Helder Aragão, aka DJ Dolores, blends music from his native north-eastern Brazil with rock and electronica. His third album, “1 Real”, is out this month. He plays at Cargo, London EC2, on 27 February to launch the Linea 2008 festival. www.myspace.com/djdoloresaparelhagem
1 Does art make a difference?
Some may say art works for making money. Robert Crumb is ironic about that: “If it is cheap, it is not art.” The truth is that capitalism absorbs everything. Today it is impossible to make a challenging piece of work without being involved in the whole artistic marketplace.
2 Should politics and art mix?
Every human action is political, from the clothes you wear to what you eat and talk about. But I do not trust the combination of artists and partisan politics. When that happens it turns into propaganda, a formal way of men exercising domination over other men.
3 Is your work for the many or for the few?
I would like it to reach people on a large scale. But I can’t have control over people’s tastes (nor would I want to).
4 If you were world leader, what would be your first law?
My first law would be giving people the right to pee colourfully, each according to his will. The world would be much funnier and (men’s) public toilets much more interesting.
5 Who would be your top advisers?
Erik Satie understood the human soul as few artists do. His music advises and comforts me during my hard times.
6 What, if anything, would you censor?
I would not censor a single thing – but George Bush’s speeches, full of prejudice, ignorance and greed, are a cancer for the world.
7 If you had to banish one public figure, who would it be?
The Pope. Everybody who is against safe sex, as Catholics are, should go to prison.
8 What are the rules that you live by?
To be serious but not sober.
9 Do you love your country?
I love those who are around me. Concepts of race and religion are extremely dangerous and generate nothing but death and suffering.
10 Are we all doomed?
Climate is uncontrolled, there are stupid wars all over the world, and people prefer consuming idiotic things to ending starvation. Capitalist greed is rife and subjugated people believe their own torturers. We’re fucked!
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