hen we discuss global pop culture in the early 2000s, it's impossible to not talk about Brazil. Their record–breaking World Cup win, the release of City of God, the prominence of Brazilian Victoria’s Secret models, and Pharrell and Snoop Dogg’s “Beautiful” video are examples of Brazilian culture taking the world by storm. Since then, Brazil’s yellow and green streetwear has become an indispensable part of the global cultural zeitgeist. Gen Z’s nostalgia for Y2K aesthetics launched Brazilcore, a global fashion trend of all things Brazil. However, seeing a generation of socially conscious, anti–racist youth with strong anti–police sentiment wearing Brazilian flags begs the question of how a country with the second–highest numbers of police killings in the world has been blindly embraced with little to no criticism. Simply put, the past 100 years of exporting the facade of racial democracy worked.
The Birth of Racial Democracy
During the transatlantic slave trade, nearly half of 12 million enslaved Africans were taken to Brazil. As a result, the overwhelmingly Afro–Brazilian population made it impossible for the nation to achieve its dream of being the Europe of the tropics. Nevertheless, political and cultural elites attempted to concoct a national identity that allowed them to embrace the nation’s racial composition while simultaneously ignoring—and continuing to marginalize—Afro–Brazilians.
In 1928, Oswald de Andrade’s Manifesto Antropófago asserted that what made Brazil modern and unique was its “cultural cannibalism,” or ability to absorb and reinterpret unfamiliar cultures—including its Indigenous and Afro–Brazilian cultures—into something uniquely Brazilian. Similarly, Gilberto Freyre’s Casa–Grande e Senzala conceptualized modern Brazilian society by romanticizing the encounters and coexistence of Indigenous Peoples, enslaved Africans, and Portuguese colonizers. It emphasized racial integration and miscegenation as the heart of Brazilian identity. The text became the foundation in Brazil’s assertion that the racial integration and miscegenation seen throughout the country had created a national sense of racial harmony—or what is often called a “racial democracy.”
Selling Brazil
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the Brazilian government exported the concept of racial democracy through images of Rio de Janeiro as an idyllic tropical paradise of Samba and exotic women that were phenotypically white, but culturally mixed. For instance, Carmen Miranda was a white woman performing the Blackness of a Baiana. Her playful sensuality and campy tropical look made her a world–famous icon and symbol of Brazil. Meanwhile, Afro–Brazilian performers were being excluded from mainstream Brazilian cultural productions.
While Afro–Brazilians, who saw a very different Brazil, criticized the theory of racial democracy, it wouldn’t start to fragment until the early 1950s when UNESCO–funded researchers wrote about a Brazil plagued with racism. Despite these revalations, Brazil continued to sell itself through whitened images of the country, from the iconic Pan–American Airlines posters to the white middle–class interpretation of Samba—Bossa Nova. After decades of blackface and degrading roles portraying Afro–Brazilians, Brazilian media would eventually recognize stories of favela life as a subject worthy of interest. Sadly, the reality of the favela was distorted for the sake of creating the dynamic visuals of an urban “war zone”—representing Black characters as inherently hypersexual and violent while ignoring the everyday struggle of poverty and police violence.
The world became fascinated by these new postcards from Rio. Between 2002 and 2024, Black male rappers from the United States released over 100 Hip Hop songs mentioning Brazil. Many of their lyrics reflected their status as “visiting gangstas”—men who were not only tough enough to enter the favela, but who did so with the respect and protection of local criminal factions. By maintaining this image of Brazil as an exotic playground for gangsters, U.S. rappers set the stage for Brazilcore.
With Hip Hop culture and social media serving as driving forces of global pop music and fashion, international Hip Hop–inspired genres, like Brazilian Funk, have been carved into today’s globalized mainstream. For nearly a decade now, Afro–Brazilian youth have leveraged Tik Tok to go viral, showcasing favela culture. Since then, Travis Scott’s Cactus Jack released a Brazil–inspired jersey, Vogue wrote an article about Brazilcore, and young people everywhere were wearing the iconic yellow and green streetwear.
Brazilcore Obfuscates Political Issues
On average, Brazilian police commit over 6,000 murders per year. In 2023, Afro–Brazilians, who make up 53% of the population, were disproportionately represented among police killings, at 82.7% of all police killings. The numbers are so alarming that Afro–Brazilian thinkers have started using the word genocide to describe the institutional and structural violence. Even UN experts are urging public safety policy changes.
These internationally published statistics have been no match for the timeless national symbols evoked in Brazilcore. Unlike the Palestinian keffiyehs that hang in the same closets of young people enjoying Brazilcore, the trend has yet to be worn by foreigners as a show of solidarity against racialized police brutality, among other pressing national issues. Without reconsideration of the objective of Brazilcore, those enjoying it become complicit in preserving the image of the postcard that conceals the violent structural racism of Brazil. However, with young people becoming more invested in issues of social justice, there is still a chance for Brazilcore’s high visibility to call attention to the issues that have been hidden by the myth of racial democracy.
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How ‘Brazilcore’ perpetuates the myth of racial democracy
Photo by william f. santos from Unsplash.
March 21, 2025
Brazilian culture dominated early 2000s pop culture, from football to fashion. However, this aesthetic glosses over Brazil’s deep racial inequities and police violence, raising questions about the global consumption of an idealized, mythologized Brazil, writes Bebel DeMoura Nilo.
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hen we discuss global pop culture in the early 2000s, it's impossible to not talk about Brazil. Their record–breaking World Cup win, the release of City of God, the prominence of Brazilian Victoria’s Secret models, and Pharrell and Snoop Dogg’s “Beautiful” video are examples of Brazilian culture taking the world by storm. Since then, Brazil’s yellow and green streetwear has become an indispensable part of the global cultural zeitgeist. Gen Z’s nostalgia for Y2K aesthetics launched Brazilcore, a global fashion trend of all things Brazil. However, seeing a generation of socially conscious, anti–racist youth with strong anti–police sentiment wearing Brazilian flags begs the question of how a country with the second–highest numbers of police killings in the world has been blindly embraced with little to no criticism. Simply put, the past 100 years of exporting the facade of racial democracy worked.
The Birth of Racial Democracy
During the transatlantic slave trade, nearly half of 12 million enslaved Africans were taken to Brazil. As a result, the overwhelmingly Afro–Brazilian population made it impossible for the nation to achieve its dream of being the Europe of the tropics. Nevertheless, political and cultural elites attempted to concoct a national identity that allowed them to embrace the nation’s racial composition while simultaneously ignoring—and continuing to marginalize—Afro–Brazilians.
In 1928, Oswald de Andrade’s Manifesto Antropófago asserted that what made Brazil modern and unique was its “cultural cannibalism,” or ability to absorb and reinterpret unfamiliar cultures—including its Indigenous and Afro–Brazilian cultures—into something uniquely Brazilian. Similarly, Gilberto Freyre’s Casa–Grande e Senzala conceptualized modern Brazilian society by romanticizing the encounters and coexistence of Indigenous Peoples, enslaved Africans, and Portuguese colonizers. It emphasized racial integration and miscegenation as the heart of Brazilian identity. The text became the foundation in Brazil’s assertion that the racial integration and miscegenation seen throughout the country had created a national sense of racial harmony—or what is often called a “racial democracy.”
Selling Brazil
Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the Brazilian government exported the concept of racial democracy through images of Rio de Janeiro as an idyllic tropical paradise of Samba and exotic women that were phenotypically white, but culturally mixed. For instance, Carmen Miranda was a white woman performing the Blackness of a Baiana. Her playful sensuality and campy tropical look made her a world–famous icon and symbol of Brazil. Meanwhile, Afro–Brazilian performers were being excluded from mainstream Brazilian cultural productions.
While Afro–Brazilians, who saw a very different Brazil, criticized the theory of racial democracy, it wouldn’t start to fragment until the early 1950s when UNESCO–funded researchers wrote about a Brazil plagued with racism. Despite these revalations, Brazil continued to sell itself through whitened images of the country, from the iconic Pan–American Airlines posters to the white middle–class interpretation of Samba—Bossa Nova. After decades of blackface and degrading roles portraying Afro–Brazilians, Brazilian media would eventually recognize stories of favela life as a subject worthy of interest. Sadly, the reality of the favela was distorted for the sake of creating the dynamic visuals of an urban “war zone”—representing Black characters as inherently hypersexual and violent while ignoring the everyday struggle of poverty and police violence.
The world became fascinated by these new postcards from Rio. Between 2002 and 2024, Black male rappers from the United States released over 100 Hip Hop songs mentioning Brazil. Many of their lyrics reflected their status as “visiting gangstas”—men who were not only tough enough to enter the favela, but who did so with the respect and protection of local criminal factions. By maintaining this image of Brazil as an exotic playground for gangsters, U.S. rappers set the stage for Brazilcore.
With Hip Hop culture and social media serving as driving forces of global pop music and fashion, international Hip Hop–inspired genres, like Brazilian Funk, have been carved into today’s globalized mainstream. For nearly a decade now, Afro–Brazilian youth have leveraged Tik Tok to go viral, showcasing favela culture. Since then, Travis Scott’s Cactus Jack released a Brazil–inspired jersey, Vogue wrote an article about Brazilcore, and young people everywhere were wearing the iconic yellow and green streetwear.
Brazilcore Obfuscates Political Issues
On average, Brazilian police commit over 6,000 murders per year. In 2023, Afro–Brazilians, who make up 53% of the population, were disproportionately represented among police killings, at 82.7% of all police killings. The numbers are so alarming that Afro–Brazilian thinkers have started using the word genocide to describe the institutional and structural violence. Even UN experts are urging public safety policy changes.
These internationally published statistics have been no match for the timeless national symbols evoked in Brazilcore. Unlike the Palestinian keffiyehs that hang in the same closets of young people enjoying Brazilcore, the trend has yet to be worn by foreigners as a show of solidarity against racialized police brutality, among other pressing national issues. Without reconsideration of the objective of Brazilcore, those enjoying it become complicit in preserving the image of the postcard that conceals the violent structural racism of Brazil. However, with young people becoming more invested in issues of social justice, there is still a chance for Brazilcore’s high visibility to call attention to the issues that have been hidden by the myth of racial democracy.
