THE PIECE OF ART
title : Quinta do Mocho no dia a dia (Everyday life in Quinta do Mocho) | artist : Will Monteiro | date : – | Place : –
CONTEXT
Quinta do Mocho is a social disadvantage neighborhood in Lisboa, Portugal, characterized by deviant behavior such as drugs and arms traffic and a high number of criminality. This neighborhood is populated mainly by African migrants communities from all over Portuguese speaking African countries.
There are a lot of social projects that have been implemented in this neighborhood but, even so, the popularity of the quartier is still the same and the levels of criminality continue to arise – such as bad media coverage (racist and xenophobic). One of the projects that was implemented in the quartier involved street artists grafters that painted a new look to the neighborhood – whit that, the project involved walks in the area so people from outside could look into the graffiti’s
BACKGROUND
After these walks started to begin in the neighborhood, the locals decided to make a response, using youtube, showing the day to day life in the neighborhood, expressing it through rap songs – showing that you cannot understand the living situation of the neighborhood just by passing through the street and watching the grafitis. The walks did not consider the locals, so this was a way of giving a response to it. The rap songs are tough, maybe even rude, but clearly showing life as it is on the neighborhood.Here is a piece of the song:˝hey motherfucker, (…) crime aqui non stop estamos aqui no meio do mocho,vida sempre louca, querem me comprar droga, aqui está tudo à venda, a minha cabeca anda à roda, deus está do meu lado, sim ele está comigomas sinto-me um foragido neste mundo tao antigo, desde pequenino que ando for a da leidesde pequenino que eu pequei mas nunca me entreguei a minha alma nao quebrei continuo dignopois quero dar coragem ao meu unico filho (…)˝Translation: hey motherfucker/ crime here does not stop/ we are in the middle of the hood/ life is always crazy here/ they want to buy me drugs/ in here, everything is for sale/ my head is turning like crazy/ God is by my side/yes, He is with me/ but I feel like a fugitive in the old old world/ since childhood that I have been an outlaw/ since I was a child, I have sinned/ but I never give myself/ I never gave my soul away/ I am still worthy/ because I want to give courage to my only child (…)