It’s time to speak up, let’s be honest
And there’s my disk. The fifth. Respect my hair, whites. With locations in London, João Pessoa, Recife, Salvador da Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Like in a movie. A super eight with guest actors: Chico Buarque, Nina Miranda and Chris Frank, Carlinhos Brown, Metalúrgica Filipéia from my little Paraíba. And there are partners: Carlos Rennó, Vanessa Bumagny, Tata Fernandes, Milton de Biasi and Bráulio Tavares from my immense Paraíba. And Will Mowat, the producer.
When I say “respect my hair, white people” I’m not just talking about myself and I don’t mean just that. Underneath the hair, the man as a metaphor. The race. The generation. The person and his ideas. The struggle to keep up and keep them, the ideas, arrows. It’s as if someone said “respect my particularity”. That’s what I say, as a Brazilian artist from the northeast of descendants of blacks and Indians. And whites. Or even in the plural: my changing particularities. There is talk of tolerance. Well, that’s not what it’s about. It’s about respect.
I am happy, with a feeling of full gratification for this record and the people involved in it. I feel good for the fact that music has brought me from the Paraíba backlands and thrown me helplessly through other backlands. She, the music, supported me. He takes me away from Brazil and he always gives me back, more and more incestuously. It has already taken me blindly to sing and see the world remake and dismantle here, there and elsewhere: Japan, Turkey, Finland, Cape Verde, Denmark, all of Europe, North America. And Macapá, Três Lagoas, Pelotas, Mossoró. I want my music completely, and since I came to São Paulo sixteen years ago I know that it is the world that I intend to share it with. Everyone’s and always mine.
This disc is mine. But it is for you, my contemporary living listener. Am I clear?
Chico César, autumn two thousand and two