Forbidden Music, Forbidden Jukeboxes: Listening Anxieties and the Hyper-amplification of Violence in Rio de Janeiro

Listening is a mediating and mediated phenomenon; it produces and is produced by an interplay of haptic, affective, cultural, social, and political responses, engaged not only in the ear but with the whole body. Listening occurs inside and outside, moving outwards and inwards in resonance with the world and the power relationships that constitute it. That this mediation process is always an articulation of power demands an interrogation of its use as a means of exercising, sustaining, enforcing, and reproducing violence.

Studies on sound and power and their violent articulations are abound; from the instrumentalization of sonic media by the Nazi regime in Germany (Birdsall 2012) to discussions on the affective power of noise and its cultural implications (Thompson 2017). From the ubiquity of music (Kassabian 2013) to its use as a torture mechanism in US prisons (Cusick 2006, 2008a, 2008b, 2011), to sound as “vibrational affect” (Goodman 2010). These studies expose the multifaceted ways in which sound is appropriated, manipulated, and deployed as a device for oppression and control. My aim here is to expand on this notion by focusing not solely on the act of listening to music in itself, but also on the creation of an entire ecology of listening devices and practices that make use of music – and its absence – to mediate social and political narratives.

The device I am particularly interested in here is a Jukebox. In 2015 I was researching the political role of sound and listening in Brazil, particularly after the wave of demonstrations of 2013 and the increasing political turmoil building up in the country. I wanted to speak with people whose listening practices are in constant negotiation, particularly in correlation with experiences of police violence. Helping mediate some of the contacts I wanted to chat with was Samara Tanaka, a designer and educator who lives in the Complexo do Lins, the militarized name for a group of 12 favelas whose borders seamlessly blend with the mostly residential neighborhood of Lins de Vasconcelos, in the northern part of Rio de Janeiro. Lins, as this massive part of the city is best known for, has more than 20000 residents, and in 2013 was the 36th region of the city to be occupied by the so-called “pacifying forces” of the military police (known as UPPs). There, Samara and I met for a few beers, and in our conversation she casually mentioned how she would often closely listen to a Jukebox which sat in another bar, uphill and very close to her house. My attention then shifted to this machine and the listening practices around it.

This particular Jukebox dwells on the fringes of legality, illegality, and a third state of “imposed” illegality by the Military Police, articulated via the listening practices it affords. It is embedded in a system of practices and policies which defy the scope of written — and in turn generate new forms of unwritten — laws. The cultural and political function of this type of jukebox – illegally assembled and distributed over a network on the fringes of the economic system –, subvert and extend well beyond its intended design, embracing the contingency of localized listening practices in order to become, in itself, an ambiguous device. It is capable of encapsulating the tension between a long history of racial and class-based segregation in Brazil and particularly in Rio, as well as the social, cultural, and political implications of one of the most brutal Police forces in the world. Because of the ways in which its presence and absence articulate a non-verbal language within the social configuration of Lins, this jukebox enables temporary governances that might be particular to that place, but nevertheless reflect a larger sociopolitical scenario. It is an invisible nodal point of the social life around it, narrated not only by the songs it plays but also how, why, when, by whom, and for whom it does.

A (very) brief history of Jukeboxes in Brazil

The presence of jukeboxes at the margins of urban life in Brazil mirrors their social and cultural origins within racial segregation in the United States. Kerry Segrave argues that the emergence of music machines for collective listening in the US was a response to the absence of, in his words, “race records” (i.e. music made by African-American artists) in radio programming (2002, 45–6). With Jim Crow legislations forcefully preventing African-Americans from freely moving and dwelling, jukeboxes emerged as markers of African-American leisure and entertainment (ibid.) – a marker that also reflected on its naming choice. Coffee houses and bars frequented by African-Americans were largely perceived by racist, white US Americans as being “inadequate places” – or “jook joints” (ibid., 17). Segrave argues that the term ‘juke’ is believed to be originated from the word ‘jook,’ “an old Southern word of African origins” which stands for dancing (ibid.). Nevertheless, jukeboxes were a promising enough business to be whitewashed into a symbol of US American popular culture. With World War II, jukeboxes functioned as a way to keep patriotic morale up via listening to music that could speak directly to the ‘good spirits’ of (white) US Americans, exactly by focusing on the so-called “masses […] who frequented the taverns, restaurants, and so on from which the armed forces were drawn.” (ibid., 129)  Thus, to trace back the origins of the name jukebox – and its placement within an imperialist and racialized consumer culture – is to trace back a history of racialized listening.

As the cultural branch of US imperialism expanded after WW2, so did the jukebox business. US companies began exporting music machines to places fueled by and flooded with US American media, music, and lifestyle. The largest of them was South America: according to Segrave, while in 1939 only 16 jukeboxes were exported from the US to Brazil, that number skyrocketed to over 650 machines ten years later (ibid., 327–330). Until the late 1990s all jukeboxes in the country were imported, and foreign investment policies in Brazil at the time prevented the emergence of a local manufacturing market (Aprova 2013, 1). Yet digital jukeboxes, which can be easily assembled with a desktop computer set and fed with digital music and video files, supplied that demand quite easily, and popularized the device all around Brazil. Digital jukeboxes are also in high demand for buying and renting on the Internet, with video tutorials for setting up and downloading unlicensed content for jukebox software being easily found on a quick YouTube search.

Jukeboxes in Brazil are a profitable commodity, albeit not always conforming to a traditional top-down distribution and copyright model. In 2013 it was estimated that there were more than 27000 jukeboxes in operation in Brazil (Aprova 2013); machines like these are easily found in dive bars, mostly in unprivileged neighborhoods, outskirts of big cities, and in the countryside (Feltrin 2016). In Rio, precise information about jukeboxes are scarce – mostly because the absolute majority of these music machines are considered to be illegal. In 2015, 98 percent of the more than 20000 machines installed in bars and restaurants in the state of Rio were outside the scope of those controlled by ABLF (Brazilian Association for Phonographic Licensing).^[1] Having the proper license to install these machines means a way to ensure royalties are paid back to the artists whose music is stored in the hard drive of these jukeboxes. For 2 Brazilian Reais (approximately forty cents of Euro) a listener can choose two songs to be played from a rather comprehensive catalog – more often than not downloaded from torrent websites or added directly via USB sticks by unlicensed distributors or bar owners. Media reports affirm that unregistered machines are mostly controlled by either drug lords or milicianos (factions within the Military Police which perform illegal activities in most favelas in Rio),^[2] who collect around 30 to 40 percent of the money spent in music playing deposited in the machines (Barreto Filho, 2012; O Dia 2015). This means that by licensing the jukebox, a substantial amount of the profit from each machine would be immediately out of the distributor’s hands — a narrative that supports the selling and using of these machines outside the scope of the law. Indeed this ‘fee,’ the reports claim, is allegedly used by the factions in money laundry schemes, as well as for financing the illegal trade of drugs and firearms.

The ubiquity of jukeboxes in Rio shows that apart from being a profitable source for these activities, they also function as a marker of control and influence over territory. Every faction designs its own jukebox label or ‘seal’ — some use images of cute little animals, others pictures of beautiful landscapes (Anonymous cited in Band, 2015); such a visual marker ensures that no other service provider, covered by law or otherwise, may profit from the jukebox business in that neighborhood. Knowing how to identify these labels gives clues as to whom each jukebox originally belongs; it is a subtle mechanism for understanding which faction is in control of that area. Jukeboxes are a contentious piece of technology, often forbidden, subtracted, or destroyed by dominant factions; business owners then either resort to licensed devices  — operating in accordance with the Police – or avoid dealing with music machines altogether (Barreto Filho 2012).

Understanding Proibidão

Another reason for keeping unlicensed jukeboxes is the possibility these machines offer for adding music falling outside mainstream distribution channels. One key example is proibidão, also known as “funk proibido (forbidden funk), rap de contexto (context rap) or funk de facção (faction funk)” (Palombini 2011, 103, original emphasis). One of the most controversial subgenres of funk carioca, proibidão is often acknowledged as a direct response from the favelas to the ongoing criminalization of funk and its MCs and DJs by the Brazilian media (Lopes 2009; Palombini 2014). Proibidão usually re-appropriates melodies from well-known songs, adapting them to the ubiquitous beat of tamborzão and replacing the original texts with lyrics celebrating violence, or extolling the activities of a faction (Sneed 2008, 71). Its lyrics often serve as a direct provocation or confrontation towards the Military Police, the milícias, or rival factions. According to the historiography of proibidão offered by Brazilian scholar Carlos Palombini the term can be traced back to 1995 with a series of homemade CD-Rs containing live recordings of songs praising the leaders of Comando Vermelho (one of the biggest and oldest factions in Brazil). Indeed, Proibidão is seldom circulated via the usual means, relying instead on bootleg recordings from live performances or informal file sharing in USB-drives, bluetooth exchange, Facebook, or WhatsApp.^[3]

In Lins, proibidão is everywhere; much like any other neighborhood in Rio, Lins has its own roster of MCs, producers, and studios creating music specific to that community. This is another reason why jukeboxes are a reliable business activity expanding and reaching beyond peer-to-peer distribution models: they allow for music specific to that area, and in turn from the specific faction in control, to be not only played but also permanently stored, functioning as a sonic marker in that specific place of a particular and wider territory. Indeed, playing a proibidão song celebrating the leaders and events from one faction in a favela controlled by another might lead to rather violent backlash.

The Jukebox of Lins

When Samara described to me the jukebox sitting outside a bar near her house in Lins, she immediately remarked how the machine was a key element for everyday life in her part of the neighborhood. She told me that, specially because the machine was placed outside the bar, it could be used at any time of the day or night, often working non-stop until the wee hours of the morning. Listening is essential to understand the flow of everyday life and the hidden cultural codes of Lins. Samara told me she used the jukebox as a “thermometer,” as paying attention specifically to the music being played in the jukebox near her house was fundamental for sensing what was the general mood of the street, and, more importantly, whether it would be safe to go out and walk around.

Samara also noticed that this particular machine was being constantly confiscated by the Police whenever there was a raid in her area, to the point in which the machine was eventually replaced by another, smaller, wall-mounted one, which now stays inside the bar. When I asked her if she knew, or could at least guess the reasons for the constant subtraction of the first machine, she said that she did not know for sure but had a strong feeling it was not necessarily because the machine was unregistered, but rather that the ‘problem’ was in its content, or in other words, in the proibidão songs in its hard drive:

Whenever the Police noticed they were playing these illegal songs, I’m not sure but I think they confiscated the machine, or only confiscated the songs […] The bar owner pays a monthly fee for the machine to be there, and also for maintenance. She told me this new, smaller machine they have now is a ‘legal’ one, because it does not come with proibidão songs in it, so people had to sort of ‘hack’ the machine […] while the older one, which stayed outside, had proibidão songs in it by default. So this new one, which in theory does not have proibidão, is not a problem [for the Police]. But I am still not sure the machine itself is legal.

Playing and listening to proibidão is not forbidden by law, although it lies on a blurry legal zone between freedom of speech and inciting crime (apologia ao crime) — a felony under Brazilian law. Samara was right: according to O Dia, the Police does not have legal authorization to confiscate and remove jukeboxes even when the machines are not licensed. In an official note to the newspaper, a spokesperson stated that pay-for-music-playing “is not characterized as gambling, and as such these machines are outside the scope of action by the Police.” (O Dia, 2015) Nevertheless, for the Military Police at the UPPs, proibidão poses a threat to the alleged peace of ‘pacification’; its very presence in the hard drive of any given jukebox yields a tense and anxious environment of conflict, governed by a micro-universe of sonic possibility. The listening of proibidão is a sonic manifestation that takes up the auditory space, suspending the fabricated ‘state of normalcy’ created by Police presence, and replacing it with the realities of everyday life in the favelas. It creates a permanent situation of listening anxiety, which affords and prepares for direct confrontation.

Paying attention to the choice of playlists also gave Samara hints as to who was around the bar; certain songs were indicative of specific persons, while a predominance of proibidão made the atmosphere around the bar tenser. Samara commented that, in her experience, longer sessions of proibidão played in the jukebox meant different codes. She described them to me as “teasing playlists”: it might mean that key figures of the faction or its local branch could be around the bar; it might also be a form of celebrating the success of an operation or raid by the faction; and lastly, it is the code with which to indicate that something bad is about to happen anytime soon. The latter served as both a warning sign for the people from Lins – so they stay in, shut the windows and remain quiet at their homes, as well as a ‘warm-up’ for the listeners themselves. Conversely, silence is another auditory code for orientation; she also remarked that the sudden absence of music in the jukebox might mean that conflict has already arisen, with silence working as a way of allowing the neighborhood to identify the source and location of the gunfire. It is clear, then, that the idea of the jukebox as a ‘thermometer’ was not a practice constrained to Samara.

Michael Bull (2007) argues for the potential of music of “syncing of mood to place” (2007, 126), and the use of long, repeating playlists to “maintain a specific cognitive state in contrast to the ebb and flow of time” (2007, 125) For Tia deNora, this represents an “attempt to ‘orchestrate’ social activity” (2000, 111); her research illustrates how listeners rely on music to regulate mood or to manage social agency, using it as a way “to move out of dispreferred states (such as stress or fatigue) [… Music’s] specific properties — its rhythms, gestures, harmonies, styles and so on — are used as referents or representations of where they wish to be or go, emotionally, physically and so on.” (ibid., 53) The proibidão playlists crafted in the jukebox of Lins are not necessarily meant solely for personal consumption, but rather for shared, public mood enhancement, due to both its sonic character as well as lyrical content. They perform a slightly different activity which resembles more of what J. Martin Daughtry describes, in his study on the use of personal listening devices by the US Troops in the invasion of Iraq, as “technologies of self-regulation in combat” (Daughtry 2014, 230). For Daughtry, the often unauthorized use of personal stereos by deployed soldiers in Iraq, either in earbuds or connected to PA systems, was a device for “attain[ing] the mildly altered state of heightened awareness and aggression that is necessary in order to be an effective warrior.” (ibid., 231)

The hyper-amplification of listening anxieties

The auditory space of Lins is governed by the anxiety of militarization, of wartime as normalcy. The presence of the jukebox blurs the distinction between the auditory space of civilian and military life, negotiating the permanent imminence of combat through situations of perceived quietness of everyday life in the neighborhood. The soundscape of Lins in this act of listening to long proibidão playlists is in neither and both states at the same time: conflict is always lurking ahead, be it because the faction is ready for taking action, or because the listening to these songs may attract the Police to the area to check on the alleged ‘illegality’ of the jukebox, which in turn poses the risk of engaging in direct confrontation with the listeners. This is the reason why, for instance, Samara advised me not to photograph the jukebox, as doing so could potentially draw suspicion.

Whether or not listening to proibidão actually leads to conflict is irrelevant; the connection between the jukebox and violence is not one of correlation-causation. Rather, the sonic affordances of the jukebox trigger  anxieties which shift the auditory codes of that community. The possibility of criminalizing certain listening practices creates an auditory state of exception, which justify actions falling outside the scope of written law. This in turn creates what Stuart Hall et al. have discussed as the “amplification” character of the Police (1978, 38): engaging in performative acts such as raiding bars full of local residents to subtract ‘illegal jukeboxes’, the act of policing creates and foments the conditions for more violent acts to happen. Hall et al. claim that this “translation of fantasy into reality […] can elicit from a group under suspicion the behaviour of which they are already suspected.” (ibid., 42) It is a self-fulfilling prophecy of creating conflict by violently silencing the (possibility of) sounds that are perceived to generate conflict in the first place.

The listening practices fostered and made possible by this specific jukebox extend the notion of legality under the perspective of copyright law,to the notion of legality of the auditory space in and by itself. It is through the way it occupies the auditory space of Lins that the jukebox allegedly ‘allows’ the Military Police to bend the rules, exacerbating and overstating their already strong authoritarian position in the favelas, so as to be able to turn these machines into illegal devices. Because the machines are perceived to be menacing to the comfortable fiction of the pacification project, the Police abuses the State apparatus with the excuse of protecting private interests. Therefore it is not by being unregistered, but rather by how the jukebox creates tension and anxiety in both the bar’s neighbors and in the Police of the UPP, that the machine becomes illegal.

This jukebox is, then, a designed installment of Rio’s Drug Wars in the neighborhood. It dictates the overall spirit of that part of Lins, while at the same time reasserting a faction’s hegemony. It is a form of shared listening that expands the original sonic affordances of the device — casual listening, background listening, or simple musical entertainment — to become an instrument for the non-verbal communication of the threat of violence. Listening to proibidão in the jukebox re-frames the original design of the machine in order to subvert its functionality: sharing music amongst its immediate listeners as a code and mood enhancer for mutual recognition of one another as members of a community; inwards listening, to the community as a warning sign for their own safety; and lastly, broadcasting music outwards to the targeted enemy — be they the rival faction or the Police – as a direct affront and provocation.

The jukebox of Lins shows an insidious and subtle relationship with the perception of criminality, as well as with the very agents responsible for enforcing this notion. In fact, the machine of Lins functions in itself, and most importantly in the ears of the Military Police of the UPPs, as a provisional vector not only for criminality but also for the threat of violence. The tense environment afforded by the jukeboxes’ proibidão songs become an excuse for an auditory authoritarianism enacted by the Police; their actions, conversely, only sustain and reinforce the very existence of this listening anxiety. It creates a temporary set of unwritten laws, which are enforced by the armed wing of the State in order to render the machine’s sonic affordances – and consequently the populations who are subject to or make use of them – silent.