MC Marechal (pictured), collaborates with UK rapper Akala at Southbank Centre as part of Festival Brazil.
What happens when two wordsmiths from different corners of the earth get together and collaborate over Shakespeare… with some of London’s young people… and a live band?
That’s what we’re about to find out at Southbank Centre tomorrow evening.
On Saturday 7 August MOBO award-winning Akala gets together with Rio’s most popular rapper/spoken word poet MC Marechal; and joining them are the Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company live band, a selection of young talent and big names from music, theatre and film.
Together they are performing songs inspired by Shakespeare plays and Brazilian literary greats as part of Southbank Centre’s summer long Festival Brazil.
With their shared love of hip hop, but coming from two very different backgrounds, we wanted to know more about their different perspectives on similar issues. So, we linked up Akala and Marechal by Skype. Here’s an edit of their discussion:
MCM [In Brazil] we don’t know the rich people.
AK London is complex because in London you go to school with the rich kids. Not the very rich – like billionaires – but some of the kids who went to my school, their parents were millionaires; but then also some of the kids who went to my school were very poor, for England anyway. They weren’t poor like favela poor.
MCM I don’t know anyone who is millionaire. Maybe I will be the first.
AK Yes.
MCM I have to show them, you know.
AK This is interesting because when I come to Brazil, I see the segregation but, because I haven’t lived in Brazil for a long, long time, I don’t get to see that no one mixes.
MCM It’s weird because for a lot of people I am rich, you know?
AK Yes. I understand.
MCM If I make 4,000 and I buy a van, it’s like I’m rich [compared to the] people who make 2,000 or less, you know?
AK I understand, yes.
MCM But it’s nothing because our rent… for housing you pay… A big house you pay 2,000 real or 1,000 real. It’s crazy. A car, if you buy a car, a good car, you pay 50K, you know? It’s a lot of money. For people like us…
AK Yes. I understand.
AK So, tell me, why is hip hop so powerful?
MCM A great friend of mine, who is one of the pioneers of freestyle here, a long time ago said ‘it has a modern global future’. I don’t know the right expression but, you know, we can respect [hip hop’s] principles, and with these principles make contact globally – we can understand each other. Right?
AK Yes. So, it’s about the culture first.
MCM I think so, because people connect over things they are familiar with. If we don’t have hip hop culture, maybe we would never know each other.
AK Yes. I like that.
MCM It’s the first thing to create a friendship. Hip hop is the first way for a lot of people to understand expression. If you know about expression, you can express yourself and people who are familiar with expression and have a feel for this can feel too. The samba has the same history. In the beginning… [it] was repressed by the state and we have this revolutionary feeling. I can’t express in English…
AK It makes perfect sense what you’re saying; the kind of rebellion against being oppressed, the struggle, the way to express yourself.
MCM Yes, that’s right.
MC Marechal and Akala perform on Riverside Terrace at Royal Festival Hall, 5pm. Admission free.
Filed under: Rock & Pop, World, Festival Brazil, Upcoming Gigs | 1 Comment »
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