Banca de DEFESA: LUANE FERNANDES COSTA

music; race; religiosity; performance; representation

Based on concepts from black racial theory, such as transcoding (Hall, 2016), control images (Collins, 2019), and the Black Atlantic (Gilroy, 2001), the work of three interlocutors was investigated,  Mc Tha, Luedji Luna, and Bixarte, afro-Brazilian artists who embody aspects of black religiosity in their sound and performance, including rites, rituals, and the presence of Ialodês - the female orixás such as Iansã, Nanã, Oxum, and Iemanjá. Through methodological indicators applied to their works and a specific methodology called Gira Midiática, three axes were examined: visualities, soundscapes, and textualities. Throughout the investigations, the symbolic presence of African-derived religions in their music videos was discussed, such as the performance of orixás and previously defined ancestral and afro-diasporic analysis indicators like water, rituals, colors, beads, leaves, and food. Considering the cited authors, the inseparability of music produced in the Black diaspora and African-derived religions was considered, as well as the confrontation of proposed images with the racialized representation regime. Concepts like transcoding images (Hall, 2016) were evoked to understand how these images shift stereotypes in the brazilian social imaginary about african-derived religions, often perceived as precarious in a predominantly -cand racially biased country. Images of freedom (Guilherme, 2022) were used to contemplate how the interlocutors speak from their own perspectives, no longer subordinate to the colonizing white gaze, while also confronting control images that confine black bodies, bodies from religious temples, and gender non-conforming bodies (Mombaça, 2021). Thus, it was defined in this dissertation that the images in the music videos of the analyzed Black Brazilian singers in Oxum (A Nova Era, Parte I) (2021), Banho de Folhas (2017), and Rito de Passá (2019) are transgressive and emancipatory. They utilize cultural products as a space where racialized women, cis or trans, followers of Umbanda or Candomblé, can use their repertoire and presence to feel empowered, reaffirming their existence and the groups they represent in a process of resistance. The artists were chosen for bringing political confrontation in their works, for emerging from racialized spaces in brazilian peripheries, and for incorporating aspects of their religiosity into their performance. Consequently, efforts to bring opposing images (hooks, 2019), with elements of appreciation, tranquility, and serenity through african-derived religious rituals, challenge the controlling images imposed on temple populations.