Paper short abstract:

This paper concerns the artistic and cultural protagonism of black Africans and Afro-descendants in the peripheries of Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro. Anarkofunk's music and Chullage's and LBC Soldjah's rap songs show narratives of resistance and represents a decolonized periphery.

Paper long abstract:

This paper highlights the artistic and cultural protagonism of black Africans and Afro-descendants in the peripheries of Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro.

The Afro-Brazilians in Rio de Janeiro and the Africans or Afro-descendants in Lisbon that reside in the urban peripheries, still live the old asymmetric relations of colonial domination, as segregation, submission and poverty. It will be introduced certain artistic manifestations, that show other narratives on the peripheries. In Anarkofunk's music from Rio de Janeiro and in Chullage's and LBC Soldjah's rap songs from Lisbon, the black becomes the active protagonist of the insurgent peripheries and social actor who changes the narratives about these socially depreciated spaces. The black becomes the symbols of this transformation and the peripheries territorialize their metamorphosis. Rap songs by black African and Afrodescendants in Lisbon act as a device for the formation of the suburban black and diasporic identity in the postcolonial society. The Anarkofunk from Rio de Janeiro confers a position of insurgency to the black who turns into the protagonist of struggle and resistance, dynamically confronting colonial, imperialist and prejudiced narratives and seeks the constitution of an autonomous identity.

In this diasporic context, art can reveal itself as a weapon of protest struggling against the past colonial history and still fighting against the present dominant colonial narratives; it becomes a vehicle for carrying out resistance that allow to read the peripheries as potential places for social and political change, as places of decolonization of the knowledge, power and culture.