The ancestral future as an aesthetic project
Ailton Krenak's philosophy applied as a vanguard of Brazilian music
Texto em português:
Brazilian Popular Music is rooted in Afro-Indigenous spirituality. The religious chants of Umbanda and Candomblé temples provided the rhythmic framework for the genres that form the national folklore, such as samba, choro, forró, axé, and carimbó – manifestations that served as a basis for later association with a series of new influences.
Initially articulated through the Anthropophagic Manifesto, the idea of Brazilianness that was established in the 20th century found in the syncretic spirit the synthesis of its artistic identity. From then on, as a way of dealing with the cultural and technological invasion of Europe and the United States, foreign influences began to be absorbed and fused with the genres from our tradition.
What the Anthropophagy authors could not anticipate was how easily the big capital would capture the avant-garde movements and transform it into products. The syncretic project found its limits of political action when confronted with the economic power of the American empire, which began to instrumentalize its culture as an ideological war machine from the 1940s onwards, through the imposition of material means of production, such as electric guitars and synthesizers, and reproduction, such as radio, TV, CDs, and streaming, which sought to reconfigure our society as a consumer market.
This process sought to subjugate all spheres of life to the interests of capital and erase along the way any manifestations that deviated from the logic of the market. Cultural colonialism appropriated the syncretic spirit to whiten Afro-Indigenous manifestations and dissolve popular culture into Western influences, bringing it closer to the predominant styles in the heart of the empire. In this way, it could be converted into a more palatable product that promoted individualism and other alienating values that are essential for the psychic domination of neoliberalism.
However, these advances from the cultural industry have not been as successful in music as in other areas, such as cinema, since Brazilian popular culture continues to show ways to resist the advances of capital. In parallel, structures such as Afro-Brazilian religions, Capoeira circles, and Quilombola communities have proven to be effective ways of protecting pre-industrial knowledge that exists outside of market demands.
There was a time when, for many peoples, music and religion meant the same thing. With the beginning of colonial violence, technologies were developed to transform spiritual music into an instrument for preserving their forms of organization that resisted the dehumanization and erasure of subjectivities brought about by slavery and genocide. After all, the orishas are forces of nature that allow us to live in community, to sing, dance, and experience life in synchronicity with the Earth.
With climate change and the new rise of fascism exposing the impossibility of the logic of infinite growth, a cultural effort directed to realign our worldviews is increasingly necessary, so that we can emancipate from the ideology of progress that has driven the advances of capitalism around the world and the destruction of the planet. In his work, Ailton Krenak argues that the only solution to these apocalyptic predictions lies in rescuing the worldviews and devices developed by the peoples who maintained a connection with the planet to resist the advances of capital. In other words, “if there is a future to be considered, that future is ancestral.”
We need to relinquish the anthropocentrism that silences other presences in the world, realign ourselves with the planet, and understand that we are very similar to other animals and living beings, resuming forms of organization that are capable of decentralizing the subject and re-establishing communion with its environment.
In order for syncretic practice to be able to preserve ancestral knowledge and prevent it from being erased by the economic pressure of imperial power over time, it is necessary to understand that intercultural relations are not symmetrical, that cultural clash is conflict, class struggle, and that there is an interest on the part of big capital in alienating and subjugating those with whom it confronts.
Our anthropophagic heritage needs to be updated to contemporary material needs. The solution is not a complete denial of foreign influences, but rather an artistic practice of expropriation of Western technologies, placing them at the service of reclaiming ancestry.
A project of emancipation of Brazilian cultural production needs to involve the deconstruction and, above all, the subversion of Western influences in favor of reclaiming ancestral devices capable of providing us with autonomy in the construction of values, principles, and subjectivities. To this end, it is necessary to reverse the conflict inherent in syncretic practice, subjecting Western technologies and their futuristic aspirations to the interests of our sovereignty.
Brazilian funk is a practical example of this new syncretic language, proof that we can use modern production techniques to give new life to ancestral rhythms. Its defining characteristic as a genre is the use of electronic music techniques and tools to create beats within its framework, which finds its roots in the Congo rhythm from the agogô, present in the sacred spaces of African-based religions.
The dynamism of its scene, which remains true to its origins as a popular manifestation of the peripheries, is only possible thanks to techniques of appropriating Western influences, such as piracy and the use of samples. Almost like a counter-espionage practice, the appropriation of these artistic production tools allows us to reconfigure ancestral elements into a new language that is connected to the needs of the spirit of our time, full of potential to be explored.
In this era of digital music, marked by an abundance of independent producers, artists, and DJs, what truly democratized access to music production wasn’t the introduction of tools like DAWs, VSTs, plugins, and simulators, but rather the way popular culture interacted with them, appropriating and creating information networks, reinterpreting and metamorphosing cultural impositions.
Our yearning for the future cannot be captured by the dystopian delusions of Big Tech. We need to understand that ancestral knowledge is not a thing of the past; they are present in the DNA of our popular culture and points us towards a horizon, an idea of the future based on ontological realignment with the Earth, which is the only possible solution to the catastrophe caused by colonialist capitalism.
Art is one of the most effective ways to challenge visions, engage with intimate sensibilities, and construct new perspectives and visions of the world; it is a determining factor in developing sovereignty in the production of subjectivities. The future is ancestral, and it needs to be articulated, also, as an aesthetic project. We need to put our hearts in rhythm with the Earth.
“Businessman being eaten by the jaguar / No Ritmo da Terra” - por Poty Galaco
Note: This essay was written as an accompaniment to "No Ritmo da Terra", my new album as Antropoceno, out on March 16th. More info on Bandcamp: https://sonhostomamconta.bandcamp.com/