As “Dealema” we released the demo “O Expresso do Sub – Mundo”, and now our first album is out “Dealema". As “Fuse” I released in 1996 a solo album named “Informação ao Núcleo”, and participated in a lot of other projects, compilations and mixtapes. With Dealema's productions I took part in the compilation “Rocaforte” produced by Mundo, with only MC’s from Porto. In 2003 I released another solo album, “Sintoniza”. Now I’ve just finished my next album, “Inspector Mórbido” (www.looprecordings.com). It's my first instrumental album, yes!!!… Terrorificpsichotropicalpsichadelicevolutionsounds…
I do not write with a purpose, I write as a mean to open my heart… almost like trying to cast a demon out of myself. I have all these things, these sounds, these ideas I have to let them out, and I also have the need to create something...
No. I guess I could be seen sometimes as an intervention artist, but everything I do, happens on a personal level rather than trying to push someone to follow some ideals or to open their eyes… Everything I do is on a personal level… That's why I can't see it that way…
As I said before everything is very personal. I'm a very independent person - I always have been - and I get along alone just fine and that somehow goes as far as my music… cos’ when I write, I create, giving voice to a world that exists inside myself; maybe sometimes I overdo it... Don't think I have a static message, something I can point out. It's all based on feelings and sensations, my universe, my personal world, my dome.
Without a doubt and more, my biggest frustration nowadays is to know how all this esoteric and mystic world is getting more and more fashionable and it's being sold out, when it should be special and only for the people who look deeply for them. Now it's on the market, it's an artificial world, but I believe these special things should be found by the ones who feel the urge to look for them...There are incredible ideas that when commercialized are stripped from their deep meanings, treated with banality, they lack their insights….
Absolutely. When the process is related in any way with some kind of art, with the process of creation, designing or composing, painting, whatever… I think all are equally important because they deal with creativity… And in terms of design, I believe your image must be a reflex of you, may it be on a CD cover or in a poster.
I don't use any specific method, I don’t even look for inspiration; it's all very spontaneous. Lately I've been writing and producing only when I feel a strong urge; I have to feel it tearing me up from inside, you can't force or fake the inspiration… If you ask me, if my inspiration comes from the street, if I inspire myself in books, or on what goes on TV, I don’t think so. Maybe it's because I like to explore what's inside of me, but when you know what is going on inside you, you can use it. Maybe some people need bigger exterior stimulation, maybe they need to talk about what's going on the street, or what has just happened… They forget they own the biggest encyclopedia, their feelings…. of everything…
The way I see it, the Portuguese Hip-Hop is a baby with diapers, but a baby with a long beard, walking on a rope trying to find his balance, thinking he is an adult already. The next two years are going to be decisive - in 2003/2004 the independent hip hop labels were born and some of the mechanisms of the rap music are already set. Everybody is trying to give the impression they are true professionals, very mature music wise, and running inside a solid movement. Can you see a music industry rising? I think the fruits are not ripe. There are a lot of projects starting right now and obviously need to grow, but only a few are really mature and professional. We have everything in our hands and we can avoid all the mistakes the Americans and French did; this can not be only an industry, we cannot forget the movement, we cannot forget what hip-hop culture means. That meaning is fading away… The new generation needs that felling too; cos’ it’s a generation that knows hip-hop as a commodity, as something already invented.
Hip hop is not a drum pattern, a MC singing, B-Boys dancing break or painting walls. Hip-hop is a community; its an interaction, a culture made up of friendships, built on friendships, with a deep almost universal feeling which breaks all music barriers. A great example is the German “Zulu Nation”. They are based on Friendship and Fraternity, and they use hip-hop to communicate this and to strengthen their bounds.
Well I think the media has created a big part of it. Nowadays we are all targets, all those MTV clips give us a fake image of reality, and a lot of young people see them and think that those videos show the reality. It's all fake, just a mechanism to sell a product.
Hip-hop can be broadened and extended to a lot of aspects in life. In this moment I can only express my frustration for the artificial way the world is walking towards. Although more and more people are aware of what's going on in the world and area part of a global consciousness activist movement, they forget too often the machine that operates it all. Every human being has the will and the strength to fight what the system imposes. People need to discover the filters to fight the system. Some find it, some don't…
The “Fuse” is a regular person, just like you or the guy holding the tape recorder?, a regular person that felt in a time in his life a big creativity shock, a magnetic impulse, and he decided that his life should be dedicated to those same electric impulses that I call inspiration.
I can't remember why I chose the name “Fuse”, it had to do with "fusível" (fuse in Portuguese) and with the concept of a trigger, connected to those electric impulses and also it had to do with my lyrics, I can't remember…
No I don't think so… But that's the usual hip-hop stereotype: street level music, street kids, intervention music, lyrics talking about the problems in our society, and in our reality... I think that hip hop has no limits whatsoever. Our horizons are vague and infinite. What we have to do is to rethink the way we see ourselves as artists or creators.