black pantera is black to the future

On November 19th and 20th, AFROPUNK and Feira Preta present “Black to the Future” at Audio, São Paulo, a two-day celebration on Black Brazilian music. Ahead of these performances, we asked all the participants to tell us about themselves, their music and their community. These are their Artist Statements.

We are Black Pantera and we come from Uberaba, in the interior of Brazil’s Minas Gerais state. In our city, rock culture is not very popular, but we are proud to be a dirty, heavy, fast rock band with fury, strength and delivery, always coupled with protest lyrics.

From childhood, we have been used to walking against the trends, because that is what moves us and gives us our liveliness and power. The underground is in our DNA! We are Black, yes, and very proud, playing our local music, and also metal, punk and hardcore, from the interior of Brazil to the world — and, against all expectations, reaching places where no band from our small town has ever gone.

Today we are here, at another AFROPUNK Festival, which gave us the first opportunity to set foot in Europe and the United States of America. We believe in the power of our music and that is what keeps us going, every day. Much can be said about representation, and we are here, representing Brazil’s interior, representing the underground, and the Black community who do not follow the flow just because it is cool. We are against, we are the opposition, we are rock, we are and always will be the Black Pantera!