7 afro-brazilian creators redefining content and creativity in 2018

They left their signature in 2017 creating content and projects that have impacted on how people relate to advertising, social causes, and tried new ways to create content with relevance in people’s lives. Get to know now 7 Brazilian creators you need to follow in 2018.

MOOC

MOOC – Photo by Miro / ELLE

Started in 2016, the Brazilian collective MOOC began 2017 taking its first steps of maturing as a big project. They quickly realized the lack of authenticity in the creative market when it comes to representativeness, and have connected and co-created striking projects with Converse, C&A and Skol, among other large companies in Brazil. With MOOC, for the first time, some of the biggest Brazilian brands spoke of the importance of diversity in their TV campaigns.

This year, becoming part of Conspiração Filmes, they are turning into a structured business and expanding their work with a focus on re-meaning the idea of what it is to be a young black person and how to show them that they can reach high levels.

Jaciana Melquíades

Jaciana Melquíades. Photo by @adrnoliveira

In 2017 Jaciana Melquíades started the company Era Uma Vez o Mundo (Once Upon a Time The World), which believes in the power of black children’s imagination and helps them see themselves positively in their toys and dolls. When many people were just complaining and saying that the big toy industry is unrepresentative, she started a business that places the black child at the center of everything, including the development of toys.

Monique Evelle

Monique Evelle

Creator of Desabafo Social, an organization that uses communication and new technologies to promote education in human rights through training and content production, in 2017 Monique Evelle saw her work gain even more projection by becoming a reporter for the largest Brazilian TV station and bringing a more human look to the journalistic content of the Brazilian television.

In 2018 she is transforming Radar, a personal project of mapping creative talents, into a space of ideas and creative people that enables transformative connections that looks toward another future. This year she is also going to visit political innovation projects in different marginalized regions through the whole country, start a Tech Lab in Amaralina (Salvador, Bahia), where she grew up, and launch her first book on entrepreneurship.

Diane Lima

Diane Lima. Photo by Alessandra Marimon

Curator and Creative Director born in Bahia, Diane Lima curated the exhibition Diálogos Ausentes, the first expo dedicated to Afro-Brazilian culture in 30 years of one of the most important cultural institutions in the country, Itaú Cultural, becoming a landmark for a national cultural production by expanding the debate about our absences in galleries, museums and cultural spaces.

In addition to several other projects, she held another edition of AfroTranscendence, a program of immersion in creative processes that she has been developing since 2015, a pioneering reference in Brazil dealing with creative processes to understand the contemporary African-Brazilian creative culture. In 2018 she will turn AfroTranscendence into a traveling program, which will culminate in an artist residency program in Germany.

Egnalda Côrtes

Egnalda Côrtes. Photo by @tatianyleite

Egnalda Côrtes slayed in 2017! She started the agency Côrtes Assessoria, the first agency for black content creators in Brazil, and now even non-black creators are looking for their service as it performs the great feat of finding and connecting content creators with plus 500k followers who have never partnered with any brands. In 2018 she wants to expand the work of Côrtes Assessoria to serve way more creators and encourage the investment of large companies in creative initiatives of the black community.

Victor Apolinario

Victor Apolinário. Photo by Hick Duarte

Last year, Victor Apolinário, face of the fashion brand Cemfreio, subverted his own fashion show and closed SPFW (São Paulo Fashion Week) questioning beauty standards and the elitist vision of fashion. His team at SPFW had 90% black people, something rare in the country where black people are 55% of the population. In addition, Apolinario encouraged the fashion crowd to take a more critical view and expose the big players who want to talk about blackness and diversity, while not having diversity in their own teams or even committing racist acts.

This year, Apolinário is opening a local headquarter in São Paulo City that will work as a creative house to further promote cultural projects carried out by those who had no space to create a more diverse fashion culture.

Konrad Dantas

Konrad Dantas. Photo by Gabriel Zerra.

Konrad Dantas, aka Kondzilla, is one of the main responsible for transforming Brazilian funk music into a genre heard worldwide that now navigates in different spaces in Brazilian culture and media. In 2017 he became the largest Brazilian creator on YouTube and the fourth largest in the world, strengthening marginalized cultures and encouraging the talent and creativity of young blacks folks.

What would you want to know more about the Brazilian creative scene? Hit me up on Instagram: @robin.boateng