“When the black Brazilian rapper Emicida imagines his country’s whitewashed history, he sees a textbook missing a succession of key pages.

In his songs and on stage, the São Paulo-born musician tries to correct that skewed telling, remembering the lives and times of black Brazilian academics, artists and activists in the hope of changing Brazil’s future.

“If we’d been told about this story and these [black] contributions at school, we’d have a radically different sense of who we are – and this would have produced a far better society than the one we’ve got today,” the 35-year-old artist said, quoting the famous saying that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Emicida, real name Leandro Roque de Oliveira, has been making music for more than a decade, recording three albums and building a reputation as one of Brazil’s top hip-hop MCs. In the past 12 months he has also emerged as one of the country’s most influential cultural figures.” - The Guardian