Scene 3
IX - Afrika
Yannick Dellas - Centro Cultural Afrika
I have this object. And another object that I wouldn't have gotten if I hadn't been in São Paulo is my musical instrument.
I got it from Rafa, my friend, who also plays with me. Since I've been here with the band, he's been playing with me. We've recorded albums and done a lot of things. He gave me this Quora because his mother, who bought these instruments in Africa, had a store with African objects from all over the world, so I have some objects here and if I didn't have this space, they wouldn't be here.
So somehow these objects arrive here because I'm here in this space and Rafa thinks it makes sense for these objects to be here because of his mother's connection with Africa, which he gave me because of this space. He thought it was legitimate to stay here in the Cultural Center, here in Bixiga. So some objects have a connection because of this space here.
I talk to everyone here. If you walk with me, you'll see. When you leave my door, someone is already talking to me. Everyone tells me a story about it here, what it was, what it wasn't, what it was like 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. I've even been told about the port down there from 50 years ago.
So I've been discovering the history of Bixiga. Well, I don't know if we're on the same wavelength, but I, for example, I wouldn't leave Bixiga either, you know? There are things that sometimes can't be explained, right? Because if I don't manage to renew my contract here in this space, and I'm thinking of keeping it, continuing with the entertainment, I'd stay in Bixiga.
Why? I don't know. I don't know. But I think it's nice to be here, you know? I think this is my place, I don't know why. But I think Bixiga is fine, I integrated more easily here. My integration here was easy. So I think it might also be because of that. But I feel at home. Then, when I began to understand that this city was a city of immigrants, I said, well, immigration isn't being well used.
Let's try to make better use of immigration. That's when I started researching where immigrants played, why they didn't show their culture to enrich the city. That's when I created this gringa music project. And that's where I started to get to know these communities that exist here in depth.
I said, bro, you play well, you can sing, you can bring your culture. Brazil is São Paulo, it's for immigrants. Why don't you bring your culture? Nobody talked about you or your work. I always wanted to introduce Brazilian music, MPB, Bossa Nova. I said, but what did you bring to the city? You came from your homeland to be nothing, you just came to learn, you began to exist here?
I remember talking to a guy called Nicolas. He opened the festival by playing in Guarani. People sat on the floor to listen to him, on the floor. He sang in Guarani, playing. He had a trio. Everyone was very moved. You know, like, it was a really crazy thing.
The Gringa Music immigrant event in the Palestinian space coordinated by an African was crazy, crazy. And he managed to do what he really liked at the festival and express himself in the best way and the result was amazing. And he never sang in Portuguese again.