Portrait

Flavia Coelho, from Copacabana to Paris

Flavia Coelho © Yuri Lenquette

23/10/2019

The Brazilian Flavia Coelho, now Parisian, released her fourth album. With DNA , her most personal record, she discusses the political situation in her native country after Jair Bolsonaro came to power.

She arrived at our morning rendezvous, her eyes still a little sleepy, and with a broad smile. The wind, the rain and the greyness of October have no influence on the morale of this Brazilian, Parisienne since 2006. Far from her native Rio de Janeiro.

What gives Flavia Coelho the blues is the current political situation in Brazil since the arrival of Bolsonaro - a name she refuses to pronounce - and her far-right government. She expresses it in music.

Angry texts and cumbia

Recorded with his accomplice and producer Victor Vagh-Weinmann, his fourth album DNA shines through his musical blends. The baile funk crosses the trap (form of rap) and Caribbean music, the cumbia is reinvented and hip hop marries the reggae. If his music makes you want to get on the track, the lyrics are serious. "When he arrived (Bolsonaro, ed), I took a slap, I lived three days of mourning, I was really bad," she says in impeccable French, tinged with carioca accent.

Curly hair, skin mixed with tattoos on her arms, Flavia Coelho denounces the leaders who took power in January. For the first time, she lent herself to writing texts based on current events. An exercise she considered "complicated" before. "I can not close my eyes, even if I'm far away, in my family, there is everything, mixed race people, Nordeste people and homosexuals, all of which is currently stigmatized by the Brazilian government".

Denounce the stigmatization of minorities

Flavia Coelho was born in Rio 40 years ago in a humble family from São Luis do Maranhão, in the poor Northeast. His mother, a feminist activist, is a hairdresser and make-up artist, specializing in transvestite clients. "I grew up in cabarets, transformers and transgender, it was my mother's life, Lula allowed the artists to express themselves and the LGBT community to not hide anymore. they can not taste the happiness of being themselves with this president! ", she rebels between two sips of coffee.

With the song Nosso Amor (our love), she denounces the stigmatization of sexual minorities around the world. But all is not dark in the electro-pop of Flavia Coehlo. Menino Menina ("Boy Girl") tells a party night in Rio where genres matter little, without judgment.

On catchy rhythms, she keeps hope. With Billy Django , a fictional character (inspired by Quentin Tarantino's film Django Unchained ), fighting against the Brazilian power, Flavia Coelho tries to bring out a superhero, savior of Brazil and its current meanders. "Every time he (Bolsonaro, ed) says bullshit, we must appeal to this Billy Django who is in each of us," says the one who began singing at the age of 14 in a group of samba.

Affirm one's identity

The half-breed Flavia Coelho looks towards Africa, historical relations unite the black continent and Brazil. Hence some texts that emphasize the distant origins of Brazilians, and this title DNA (translation of "DNA" in Portuguese). "The colonizer said that black slaves were not beautiful and had no rights, we need to change the mentality that is still present in Brazil, and in France I came to understand that I had rights. to affirm my identity. "

Flavia Coelho is also outraged by the corruption that plagues her city of Rio, which she misses. "I spent a lot of time writing the words of Cidade Perdida (lost city) , I wanted to find the right words, part of my family still lives there, I do not want to put her in danger."

Although she refuses to stigmatize her country there, Flavia Coelho has always felt racism. She left Brazil to live differently.

Tribute to his mother

Arrived in the French capital thirteen years ago with a backpack and a few hundred euros in her pocket, she first spent her days at the Pompidou Center to learn Molière's language and then also sang in the metro.

His debut album Bossa Muffin released in 2011 is then very well received by critics. "Tonight, I Paris in the skin," she sang. She begins to tour the concert halls in France. With the two following albums (Mundo Meu in 2014 and Sonho real in 2016), she will go around the world.

Flavia Coelho, an orphan of her mother at age 11, keeps the one she portrays as "a free woman" the sense of doing well. "She always told me that I had to learn foreign languages ​​to be free, she wanted me to travel, to meet people and to listen to others. if she had not left so early, I would not have had this life. "

Flavia Coelho DNA ([PIAS]) 2019
Flavia Coelho will tour all over France from November 14 and in Paris on October 29 at La Cigale.
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By: Farid Achache

Flavia Coelho

World Music - Brazil - France

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