Employing STS as a methodology to Emicida’s AmarElo project

In this article, I discuss the creative ways in which the Brazilian rapper Emicida experiments with technology to make and disseminate his creations and, thus, empower Brazilian Blackness. Focusing on his project AmarElo (2019–24), I ask whether and how his usage of digital technologies as platforms and tools facilitates the artist’s political agendas and activism. I borrow from Stuart Hall to research identity representation in the selected productions and Abdias do Nascimento to analyse how Emicida discusses Brazilian Black culture and resistance. Informed by STS scholarship that examines technology’s cultural and social dimensions, I unpack how Emicida’s use of digital technologies shapes AmarElo . I employ STS as a methodology to investigate how technology crosses media and plays an essential role in contemporary Brazilian cultural histories’ temporality and intersectionality. By analysing Emicida’s digital artworks as cultural artefacts for racial identification, I seek to contribute to the discussion of how Brazilian artists utilize technology for political activism through their productions and broaden the ecologies of knowledge of Black Brazilian popular culture.