording studio and a barbershop. The research is nourished by concepts and methodologies from ethnomusicology and anthropology to problematize artistic expressions typical of peripheral youth in large Brazilian cities such as São Paulo. Music emerges here as a creative field where sounds are manipulated inside the studio, but also as a field where social identities, body aesthetics, voices, worldviews, values and political demands are managed. An ethnomusicological research proposal that takes the concept of intersectionality as an analytical tool. In this intersectional perspective, music making within Helipa Records and barbering practiced by MC Lanzinho act together in the construction of young, urban and peripheral masculinities.