Take your shoes off to Moleque de Rua

When you've had a hard day trying to conceptualise the dialectics of the neo-liberal interconectivity galactic pomposity, and you've pondered on the metaphysics of the GM atom in its primal though mutated algorithmic organism.... you need a straightforward revolutionary beat to push you into the next dimension of enlightened calm.

Moleque de Rua did just that. The beats they produced were in no way simple, but the 10 piece hip-hop percussion band from Sao Paulo, Brazil, had an underlying core that kept the discussion-weary audience begging for more. Twice the whoops and the cheers dragged them back for an encore, drowning out the organisers who were trying to shut up shop.

"The inspiration for our music is life," said one band member, simply, who shot to the top of my estimations when he dazzled the crowd with his energetic mastery of the chinelophone, played as a xylophone, but with three ft tubes as the bars, and, what can only be described as, shoe soles for the sticks. Other inventive instruments were tin cans stuck to long bamboo shoots, and chrome cups that were tapped, shifted, banged and passed along in a rotationary movement amongst six band members, to impeccable timing despite the impossible logistics of such a feat.

You have to check out the band at www.navigans.com.br/molequederua

Katherine Haywood