Metá Metá: sociocultural knowledge through contemporary Brazilian song

Abstract

Partakers of an independent music scene sometimes also called New MPB (New Brazilian Popular Music), Juçara Marçal, Kiko Dinucci and Thiago França form, since 2008, the São Paulo trio Metá Metá. Their albums, solo works and partnerships have received awards and positive reviews in Brazil and abroad. Refractory to the mainstream and major record labels, such repercussion is a result of the circulation dynamics of cultural goods after the Internet's advent; it also stems from the artist's renewed attitude towards managing his own career. In dialogue with methodological contributions of cultural materialism, the current postdoctoral research aims to understand and interpret, socially and historically, this Brazilian contemporary songbook, characterized by experimental practices, local and global musical references, and by the intense rereading of Afro-diasporic traditions. I have been identifying in this songbook an attempt to face the exhaustion of forms, in a political and sociocultural context marked by crises and transformations. The independent attitude regarding the multinational recording companies, along with the musical entrepreneurship, point to the mundialization of culture and the decentralization of the record industry in the digital era. They also seem to point to the reduction of a "horizon of expectations", accentuated from 2013 onwards in Brazil. The BEPE aims at enhancing the development of these objectives and hypothesis, in addition to expanding the analytical perspectives through the closer contact with debates and bibliography in the English language. It also aims at internationalizing the research and establishing scientific collaborations between the home and host institutions, considering the latter's specialty in studies on culture and politics in Latin America, as well as the supervisor's experience in studies on race, culture, society, and popular music in Brazil.