The Movimento Brega and peripheral music production within the context of the pandemic and neoliberal politics

Movimento Brega e a produção de músicas periféricas em contexto pandêmico e neoliberal

In this article, I examine the Movimento Brega [Brega Movement] not merely as a musical genre, but primarily as a social, cultural, political and economic movement, historically linked to the peripheries of Recife, Brazil. Analysis focuses on the processes of subjectivation of peripheral subjects and how they articulate practices of creation, cultural agency, and political recognition in contexts of precarity, neoliberalism, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The research was conducted using audio-visual materials produced with interlocutors, together with contents produced by them or the media, including podcasts, social media posts, YouTube videos, journalistic articles, and official documents. Drawing on this approach, the article examines how the social, cultural, political and economic dimensions of the Movimento Brega are articulated, highlighting creativity, popular entrepreneurship, and modes of resistance in the face of social inequalities and pandemic-related impacts.

Keywords:
Brega Music; Periphery; Popular Entrepreneurship; Creativity; Covid-19; Neoliberalism