Friday, March 16, 2007

Brazil's official support of hip-hop

New York Times, 3/14/07 - Brazilian Government Invests in Culture of Hip-Hop: "In a classroom at a community center near a slum here, a street-smart teacher offers a dozen young students tips on how to improve their graffiti techniques. One floor below, in a small soundproof studio, another instructor is teaching a youthful group of would-be rappers how to operate digital recording and video equipment.

This is one of Brazil’s Culture Points, fruit of an official government program that is helping to spread hip-hop culture across a vast nation of 185 million people. With small grants of $60,000 or so to scores of community groups on the outskirts of Brazil’s cities, the Ministry of Culture hopes to channel what it sees as the latent creativity of the country’s poor into new forms of expression....

Brazilian law also offers tax breaks to companies that contribute to cultural endeavors like films, ballet and art exhibitions. Rap music has now been granted similar standing, and as a result, some of the country’s largest corporations have begun underwriting hip-hop records and shows.

At a recent event in Campinas, a city of one million an hour’s drive from here, the sponsors included a power company, a bank, a construction business and an industrial conglomerate."



No comments: