Negotiating Blackness, and Culture in Brazilian Metal Scene

Abstract

This paper aims at discussing the presence of black individuals in the Brazilian metal music scene. To do so, we move away from a homogenizing and historically constructed cultural position that privileges certain forms of art in the building of black subjects’ authenticity to the detriment of others. We seek to highlight how racial representation works as a form of oppression. We ask: What are the ways and means that black people, as musicians and audiences, can find to re-inscribe themselves in the midst of an environment still predominantly occupied by whiteness in metal and, consequently, how can we locate those interstices to re-emerge and re-exist?