Dear Tropicalistas of the Diaspora world wide,

the history of Tropical Diaspora began in the 1990s as I swapped the tropical concrete jungle São Paulo with another smaller concrete jungle in Northern Europe, Berlin. An immigrant, a foreigner, a refugee, a “South American guy” into another diaspora, fleeing from the catastrophic economic and political situation in Brazil.

2018 Brazil is again in a catastrophic political and economic situation after 13 years of hope with Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff. Nowadays a dark era began in  with a political coup in 2104 hunted a democratic elected president out of the office. This week the minority Brazilian elite represented by the most corrupt  and criminal politicians and judges in this world. This elite create a crook justice that prosecute innocent people for crimes that can´t be proved.

This is what province judges did in first place and now what the judges in the supreme court have confirmed, putting a citizen without evidences in jail. As all this wouldn’t be enough the elites in the Brazilian society are showing their dark side with actions of fascism, racism, resentment and hate against everything that try to transform this society in a place for fairness, justice and equity.

Also let us concentrate exactly in the majority of the population in this country, so the excluded majority surviving colonialism, fascism, inequity and racism since more then 500 years  every day, the good news? they are still alive and fighting this cruel elites with culture. We at Tropical Diaspora have the obligation to give those people a voice.

In my last visit to my home city i was pleased to met Luiz Calanca from the Records Store Baratos e Afins in São Paulo downtown. After a short conversation about a record i was searching for we figure out that we had a lot in common in the world of music. From this conversation i got introduced to a musician he told me would be first of all a great human being and a spectacular musician.

This human being i got introduced by Luiz Calanga is called Renato Gama and this is what happened after being in that record store this afternoon in  São Paulo, let me introduce you now this musician that we are proud to have in the Tropical Diaspora Records family very now.

Renato Gama is an extraordinary and gifted musician. Based in Vila Nhocuné, a popular neighbourhood in the east of São Paulo’s periphery, “zona leste”, Renato Gama beautifully personifies the pulse against prejudice and social injustice that comes from the margins of Brazilian society and what social elites have chosen to ignore. A voice to be heard, for sure!

Renato Gama’s diverse musical projects, worth to mention is the Nhocuné Soul band, are a form of cultural and artistic crossbreeding with the goal of social emancipation. Renato Gama knows in person what people have to deal with in the periphery: a hostile environment full of difficulties, and despite all disadvantages there is a creative soul which flourishes, which raps and jazzes, which makes poetry and tells stories out of the poverty and inequality left by a carless State.

Last January Renato Gama gave an interview while sitting in the middle of a dirty narrow alley on the fringes of São Paulo. As he was talking about his project ‘Olhos negros no espelho’ and the live performance ‘Olhos negros vivo’ a police siren abruptly stormed the background and he, lowering his voice, said calmly: you see, this is the siren that shapes our world and makes up the things that we see etched in the retina of those ‘olhos negros’, the black eyes.

The live performance ‘Olhos negros vivo’ deals with the world of the black people, with their feelings and love, their parenting… with their committing suicide and being murdered. ‘Olhos negros vivo’ is a voice in the periphery, the experience of living the periphery, reinventing it and creating stories that speak the language of the people. Renato Gama’s music is a means against the standardization of cultural expressions and social relations in the periphery.

‘Olhos negros vivo’ will be soon released as LP at Tropical Diaspora® Records. This is a project that represents everything that Tropical Diaspora® Records  stands for.

Renato Gama’s story is a story that we at Tropical Diaspora® Records are proud to give a voice.

Garrincha & Dr.Sócrates