BATEKOO: the Afro-Brazillian collective revolutionising safe party spaces

BATEKOO is not your regular party, it’s a movement.

Born in Salvador, BATEKOO collective centres around creating a safe space for the minoritised LGBTQ and Black community in Brazil. Centring around Brazillian black music, BATEKOO pioneers rap, hip hop, funk carioca, RnB, Trap, Urban, kuduro, reggae and other rhythms connected with Black culture. Since its conception, BATEKOO has reached countless individuals all over the globe, hosting regular parties in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and touring internationally. Last weekend, they took to the stage at Boiler Room Festival, and brought their empowering performance to a whole new crowd.

With 2018 research showing that every 19 hours a member of Brazil’s LGBTQ+ community is murdered, it is evidently one of the most dangerous places in the world for transgender people. BATEKOO remains to stand tall in an atmosphere overflowing with homophobia: the country’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, who has previously said that he’d rather have a dead son than a homosexual son, recently caused further outrage when he expressed his feelings over how Brazil should not become a “gay tourism paradise”.

BATEKOO is a vital example of modern resistance, creating a vital safe space through empowerment, equality and acceptance through the forces of creativity, music and dance. A positive light in the overpowering darkness, they have proven that, even in the most hostile environment, love trumps hate. We meet the group in Peckham to talk about how they found their platform and how it’s led them to where they are today…

What does music mean to you?

Music for me is a way of having a voice, a platform for a message, and being able to pass that message on to the people who are listening to you, whatever it is.

When you started BATEKOO, what were the key things you wanted to stand for? How did you put this into place?

When I first started BATEKOO what I wanted to change the most in my life and in people’s lives was to have a space that was – for us – to value black bodies by consuming their own culture, when cultural appropriation was so clear. I tried to take this to BATEKOO in a way that I saw that black people and LGBTQI+’s would be taking over space for creating, designing, consuming and selling the party and all our activities.

How do you create a safe space?

Having an explicit discourse and position that this is a place of respect for differences. Anyone who does not follow our rules of coexistence is not welcome.

There’s a tension between legislative progress and lived experiences of homophobia and transphobia in Brazil, do you think that these new laws will change anything?

Of course with new laws, society gets more intimidated to act against our communities, but also when you have a President who actually says so many inappropriate things, some of these people feel like they’re being represented. This feeling is quite dangerous. In a country where one LGBTQI+ person is killed every 16 hours, any law in our favour is important.

Do you feel like Latin American artists are overlooked when it comes to bookings

Yes. I’m not sure where this comes from, but we see it happening all the time. It’s like the power of our art is somehow perceived as less than others’. We are now awakening and understanding ourselves amongst the others and we can say: we move crowds, we have very powerful and energetic performances, sometimes quite unique compared to collectives from other continents.

You just performed alongside Linn Da Quebrada – how was that experience? She’s been very prominent internationally as an artist raising awareness of her experience as an Afro-Brazilian trans woman.

It was an honour. Linn is not only a powerhouse performer but also a very good friend of ours. We’ve been together on this path for a while already, and to be able to perform on the same night, at the same event, to share the room with her… Jup made us feel at home. We couldn’t be happier with our first tour in Europe.

As well as Afrobeats/Dancehall you play baile funk -which is something that has been demonized by Brazil’s police etc. How does this make you feel?

Funk is the most played genre in our events, funk is resistance and that’s what we want to show. We are not naive, we know why the police and government want it to be demonized and we are still here. Playing it as an act.

Why do you think people demonize music?

What can’t be understood is difficult to get universally accepted. It’s simple, if you don’t like bananas and no one forces you to eat them, you’re fine. People need to understand that, to not judge what is not known.

What does this experience with Boiler Room mean to BATEKOO?

We were the first Brazilian collective to be invited to play twice in the same week at their first festival. Is there anything more special and exciting than that? We see this opportunity as a validation of our work. We are being seen and our work is being recognized.

What’s next for BATEKOO?

To put in motion what we have been planning during this year. BATEKOO started a restructuring plan in 2019, and we are working on many things at the same time, but we really want to keep focusing on developing our record label more, find new artists to work with us, start organising our second international tour. We also aim to have one festival of our own next semester…

Follow BATEKOO on Instagram here to keep up to date with their work and check out their next international tour dates down below…
03 Oct – Madrid, CA2M (Modern Art Museum
04 Oct – Madrid, Cha Cha Club
05 Oct – Milan, Balera Favela
10 Oct – London, Boiler Room Festival, Somerset House
12 Oct – London, Boiler Room Festival
13 Oct – Brussels, Not Only Voices
17 Oct – Amsterdam, Lady Bee – Club NYX
18 Oct – Amsterdam, KD Soundsystem Presents
19 Oct – Porto, Baile Maracujalia
24 Oct – Lisbon, Damas
25 Oct – Berlin, Mash-Up
photography
Vicky Grout