Errâncias racionais: A periferia, o RAP e a política

Abstract

This article reflects on the political dimension of the aesthetics of RAP. The study focuses on both physical and social aspects of the processes of urban expansion and peripheralization in the city of São Paulo, based on the analysis of próexcerpts of songs from the RAP group Racionais MCs. We seek to analyze the insertion of their poetry in confrontation between "center" and "periphery" as categories negotiated in the conflictive dynamics of social relations in the urban space. The article concludes noting the tensions established in the relations of RAP with, on the one hand, the institutional order of the State and, on the other hand, the dynamics of the "criminal world", and pointing out the social and the poetic features in which lie both the strength and the ambiguity of the political potential of its aesthetics.