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Brazilian singer-songwriter Criolo, a key figure in Sao Paulo’s hip-hop underground performed for one night only at Celtic Connections 2015.
Born in one of the many favelas - shanty towns - that girdle the city, he released his multi-award-winning second album internationally in 2012.
Criolo performed at Celtic Connections with a full band, and mixes hip-hop with samba, Afrobeat, soul and reggae, overlaid with trenchant, poetic critiques of modern Brazil. He performed alongside the Scottish folk-rock musician, Withered Hand who has a reputation as one of today’s most intelligent, affecting and stylistically versatile songwriters.
Criolo’s visit to Scotland and his collaboration with Withered Hand was one in a series of Scottish –Brazilian arts exchanges promoted by the British Council Scotland and Creative Scotland under the British Council’s Transform programme; this aims to develop an artistic dialogue between the UK and Brazil for mutual benefit and long term impact.
One of the major themes running through the programme is making the arts more accessible, both by creating opportunities for co-creation and new work between artists in Brazil and the UK, and more specifically looking at disability in the arts, to promote work by disabled artists through major platforms such as Unlimited
Celtic Connections ran from Thursday 15th January to Sunday 1st February 2015. The eclectic programme for the festival includes some of the best-known musicians in traditional and roots music, world, indie, jazz, folk, soul and Americana. Over 2000 musicians from every corner of the globe came to Glasgow.