EU, TÁSSIA REIS, PRETA RARA E NEGAFYA: NA ENCRUZILHADA DAS RIMAS E DOS AFETO

Abstract

In this doctoral thesis, which is organized as an album entitled Black-feminist rhymes: a theoretical-critical operator of rhymes that rhyme verses, bodies, and subjectivities, I take the reading of some productions by the artists Tássia Reis, Preta Rara and NegaFya. Both of them are Black women who act among several spaces, including the Rap and the Slam poetry scenes. In this regard, I consider both the verses and the video performances of the artists, observing which re-significations, within the scope of Black subjectivities, are made based on the representations that these productions present. Consequently, I develop the notion of Black-feminist rhymes, a theoretical operator that points to a notion of rhyme amalgamated with the Black female body, its own demands for (re)existence and expressions. Therefore, firstly, I talk about my meeting with these women, who are the research subjects, as well as the meaning of this meeting that was marked by a conscious understanding of my self-affirmation process, and by fundamental decisions for developing the work. In addition, I discuss affectivity and pain, questioning the Western tradition between love and pain as colonial categories that cross our affective relationships, and I also discuss the notion of affection as our power of action. Afterward, I discourse about self-definition and empowerment, stating how the artists, when presenting a discourse on identities and empowerment, refuse to black women the invisible treatment of the Other and use the poetic Black-feminist voice. Secondly, I reflect on how these artists, through their textual repertoires imbued with a poetry that is emblematic and constitutive of racial difference and self-identification, express a consolidated discourse in an insubordinate language. These discourses are able to erase stereotypes and denounce the violence in which we, Black women, usually experience. I point out how they denounce the negative aspects of “difference” on Black subjects, how they establish a poetic voice of self-definition through metaphors that express freedom; how they elaborate a discourse opposed to an unfaithful narrative of history; how they highlight the places of power and affective balances among Black women; how they delegitimise stereotyped ideas about the Black female body and, finally, how they enunciate a multidimensional and collective voice that establishes a dialogue with subjects who elaborate white fantasies, demanding from them an ethical behavior. In this doctoral thesis, I invite to the dialogue thinkers such as Homi Babha (1998), Spinoza (2009), Vladimir Safatle (2019), Beatriz Nascimento (2006), Grada Kilomba (2019), Kabengele Munanga (2020), bell hooks (2014) Sueli Carneiro (2011), Ana Lúcia Silva Souza (2011), Patricia Hill Collins (2019), Angela Davis (2017), Audre Lorde (2019), Leda Maria Martins (2002), Stuart Hall (2009), Michel Foucault (1997), Conceição Evaristo (2007), Davi Nunes (2016) and (2020), Maria Dolores Sosin Rodriguez (2019) and (2020), Paul Zumthor (2018), Nubia Moreira (2012), Lélia Gonzalez (2018), and Nilma Lino Gomes (2019) among others.