This guy is very known by people who use to walk around the Paulista Avenue at night. This week Gilberto Kassab – mayor of São Paulo – authorized the local police to arrest him and all other artists in order to replace them by one more crap christmas tree playing those well known depressed songs. SAD :_(
street artist treated like shit in São Paulo - Brazil
6 Comments
Just because he was playing guitar peacefully on the sidewalk? Jeez! And why the broken wind-shield? Man, the world is going crazy!
Ah, please see my comment below about the broken wind-shield.
NYC has lots of folks playing and preforming in the Subway and on the street and I don’t recall seeing anyone get beaten or arrested. It an unofficial part of the charm of the city. Why anyone would want to rid itself of artistic expression (assuming it was not blasting amplified music at 3am) is beyond me. I think they call it ‘quality of life issues’ in Political-speak.
During the interview they explained that the police said something like “don’t want to open the book for me, here it hasn’t any value, it doesn’t mean a thing to me.” when they tried to use Brazilian constitution rights to remain playing.
According to Rafael (musician in that picture), the wind-shield was broken during the police’s action, when they pushed him against the car. There’s a short interview with two musicians published at http://blogs.estadao.com.br/jt-cidades/musicos-expulsos-da-paulista-tocam-na-redacao-assista/
The other musician in this interview is a popular composer. He explains that he has been forbidden to sell his own songs in CDs (everything recorded by himself). The police accused him of piracy (!!). Even removing the CDs he is no longer allowed to sing. Artists are consulting lawyers in order to arrange some kind of permission to do their art. Yes, this non-sense situation is happening here now. Unbelievable.
It’s good that you’re spreading awareness about this! The people of São Paulo should protest against this!