Paper short abstract:

How is the Angolan rapper speaking truth to power (cf. Edward Said)? How does a post-independence generation view the role of poetry in political activism and cultural resistance? RAP (Rhythm and Poetry) will rhyme to and for a new generation of Angolans while addressing power structures.

Paper long abstract:

In his work, "Speaking truth to power", Edward Said asks what he considers to be "the basic question for the intellectual: how does one speak the truth? What truth? For whom and where?". This essay will try to answer these questions by learning how the Angolan rapper, the organic intellectual, is speaking truth to power. In this process, we also intend to comprehend how this post-independence generation views the role of poetry in political activism and cultural resistance in Angola.

Once independence was achieved, a fratricidal civil war frustrated Angolan dreams. The poet took exile into his inner world (cf. Laranjeira), looking for his individual voice while dwelling on metapoetic issues, thus creating a hermetic poetry that, differently from pre-independence poetry, no longer understands itself as a venue to represent the subaltern (cf. Gramsci). João Melo denounces the post-independence poet´s "profound detachment from lower classes". This posture relegates the subaltern to silence and invisibility in Angolan poetry.

The urban subaltern has no other option but to speak for himself, thus breaking the silence of its subalternity and that of Angolan poetry. His poetry, RAP (Rhythm And Poetry), will not only rhyme to and for a new generation of Angolans, but it will also address power structures - demanding to be heard. The rapper uses new technologies to guarantee freedom of expression in order to exercise his critical function with greater plenitude, therefore protecting "the secular intellectual's main bastion" (cf. Said) from the constraints of hegemonic power structures.

Paper short abstract:

The activity of popular music groups in Lourenço Marques reflected the constraints instigated by the colonial system. The example of the struggle of non-european musicians to assert themselves in the city, stresses how the colonial order and its narratives were questioned in everyday life practice.

Paper long abstract:

Lourenço Marques (nowadays Maputo) was a city with an intense activity of popular music groups. These groups played in a variety of contexts and were an important part in the economic activities of nightlife business, hotels and restaurants. Their repertoires were mainly composed with songs popularized by the music industries. The stylistic range could be diversified. There were groups playing soul music, rock, romantic songs or the local marrabenta.

The reputation of each group was often dependent on elements such as musical skills, the venues where they played and the place of the city where they came from. Since Lourenço Marques was a city divided in an european center ('the cement city') and the peripheral neighbourhoods, mainly inhabited by african population, this geographical condition had an impact in the musical activities. The groups from the peripheral areas faced several difficulties while trying to play in the same venues and with the same legitimacy of the center groups. Few were successful to reach it and some places were almost inaccessible for them.

Besides their cultural production, the contribution of the artists to the questioning of the colonial order was also rooted in elements of everyday life practice. This paper proposes a reflection about the struggle of african musicians to conquer a place in late colonial Lourenço Marques, taking it as an important contribution for an in-depth understanding of the city history, since it evidences the way people were actively seeking to overcome the constraints and narratives imposed by the colonial system.

Paper short abstract:

This article discusses: The Congolese popular music as one of the results of a process of creolization caused by the choices of colonial power for occupation and exploration of the former Belgian Congo; its role of relevance for the empowerment of Congolese women within the city of Leopoldville.

Paper long abstract:

This article discusses, through a bibliographical review: (i) The Congolese popular music as one of the results of a process of creolization caused by the choices of colonial power for occupation and exploration of the former Belgian Congo; (ii) its role of relevance for the empowerment of Congolese women within the city of Leopoldville. Leopoldville, today só called Kinshasa, was the name given to the former capital of the Belgian Congo, now Democratic Republic of Congo, between the years of 1881 and 1966, when the country had already become politically independent.

Keywords: Léopoldville. Belgian Congo. Female Empowerment. Migrations. Popular music. Democratic Republic of Congo.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how Papaveronoir - a Portuguese film production company for contemporary African film - has been challenging eurocentrism by putting former Portuguese colonies, its national and regional culture, history and tradition at the center of the play.

Paper long abstract:

Colonialism has a clear and persistent legacy in most African countries. It is impossible to discuss the cultural, social, and political landscapes in Africa without understanding the impact of the former. There is no alternative to coming to terms with a country's colonial past and deconstructing it, but to break the silence and create space for open dialogue on colonialism and its legacy.

Portugal - once one of the largest and longest-lived empire in the world - has long suffered from what some observers define as "official amnesia", "a blocked memory" or "conspiracies of silence", when it comes to decolonization, questions of representation, and responsibility for history. However, over the last few decades, Portuguese cinema joined the process of decolonization of the mind. Since 2013, Papaveronoir, a Portuguese film production company for contemporary African film has been contributing to the postcolonial debate in cinema. This trend is represented in the film trilogy "The Battle of Tabatô" (2013), "Our Madness" (2018), and the upcoming movie "Kwanza", all produced in formed Portuguese colonies: Guinea Bissau, Mozambique and Angola. Both in terms of its production method and narrative, the films present a cinematic approach to postcolonial discourse - one that takes the memories of people from former Portuguese colonies, how they experienced and remember late colonialism, the colonial wars, and their lives in postcolonial societies. This paper, will explore how Papaveronoir has been challenging eurocentrism by putting former Portuguese colonies, its national and regional culture, history and tradition at the center of the play, and what that could entail.

Paper short abstract:

Francisco Manso is a director whose work includes the adaption of literary works from Cape Verde such as "O Testamento do Senhor Nepumoceno", "A Ilha dos Escravos" and "Os Dois Irmãos". The goal of this paper is to analyse the second one as a mistranslation of "O Escravo", a novel published in 1856.

Paper long abstract:

The adaptation of literary works to the cinema puts a complex series of theoretical and practical questions that have been discussed for a long time. The problem is more serious when the distance from the book to the film consists in the passage from colonial to post-colonial times and the director chooses a sharp transformation of the plot and contours of the characters, giving the film a very different orientation from the one that characterized the novel.

This paper will discuss the case of Francisco Manso, a well-known Portuguese director and producer, whose work includes the adaptation of literary works from Cape Verde: that's the case of "O Testamento do Senhor Nepumoceno" (1997), "A Ilha dos Escravos" (2008) and "Os Dois Irmãos" (2018). I will analyse the second film, which seems to me a mistranslation of "O Escravo", a pioneer novel by José Evaristo de Almeida published in 1856.