Ici & Maintenant

Moleque de Rue are the gavroches of the Vila Santa Catarina favela in Sao Paulo. The street kids set up their own samba and batucada band... "1983: Duda, a lawyer and musician at the time, invites youngsters from his Vila Santa Catarina neighborhood to play with him at the Jabaquara music festival. Not knowing how to play music, having no instruments and no money to buy them, they played with cans and pieces of broomstick... After regular rehearsals, the group entered the festival competition, winning first prize and great popular success. Invited to perform in churches, circuses and local festivals, the Moleque de Rua project saw over 500 young people pass through it's workshops the following year. Subsequently, ten or so Moleque de Rua members decided to professionalize the project. 1988: the first self-produced album. It's quality and success in the press opened the doors of cultural centers and concert halls. 1990: The Tambourinofone, the Chinelofone and the Bateria de Latas, instruments built from recycled materials, are invented and used in both sound and visual shows. 1993 - 1994: Les Moleque are invited by Jacques Pasquier, then artistic director of "Maisons des Enfants du Monde", to take part in the campaign against the extermination of street children. They gave around a hundred concerts and dozens of workshop-residencies in Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain and France, playing with some of the greatest names in world music, rock and jazz: Johnny Cleeg, Ray Lema, Youssou N'Dour, Dou Dou N'Diaye Rose, Kool and the Gang, Santana, Jean Louis Aubert, Iam, James Brown, Gilberto Gil, Hermoto Paschoal