Let’s head to the slums for some music and dancing! That was the plan tonight, as I was told it’s actually become a popular thing to do in Rio — a preposterous idea just a few years ago before the state began pacifying these formerly gang-controlled favelas (shantytowns).
To set foot in the unpoliced areas was idiotic for a Brazilian, much less a white tourist like me. So notorious are Rio’s favelas that two of Brazil’s most famous films are the violent drug-and-gang stories are set inside: Cidade de Deus (City of God) from 2002 and Tropa de Elite (Elite Squad) from 2007.
Today, the favelas are practically trendy. Several years ago the government began a policy of pacification by sending in specialized military police units to occupy the labyrinthine passages and stairways. Heavily armored police still constantly patrol the areas — heavily armored meaning their finger is always near the trigger of a semi-automatic rifle — but now amid some of the city’s hippest jazz venues and hopping nightclubs.
Sergio and I heard about a party in Vidigal favela at the aptly named Alto Vidigal Guesthouse, a 35-minute taxi drive south of central Rio, followed by a 10-minute motorcycle or taxi-van ride straight up Morro Dois Irmãos. I’d only been in Rio four days, and it was already my second invite to a favela party.
The event didn’t start until midnight. When we arrived at 1am, at least 75 teenagers and 20-somethings from around the world were crowded around the entrance waiting to pay a cover charge of 50 reals (about $25). Far below we could see lights stretching along Ipanema Beach.
I never did see what was inside — although Sergio’s French friend Julia claims the DJ was worth the cover charge. After waiting about 30 minutes and seemingly moving nowhere, Sergio and I simply went home. We both felt a little old and unhip for the scene, I think. The process of gentrification seems to start with a bad neighborhood first becoming an edgy and low-rent hipster scene, which I also saw happening in the New York neighborhoods of Bushwick and Far Rockaway.
Graffiti covers the favelas, turning the boxy cement homes into a huge mural. It’s impressive, and some of the world’s top graffiti artists rose from these impoverished areas, like Marcos Rodrigo Neves. He’s gone from spray-painting slums to decorating the city for UN conferences.
