The country’s hip-hop is typically progressive, but MCs in Maga hats provide the soundtrack to a far-right presidency

The Trumpian mantra on his “Make America Great Again” cap leaves little doubt Ricardo Alves stands to the right of your average Brazilian MC.

“I define myself as a conservative,” the musician confirms as he describes his path from a childhood on São Paulo’s gritty south side to centre stage of Brazil’s fledgling rightwing rap scene.

Brazilian hip-hop has long been a movement associated with the left.

Last year, the great and good of Brazilian rap launched a last-ditch attempt to avert the election of the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, with a manifesto denouncing him as an authoritarian “wretch” who threatened Brazil’s poor, black and LGBT communities. “He’s not on your side, he’s not on my side, he’s not on our side,” the Rio rapper BNegão declared at the time.

Being progressive is mainstream … We’re anti-establishment Ricardo Alves

But as Latin America’s largest democracy careens into a new era of conservatism, it is rightist rappers such as Alves who are providing the soundtrack.

“Being progressive is mainstream … We’re anti-establishment,” proclaimed Alves, one half of the duo Mensageiros da Profecia (Messengers of the Prophecy).

Many of Brazil’s rightist rappers are unblushing cheerleaders for Bolsonarismo.

Their recordings feature samples of their president’s incendiary speeches, lyrics exalting dictatorship-era generals and torturers such as Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, and shout-outs to Bolsonaro’s US-based guru, Olavo de Carvalho.

Luiz, O Visitante – a Recife-based MC considered the movement’s godfather – has a track called My Son Will Be a Bolsonarista in which an expectant father savages Brazil’s leftist Workers’ party (PT) and plots a far-right future for his child.

“When my son is born he’ll follow his dad’s footsteps. His first words will be: ‘PT never again!’” he raps.

“He’ll dress up like Ustra and be a fan of Bolsonaro. When he’s at school with his mates, he’ll be an oppressive motherfucker.”

The Belo Horizonte rapper PapaMike is another diehard Bolsonarista, with songs such as “A Letter to Bolsonaro” that deride the president’s opponents as “cokeheads and stoners” and lionize Bolsonaro as a rifle-toting saviour.

Other conservative MCs bash “leftard” journalists and politicians bent on “communizing” Brazil while they champion causes close to Bolsonaro’s heart, such as burgeoning Brazil-Israel ties, and the 1964-1985 dictatorship.

Alves, a thoughtful and softly spoken 30-year-old, is more circumspect about Brazil’s new leader, rejecting the label Bolsonarista despite having voted for him in both rounds of last year’s election.

“I don’t feel any warmth towards Bolsonaro on a personal level. I don’t like him,” the rapper explained during an interview at the group’s studio in Jardim Capelinha, a low-income community in south São Paulo.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Felipe Araújo, left, and Ricardo Alves, two cousins who together make up the rightwing rap duo Mensageiros da Profecia (Messangers of the Prophecy). Photograph: Andre Lucas/The Guardian

“I’d sit down for a beer with [the former leftist president] Lula and there’s no way I’d do that with Bolsonaro. But his agenda contains many of the values that I believe in.”

Those values include being anti-abortion, pro-police, pro-God and pro-gun – beliefs the evangelical rapper claimed now define the deprived urban periphery where he grew up.

Alves attributed his “unquestionable” support for the right to bear arms for self-defense to the bullet-riddled corpses he saw near his boyhood home in what was then known as São Paulo’s “triângulo da morte” (murder triangle).

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“The lefties of Vila Madalena [São Paulo’s answer to Islington or Brooklyn “champagne socialists”] don’t get this. They’ve never seen a body splayed out on the ground,” he sniffed. “If they’ve ever seen a coffin it’s because their dog died – or their grandad of old age.”

Alves – whose group released a rightwing rap anthem called Rap de Direita to celebrate Bolsonaro’s triumph - said that, unlike many observers, he had foreseen the result.

He believed Brazil’s left obsessed over “secondary issues” such as transgender bathrooms rather than the topics most voters cared about, such as crime and healthcare.

“He’s extremely boorish and all the rest of it,” Alves said of Bolsonaro. “But he spoke to the clamour of the people. While the [other] rappers were going around talking about police violence, the main concern of your average slum dweller … wasn’t police violence. Actually, he wanted more police on the beat … so nobody would nick his phone.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The duo released an anthem called Rap de Direita to celebrate Bolsonaro’s victory. Photograph: Andre Lucas/The Guardian

For all that, Alves and his break-dancing band-mate, Felipe Araújo, admitted feeling anxious about Bolsonaro’s unfocused leadership style, troubled by the radicalism of some supporters and unimpressed by the president’s rowdy behaviour on social media.

“I was watching Bolsonaro on the TV recently … and I said: ‘Dude, we’ve elected a meme,’” Alves added. “But that was what was on offer, you know?”

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Araújo, 31, said he was unsure how Brazil’s right turn would turn out but vowed to chronicle the Bolsonaro presidency – warts and all – in his songs.

“We will portray any screw-ups he makes in our music. We will challenge him. That’s our role as rappers,” he said.

Despite Brazil’s conservative tack, the musicians said rightwing rap remained a niche market and represented a tiny slice of the hip-hop movement, which remains largely hostile to Bolsonaro.

“It’s like 1%,” admitted Alves, who is plotting a new album narrating Brazil’s new political era called The Politically Incorrect Guide to Hip-Hop.

But Alves – whose Maga cap was a gift from members of the rightwing group Movimento Brasil Livre – said he suspected many Brazilian rappers were closet conservatives.

“They’re afraid of the media – of getting dissed,” he claimed. “Because being rightwing - it’s not cool, you know?”