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Margareth Menezes, an icon of black music for Lula's Ministry of Culture

2022-12-13T23:40:57.672Z


The portfolio, extinct during the Government of Jair Bolsonaro, will once again be in the hands of a popular artist, just like when Lula placed Gilberto Gil 20 years ago


The Basilian singer Margareth Menezes addresses the press after arriving at the Government building, this Tuesday in Brasilia.EVARISTO SA (AFP)

The singer Margareth Menezes, one of the icons of popular music in Brazil, will be the new Minister of Culture of the future Government of Lula da Silva.

After days of rumors, the singer herself confirmed it this Monday after meeting with the next president.

"We talked and I accepted the mission, I receive it as a mission, because even for me it was a surprise," she said.

Maga

, as she is affectionately known, was one of the dozens of artists who supported Lula in the electoral campaign, and she is scheduled to perform at the massive inauguration party on January 1 in Brasilia.

With more than 30 years of career behind her, twenty albums and four Grammy nominations, Menezes is the owner of some of the most resounding hits of the 80s, such as

Faraó

and

Elegibô .

.

She was one of the pioneers of axé music, a musical genre born in Salvador de Bahía and closely linked to carnival.

In her career, the defense of Brazil's African roots has been a pillar, as she recalled in a recent interview with El PAÍS: “People are becoming more and more aware and seeing that there is cultural and religious diversity.

Why can pop-rock exist in Brazil and not Afro-pop?

We (blacks) are the day to day, we are the now.

It's just a matter of opportunity."

With her appointment, Lula repeats the formula of placing an artist with a strong popular pull at the head of Culture, as when in her first term in 2003 she chose Gilberto

Gil, also

from Bahia .

Now, Menezes will have the arduous task ahead of rebuilding the country's cultural policy, scorched earth after four years of Jair Bolsonaro.

During the current mandate, the ministry was extinguished and became a secretariat attached to the Ministry of Tourism.

The attacks on artists (which most Bolsonaristas identify with lazy communists) have been a constant, the budget for cultural policy has been reduced to a minimum, the institutions for the promotion of cinema and the protection of historical heritage have been decimated and the Rouanet Law, the most important tool of cultural incentive, was modified to make it unfeasible.

Six headlines passed through the reviled secretariat, including a playwright Roberto Alvim, who had no qualms about recording a speech with a clear Nazi aesthetic in which he paraphrased Goebbels:

“Brazilian art will be heroic and national.

Or it won't be."

Lula's victory was greeted with relief by the world of culture, which now welcomes Menezes as a breath of fresh air.

It is expected that the new minister will focus on cultural diversity, on valuing popular demonstrations and on promoting decentralization and reaching all of Brazil, beyond the Rio-São Paulo axis.

It is also expected that public policies will finally embrace phenomena born in the favelas and peripheries, such as funk or rap, which despite their enormous potential as a creative industry, still suffer from a strong social stigma and are far removed from the state machine.

To achieve her goals, Menezes has in her favor not only a prestigious career as an artist, but also her experience as a manager, a more unknown facet.

Almost two decades ago she founded the 'Cultural Factory' in Salvador, an NGO that fights child labor, sexual exploitation of minors and other violations of rights through music and culture in her hometown.

The main challenge will be the scarcity of resources that the Lula Administration will encounter, in a portfolio historically accustomed to economic hardship.

Menezes is the first black woman in a government that is now mostly white and male, something that has already begun to generate some frustration among leftist militants.

At the moment the hard core is known: Economy, Defense, Foreign Affairs, Justice and Civil House (a kind of prime minister), all men.

In the coming days, Lula is expected to announce the occupants of some of the most anticipated posts, such as the Environment and the unprecedented Ministry of Native Peoples.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-12-13

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