(2023)
—Regimented cadence performed by Rio de Janeiro’s Special Operations Battalion (BOPE) during public jogging exercises.
Black-geared men, what’s your mission?
Enter the favela and leave bodies on the ground
Black-geared men, what do you do?
We do things that shock Satan
…..
Black-geared men, to bring this to an end
We’re BOPE and we’re trained to kill
And I’ll kill
I’ll destroy
Destruction
That’s our mission
(2025)
—Alexandre de Moraes, Chief Justice of Brazil’s Supreme Court addressing remarks made by Elon Musk, CEO of X, over disagreements about the Brazilian government’s attempts to regulate social media platforms.
“Brazil ceased being a colony in 1822.”
But maybe
—Lyrics from “Maybe” by Mc Poze do Rodo
My people will rise up one day
But maybe
Peace will reign in periphery communities
But maybe
My hillside favela will be happy again
But maybe
But maybe
It’s Poze
Arrested Again
“Since they can’t just outlaw being Black, they target something associated with the Black community.”
—Joel Luiz Costa, attorney and executive director of the Black Population Defense Institute.
The abruptness, severity and theatrics behind the May 29 arrest of funk and trap music artist Me Poze do Rodo (Marlon Brendon Coelho Couto) downgrades Brazilian media even further, to the point of the story being published in the New York Post.
Barefoot, shirtless, and with two Rio de Janeiro civil policemen restraining his arms and cuffed hands from behind and upward as far as his shoulder blades would allow without fracturing, Poze was hustled into a police station for processing. “How can I talk like this?” Poze asked one reporter as she panted frantically, nearly tripping over a parked car while asking for comments. Marching on the opposite side was another reporter constantly angling her microphone in front of his grimacing face.
This is at least Poze’s third arrest. His current trials and tribulations with Brazilian law will be for non-violent offenses if he is officially charged. Crimes insinuated and contemplated by authorities include lyrics and live performances alleged to incite criminal behavior, drug-trafficking, and association with the Red Command (CV). Basic conservative stenographers, the New York Post follows in the vein of their counterpart in Brazil, pigeonholing the CV to a single descriptor—“gang.” Brazilian authorities opt for “organized crime.”
Flávia Fróes, lead defense attorney for former CV “soldier” Márcio dos Santos Nepomuceno (Marcinho VP), disagrees, calling them an “anti-repression group,” formed “as a means to combat excessive state violence.” Last year Brazilian police forces killed at least 6,014 people.
Media, Police and Political Persecution
“Survival solidarity networks created during slavery in Rio de Janeiro exist to this day…It’s difficult for somebody outside of those communities to understand how the mentality of someone who lives there works. The police and state only show up armed and shooting…Even if you kick a dog it bites.”
—Attorney Flávia Fróes
Poze’s most recent arrest comes amidst an intensified crackdown on fellow recording artists from the favelas, like Oruam. The son of Márcio (Marcinho VP), he was detained on two separate occasions in February 2025. To date, at least 12 state capital cities across the South American gian have legislative proposals similar to the initial Anti-Oruam Bill tabled by São Paulo Councilwoman, Amanda Vettorazzo. If approved, public funds earmarked for musicians and other artists who, allegedly, “incite organized crime or the use of drugs,” will be prohibited.
Brazilian civil police notified that investigations into Poze also apply to Oruam, MC Cabelinho, Orochi, and associated record labels. CNN-Brasil analyst, Pedro Duran, cited officials use of the term “narco-culture” to broaden the web of suspects based on “funk (music)… ways of dressing… (and) favela communities. They all create an atmosphere of crime perpetuated by new generations who join criminal groups.”
Yet to be officially charged with a crime, Poze was transferred to Bangu 3, a Rio de Janeiro maximum security prison the day after his arrest. While investigators look into his case, Poze’s wife, Vivi Noronha, accuses the police of abuse and stealing some of his jewelry. She too has become the subject of an investigation into slander.
Media, police and political persecution, fluid and seemingly coordinated, suggest more than coincidence. Whether it involves intelligence operations for maximum effectiveness, be they at the municipal, state or federal levels, should be investigated.
Last year I spoke with Priscila Brandão, author of the book, They Are Illegal and Immoral: Authoritarianism, Political Interference and Corruption Throughout Brazil’s Military History. She served as a coordinator for the country’s first Specialization Course on Intelligence and Public Safety and consultant for the federal government and various state administrations to develop intelligence and security policies.
During our talk, she said people within the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN) believe they must “spy” on people “who live in the favelas to ascertain if they are involved in “drug-trafficking.” A scarcely resourced (intelligence) agency, as long as ABIN continues spending funds on matters it does not need to, it will keep neglecting its actual purpose.”
Pushback
MC Cabelinho, a funk and trap artist who has recorded with Poze, compared his acting roles interpreting a drug dealer and thief for Brazil’s largest media conglomerate, Globo, where his work is credited as art, not inciting criminality. “However, when an mc, funkeiro, favelado speaks about life in the favela in his music, it is called inciting crime. Notice how subjective that is. Who makes that decision? Who decides what incites crime or not?”
Subjectivity intertwines with double standards when select lyrics sung by Poze and his colleagues are cropped alongside authors like the late Rubem Fonseca. With respect to his fans, editors and publishers, as well as panel judges who have showered praise and accolades upon his collection of short stories, including the Prémio Camões, the most prestigious award for literature in the Portuguese language, a cursory review of his work is tantamount to post-grad studies in criminality. Whether or not such stories—hereupon citing “Cafetões” (“Pimps”) as exhibit A in this report—warrant censorship or investigation is an afterthought.
In riveting detail, “Pimps” depicts an overly self-righteous policeman who, having jacked aside the balance scale between the law, his authority and fancy of an ideal society, particularly for women, executes a pimp in the presence of his prostitutes. “Look here, girls, I’m keeping a close eye on you, understand?” the officer threatens while demanding they hang up their hustle in exchange for respectable employment. “If not, I’ll blow your brains out like this bitch.”
In hard political terms, Maurício Rangel Reis, former Brazilian Minister of Internal Affairs, commented, genocidally, on policies geared toward the Indigenous populations in 1976. “In the next ten years, through coordinated efforts between various ministries, we can reduce the number of Indians in Brazil from 220,000 to 20,000. Then, in 40 years, all of them will be integrated into… society.”
CV in the Crosshairs
Unlike the Pink Tide, the Red Command is rarely if ever discussed in relation to resistance to state oppression and neo-imperialism, albeit exercised within Brazil. Whereas the country’s notorious military police passed go without a hitch from its founding days during the junta (1964-1985) and stands firm to this day, the CV was not invited to Brazil’s National Truth Commission.
Instituted during former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s administration, the National Truth Commission was tasked with investigating human rights abuses between 1946 and 1988. “The new generation deserves the truth,” she said during the commission’s opening ceremony. Dilma was not an investigating committee member but, nonetheless, her words speak volumes, especially for the CV, the last active armed resistance group that emerged in opposition to Brazil’s fascist regime and prior systemic oppression accentuated by military rule.
Understanding the political implications tied to its establishment, why it persists, and what should and can be done to address their concerns, positions readily outlined in the group’s founding ten commandments, is simply criminalized by the powers that be and routinely ignored by traditional left-wing/progressive entities and individuals.
Briefer on Poze do Rodo
Poze do Rodo was raised in the Rodo favela. Under CV control during his youth, he lost approximately 30 family members and friends to violence by the police, militias (former or current police officers and firemen, including white-collar city officials involved in criminal activities), or rival gangs.
In order to leave and return to the favela without being detected by militia groups, Poze resorted to riding an internet installation and fixed/mobile telephone operator vehicle to get around. His early songs depict the harsh realities and some joyful memories of growing up in the favelas, include references to the CV, and speak of love, loss, police brutality, defending his community and more. Homenagem Pra Tropa Do Rodo (Homage To Rodo’s Troops) is one of his premiere songs that uniquely incorporates all of these elements. He was forced to abandon Rodo after militia groups overran the CV. A departure track recorded several years later is Give Me Your Hand, a song dedicated to his kids and family life.
Here I am again, Mc Poze / Here to pay homage to Rodo’s troops / For my little brothers in the sky / They served Rodo’s Favela well / What can I say about Jeremias, a 100% father / What longing for Tchutchuco and my bro, Tinem / I cry whenever I remember our brothers / … This was an homage for my friends / Who are now resting with God / Thank you my warriors, you’ll never be forgotten.
—Lyrics from “Homage to Rodo’s Troops,” by Mc Poze do Rodo
With over six million followers on Spotify and more than four million on X, Poze’s success, level with or surpassing heavyweight political leaders—left, right, and center—also derives from his ability to expand his lyrical and stylistic repertoire. Trap and rap music fills his recording sessions of late. Similarly, Poze has further diversified and demonstrated maturity in his lyrical content, contrasting popular tropes with songs containing strong social commentary.
Political Implications
“Since I was kid, I stayed true to only faith / I stayed on my feet, I faced my monsters / When I swam against the tide, a warrior like Joshua / I never gave up on my dreams / My world is a giant wheel / Life taught me what’s important / I worked hard to make it turn, worried about succeeding / But never losing what I had before / Oh, God in the sky, forgive my faults / Without your care I would be nothing / If today I have more than what I lacked previously / It’s because God honored my path as deserving… / Everything was different in the beginning / But, sadly, nothing’s like it was before”
—Lyrics from “Since I Was A Kid,” by Mc Poze do Rodo
In some ways, Poze’s debut and subsequent material reminds me of another quote from Dilma, a former member of the National Liberation Command (COLINA) and Palmares Revolutionary Armed Vanguard (VAR-Palmares), two urban guerrilla groups that waged armed struggle against Brazil’s military dictatorship. “If children exist without parents; If parents exist without graves; If graves exist without bodies; then never, ever again should history exist without a voice; And those who give voice to history are free men and women unafraid to write it.” In other ways, aloofness overrides any connection as the final three-volume, 3,388-page National Truth Commission report includes the word “favela” or “favelas” just six times. The term Red Command or its initials, CV, does not appear at all.
In an unpublished interview I conducted with long-time human rights activist Jair Krischke, he repeatedly referred to the report as the National Almost Truth Commission.
Like millions of favelados in Rio de Janeiro and across Brazil, Poze’s experiences growing up can’t be divorced from studies detailing grave socioeconomic disparities still plaguing the BRICs co-founding member. Last year’s Salary Loss From Racial Inequality report pointed out that Brazil’s largest demographic group, black people, are subjected to over $19 billion (USD) in annual wage theft due to “racial inequalities.”
Same Week, Different Headlines
Roberto Cabrini, one of Brazil’s most celebrated on-air journalists, once asked if it is imprudent to blame the state’s dereliction of duty for all of society’s problems, particularly drug trafficking? “Real drug traffickers are very far from periphery, poor communities in Brazil,” responded Fróes. “They are in politics. They are at another level, uninterested in having this discussion.”
A very basic, uneventful example of Fróes’ observation is the arrest of 19-year-old Laryssa Sales in Ireland the week prior to Poze’s arrest. An international student from Brazil, she and her 30-year-old Brazilian boyfriend and Aer Lingus employee, Otavoio Martin de Sousa, were detained in Dublin with roughly R$38,000 (approximately $6,700) worth of illegal drugs in their possession. Held in pre-trial detention after the pair provided authorities with a false address for their place of residence, Dublin District Court Judge Gerard Jones charged the two with possessing cannabis, cocaine, ketamine, MDMA and benzodiazepines for sale or supply. “She [Sales] would be on the next plane out of this country, if she got bail,” he said.
Metrópolis, a major online Brazilian media outlet, published an article about the incident with the headline “Brazilian Influencer Is Arrested in Ireland with R$38 Thousand in Drugs.” (Emphasis added.) With Sales’ court date pending, editors refrained from applying descriptors insinuating her guilt (despite the irony of her surname), a level of deference denied Poze. Not only that, the general silence or timid reporting by traditional left-wing/progressive media outlets in and out of Brazil about his case is very noticeable and pathetic, but not surprising.
Wrap-Up
Over years and decades of previous cultural movements, present-day periphery musicians have mastered the art of anti-system rhetoric and use of social media to gain a modicum footing with traditional media outlets. The latter’s response clearly indicates the ruling class’s growing fears and temerity of action.
“Blacks, favelados [local favela residents], and periphery culture have always been criminalized,” said MC Cabelinho in response to Poze’s arrest. “And lately, it is intensifying.”
Breaking
Poze do Rodo was released from prison on June 3, 2025. Police officers fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse thousands of fans who had gathered outside the notorious Bangu 3 penitentiary to celebrate.
“Leave me alone,” Poze told told reporters at an improvised press conference. “Why are they doing this to me? Because I’m black or a favelado? I’ve struggled. My struggle is performing at my shows… There’s nothing illegal about the money I make. Understand? Yet again, I’m proving to you all that I’m an artist. So stop persecuting me and attacking my fans.”
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About the Author
Julian Cola is a translator (Brazilian-Portuguese to English).
A former staff writer at the pan-Latin American news outlet, teleSUR, his articles and essays also appear in Africa is a Country, Black Agenda Report, Truthout, Counterpunch and elsewhere.
Julian can be reached at traducoessemfronteiras@protonmail.com.
