Oxford's oldest student newspaper

Independent since 1920

Review: Pearls Negras – Biggie Apple Mixtape

The first thing that hits you when you hear the new mixtape from Pearls Negras is their furious energy. This trio of 15 year-old girls comes from one of the toughest and roughest slums in the world – Vidigal in Rio de Janeiro – and their punchy lyrics combined with insistent rhythms speak to a restless emerging audience in Brazil. The fusion rap/hip-hop/baile funk tracks spring from the growing social unrest in the city soon to host the Olympics; a city famed for its violence, poverty, social inequality, and cultural blaze.

But this mixtape’s lyrics, sound and video stand apart from Rio’s mainstream. The video to ‘Pensando em Você’ was shot in the square of the slum where they all grew up, and features their friends breakdancing in the background. Their lyrics jump from drug trafficking and gun violence to one night stands and adolescent crushes, to messages of social disaffection directed at the Brazilian President herself in ‘Mr President’. The sound is one of seething anger, rebelling against the misogyny so typical in Brazilian baile funk. This is paired with tribal rhythms, overlaid with samba percussion, and thrown over driving hip-hop beats by British producers David Alexander and Jan Blumentrath, working for British label Bolabo. The new mixtape ‘Biggie Apple’ is a delirious 21-minute blast of energy, representing the ignored voices of the favela. “Tu não quer saber de nada, tu só sabe de você” they accuse – “you don’t want to know, you just care about yourself” – in one of their strongest tracks, ‘Bata Dois.’  

The sound is remarkably strong, and even if you don´t understand the rapid-fire Portuguese lyrics, you can feel the frustration of Brazil’s disaffected youth. The tracks definitely come bursting with all the energy of a generation wanting change. Change has come pretty quickly for this trio though – in May they will be leaving their hometown for the first time to board a plane to come to the UK. They’re certainly getting their voices heard now.

Check out our other content

Most Popular Articles