'Amarelo' means yellow in Portuguese. But AmarElo - a pun on the words 'love' (amar), 'yellow' and 'link' (elo), as if to say that love is the bond that ties us up - is one of the most important albums in recent Brazilian discography. Giving birth to the idea of a 'neo-samba', the album-that-became-an-essential-doc fuses styles and tells the story (tells the history) of the foundation (and oppression) of black culture in Brazil. Emicida - an unparalleled artist, a genius - roams through the samba-capoeira-candomblé universe to find out who we are and what we have become (cultural and politically) - and to root his album and his origins. It's undoubtedly one of the most important movies of the decade, 'cause it rewrites what Brazilian elites have always tried to erase: that we are a country built on black blood; that we are a country that has appropriated black culture for years; that we are a country that has silenced black artists, black philosophers, black writers for centuries. But not anymore. Emicida has come to put an end to this. It's a movie about respect. It's a movie about visibility. It's a movie about reconstruction. But it's definitely a movie about love. Above all - love for those who came before us; love for the gods from Yorubá culture; love for our ancestors. It's all about what we may become if we fight this fight as one. Linked. In (through) love.
