Today’s Doodle honours Viviane Lopes Maties, better known by her stage name Dina Di, the lead MC of the all-female hip-hop collective Viso de Rua, who turns 46 today (Street View). She is widely regarded as one of the first female hip-hop and gangsta rap artists to break through in Brazil.
Dina Di was born in Campinas, So Paulo, Brazil, on this day in 1976, and had a rough upbringing. Dina Di started out as a guitarist, but when she was in her teens, she picked up the microphone and focused her efforts on producing rhymes that expressed her problems and challenged the established social system.
Dina Di co-founded Viso de Rua in 1994 with fellow musicians Tum and DJ OG. The revolutionary group’s first single, “Confidência de uma conviceira,” was released together (Confidence of a Convict). Dina Di wrote the song after spending time in prison and wanted to highlight the harsh reality of the women’s prison system. She went to jails to share her music with incarcerated women in order to encourage good change and give those who were incarcerated hope for a better future.
Dina Di never stopped showing her power of raw lyrical storytelling to oppose societal injustice, from sexism in the music industry to the beauty and behavioural norms put on women, by dressing in baggy clothes to keep people’s attention on her music rather than her gender. Viso de Rua won the coveted Hutz Awards for best female rap group in both 2000 and 2001 with Dina Di, cementing her status as the “Queen of National Rap.”
Women MCs in Brazilian hip-hop survive today and continue to feed the feminist cause. Their celebrity is linked to a social movement led by women like Dina Di.