Eminencia Parda / Amarelo (7")

Exclusive Limited tour 7" only edition of 500 on Sterns Brazil One of the most respected MCs in Brazil and regarded as one of the biggest revelations of underground hip hop in his country. Eminência Parda https://youtu.be/fXHpmuPJ4Ks AmarElo https://youtu.be/PTDg 3 million you tube views. "Eminência Parda" is Portuguese for the French phrase "éminence grise" and in interviews Emicida has asked "Where does the real power come from? Who has reduced us to believe that power and people like us are contradictory?". The essential narrative of "Eminência Parda" reflects what Emicida has lived and conquered in the last 10 years and the song's video opens with scenes of a black Brazilian family driving to a restaurant to celebrate the daughter's university graduation. As they enter the establishment, the voice you hear is Dona Onete's, a grand old lady of North Brazil, with words taken from a traditional song that featured on the classic samba album 'O Canto Dos Escravos' (Song Of The Slaves) by Clementina de Jesus: "Little kid, little kid, ask where he's going". As the song unfolds to its trap music beats and to the evident distaste, fantasies and fears of other diners, Emicida and the young rappers Jé Santiago from Brazil and Papillon from Portugal, explore their themes. The songs exits as it entered, and while the video ends violently, Emicida's ultimate message is positive: "We are bigger than the nightmares that have been imposed on us. We have overcome them before and we will overcome them now". On AmarElo, Emicida develops this theme: "In the first step of this process, our intention was for people to feel great looking into the mirror. Now the idea is for them to look around and see themselves bigger than their problems, no matter what they are". Again Emicida incorporates quotes from the music of northern Brazil, in this case an excerpt from "Sujeito de Sorte" by 1970s MPB legend, Belchior, and to help present Emicida's poem "Permita Que Eu Fale" (Let Me Speak) he has invited Majur alongside drag queen Pabllo Vittar, already a powerful voice for Brazil's LGBTQ+ community and most recently seen on the cover of the UK's very own 'Gay Times'. It as a powerful symbol when, in the middle of 2019, these three sing "ano passado eu morri, mas esse ano eu não morro" (last year I died, but this year I do not die), remembering that every 23 minutes, a young black man dies in the country*, while every 20 hours the Brazilian LGBTQ + community suffers a violent death.** The video of AmarElo opens with a recording of an acquaintance of Emicida's who attampted suicide, but who today is alive and well.