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PLACA presents: Melissa Castillo-Garsow(2)

341 Eggers Hall

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A Commitment to Rap: A Brazilian Answer to mainstream Hip Hop According to the late rapper, Sabotagem, in Brazil, “o rape é compromisso” (rap is a commitment).  In many ways, Brazilian Hip Hop developed under similar conditions as in the United States – like the first artists out of the South Bronx, young people in Brazil began rapping as a way to express the economic and social problems of their favelas (the poorest and most crime infested neighborhoods of the country). Nevertheless, today, Brazil’s Hip Hop scene looks very little like the multi-million dollar industry of the United States. In contrast to today’s commercially successful and widely embraced American brand of Hip Hop, in Brazil this music continues to be characterized by its opposition to corporations, highly political themes, and scorn towards lyrics that boast about wealth or sexual conquests.  By comparing the historical roots and development of Hip Hop both in the United States and Brazil, it is clear that despite numerous similarities and shared origins, this genre holds a very different place and purpose in these two countries.  

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Exterior of Maxwell in black and white when there was no Eggers building

We’re Turning 100!


To mark our centennial in the fall of 2024, the Maxwell School will hold special events and engagement opportunities to celebrate the many ways—across disciplines and borders—our community ever strives to, as the Oath says, “transmit this city not only not less, but greater, better and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.”

Throughout the year leading up to the centennial, engagement opportunities will be held for our diverse, highly accomplished community that now boasts more than 38,500 alumni across the globe.