The mainstream and the underground meet at baile funk: the media phenomenon of KondZilla and the production and circulation of music videos

• Grant number: 23/16112-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2024
• End date: June 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Video Arts
• Principal Investigator: Gilberto Alexandre Sobrinho
• Grantee: Luiza Silva de Moura
• Host Institution: Instituto de Artes (IA). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research investigates the paths traced by music videosfunk, in Brazil, with an emphasis on the study of the Kondzilla Channel and its creative and marketing strategies, currently the second largest music channel on YouTube. For this study, we start from the definitions of Soares (2013) and Holzbach (2016), around considerations about peripheral popular music and historical references that deal with the formation and constitution of the music video as a genre and audiovisual format (MACHADO, 1995; 2005). The hypothesis is that video clips of funk and their tactics for insertion in the media can corroborate the inclusion and valorization of the musical genre in the media system, despite there still being strong stigmatization and criminalization (CYMROT, 2011) associated with this cultural and artistic practice. To carry out this research, in addition to the aforementioned bibliographical references, audiovisual products launched by the Kondzilla channel between 2016 and 2017 will be used (in this interval, Kondzilla reached, in several videos, the mark of more than 600 million views and with the music video for "Bum Bum Tam Tam", by Mc Fioti, had more than 1.7 billion views). Concepts developed by researchers investigating the creative and business potential of Konrad Dantas and the forms of production and distribution developed on the platforms on which he operates will also be studied, despite the volatile position that the funk still occupies, being dear to popular taste and, at the same time, marginal, for different media instances. Finally, we seek to understand, based on Hall (2016), the type of representation in some video clips of funk, given its relationship with the outskirts of large cities and the specific type of sound, visuality, corporeality, narrative and meaning that the audiovisual material brings.