First off, I would like to tell you that I’m really happy.
But I am actually not really happy,
I am brimming over with joy about being here today.
Being here today is really, really priceless to me,
and I hope I’m able to express it through my words within the next minutes.
Firstly, I’d like to tell you that the place I come from
is exactly in front of where you are.
I was born in a community called Zareia,
which is a community located here, right in front of RioMar Mall.
By the way, the community in front of the mall is now divided
because they had to build a street so we could come in here, right?
I have a question for you,
and you will answer by raising your hand.
Who has a dream? Please raise your hand.
Keep your hand raised.
Who has more than one dream? Raise both hands.
Keep your hands raised.
If you have more than two, five dreams,
raise your hands as high as you can, and do this now.
Now, imagine that each fingertip is a dream. Keep on doing like this.
There is always one between our dreams – keep your hands raised.
(Laughter)
There is one between our dreams that is the biggest dream of our life.
Do you agree?
Do you agree?
Audience: Yes.
Felipe Rima: So, still with your hands raised,
I’d like to ask you to think about your biggest dream.
Did you think?
You can put your hands down, the picture that I will post on Facebook is awesome.
(Laughter)
Did it work, guys?
That’s it.
(Applause)
I will also post it on Instagram.
Actually, this question was also meant for it,
but it also has a greater meaning.
Three things happen when you think about your biggest dream.
The first one: you remember where you come from.
I’d like you to consider this now, and to think about where you come from.
Where were you born? Who raised you? What were your family’s conditions?
The street you used to play on?
Or maybe you didn’t play on the street.
The second thing that happens is that you wonder where you are.
Why are we here? Why are we here today?
Now, you don’t just wonder where you are phisically,
but where you are in your life.
And the third thing that happens within this short time,
that might be about ten seconds,
you wonder where are you getting at.
This question goes straight in your heart
because it is inside the heart that all dreams live,
and lives the most wonderful dream,
that is the greatest dream of your life.
We are just getting to know each other,
but you are part of the greatest dream of my life,
and I would like to thank you for that.
(Applause)
Like I said before, I was born in a community called Zareia.
It is right in front of this mall,
and here is the thing:
my first big dream was being a soccer player.
I remember a soccer player called Romário.
Do you know Romário?
I was eight years old, and I used to see him a lot on the TV,
he was like Neymar.
He was well-recognized by his job, status,
he had a lot of money, and also had some beautiful women.
(Laughter)
So I thought, “When I grow up,” because I thought I would grow up,
(Laughter)
“I want to be a soccer player
because I will be famous for my job, I will have money,
and I will also have good-looking people to share the moments of life, right?”
If I ask you whether you want this, you will answer yes.
I remember once I was on my home street, which is a quite narrow street,
playing marbles, when a kid passed by my side and said,
“Jeez man, they are handing over.”
Behind him there were three other kids running and saying, “They are handing it.”
Behind those kids, there was a bunch of boys, saying,
“That’s sick, they are handing it over.”
(Laughter)
And there were coming some girls, they were also running and saying,
“They are handing it over.”
(Laughter)
So I picked my marbles up, that were inside the triangle,
and I thought to myself,
“I don’t know what they are handing over,
(Laughter)
but if they are doing that, I’m on this thing.”
(Laughter)
When I got to the corner, this is what was happening:
it was Children’s Day, and there was a huge truck on the corner giving toys.
I remember going there, and my first challenge was my height –
I’m 28 years old today and I’m this height,
now picture it 20 years before.
(Laughter)
I had the same height of the truck tire.
I remember a friend of mine had already got ahead,
he had managed to get a toy, but was weeping bitterly
because he had got a doll.
(Laughter)
So, the second challenge was:
the guys who were handing over the toys didn’t choose which one you would get.
But when we see challenges in front of us, we make partnerships,
and my first partnership, the first professional letter I sent, was this:
there was a guy beside the truck, and I said this to him,
“Hey man, can you lift me up, for real?”
(Laughter)
The guy saw this thing, took my hand, and got me up there among the crowd.
“Give me one.”
I was able to get a ball, when I looked over the ball,
I read, in slow motion, the name:
“Dente de Leite.” (baby tooth)
(Laughter)
That ball meant so much to me,
do you remenber what was my dream?
Being a soccer player.
Why am I telling you this?
Because it was the first time in my life that I felt such a big emotion,
that almost makes me cry,
Have you ever felt this?
That’s exactly what I’m feeling right now.
Because of that, it is connected with what we are doing here.
I remember that after getting that ball, I kicked it on the building’s wall,
it hit on the wall’s spikes and dropped dead.
(Laughter)
Not even 20 minutes had passed.
It was the happiest day of my life, but also my greatest frustration.
When I got home, my father was there by the door.
My father looked into my eyes and asked, “Why are you crying, man?”
I told him, “My ball was punctured.”
And he said, “Tell me the whole thing, because you didn’t have a ball.”
(Laughter)
Then I said, “The guys were giving toys to the children,”
by the way, I took off half of the ball that was on my head and showed it to him.
You are laughing because you have done that too, I know it.
(Laughter)
My father told me that real men don’t cry.
He asked me to swallow my tears, and I did so.
At the age of 14 years old, I already had got this height,
and I had a second big dream.
My second big dream was to take control of the crime and drug dealing
in eight communities of this region.
The names are: Pau Fininho, Morro do Gengibre, Cidade 2000,
Barreiros, Teleceará, Castelo Encantado, Morro Santa Terezinha, Marrocos,
Conjunto São Pedro, Lagoa do Coração,
and Zareia.
At the age of eight years old,
when I cried because my ball was punctured,
my father told me to swallow my tears, and I had access, for the first time,
to a gun right on my hand, followed by the phrase,
“Swallow your tears, hold this, feel the weight, it’s a man thing.”
At the age of nine, I knew that everyone in my family
were involved with crime, without exceptions.
Think about it, every member of your family involved with crime.
Father, mother, brothers, uncles, grandparents, everybody.
At the age of ten, I got home from school and saw cops inside my house
dealing and selling guns to my family, drinking coffee and laughing.
I thought that was awkward, but also natural, at the same time,
and I went inside to watch my cartoons.
So, at the age of 14, my dream was that one I told you,
but I received some news from a friend, which made me back off this dream.
The news he gave me were,
“Felipe, man. There is something that is just meant for us.”
When he said that, I thought, “How many guns it will take?”
(Laughter)
It had nothing to do with guns, he said, “There is a social project,”
it was the first time I had ever heard about this,
“and there will be a graffiti workshop,
and I think it’s cool for us to do this,
because you are a tagger.”
(Laughter)
I said, “It will be sick.”
We applied for it.
(Laughter)
Because it had a connection with sprays.
Two different things, but connected.
I remember we applied for this project,
we had to attend to three workshops, we couldn’t do only one of them,
it had to be three.
I chose: graffiti,
rap and poetry, they threw me in it, I didn’t want it, but fine, sign me in.
(Laughter)
And sexuality, I chose this one and stood up for it,
because I thought I needed to learn these things, you know?
(Laughter)
At one of the first classes, what did we see?
A red-haired teacher called Glória Diógenes, saying,
“You are welcome, today we will talk about poetry.”
I looked at Mariano and said, “Look at what we did, bro.”
(Laughter)
Because, think about it, by the age of eight they hand me a gun,
by the age of nine, I know that all my family is involved with crime,
at ten, I saw cops selling guns to my family inside my house,
at 14, I want to rule the crime in eight communities,
and today we will talk about poetry?
(Laughter)
You know the moment when you are there, and there is nothing to do about,
and you only stay out of respect?
(Laughter)
I stayed.
She recited the following poem,
“Today, we will talk about Carlos Drummond.”
So I said, “Well Mariano, at least the guy is Santos Dumont’s brother,
he will nail it.
(Laughter)
Because Santos Dumont built a plane.”
How what do you call this? This is called knowledge.
I didn’t know that Carlos Drummond Andrade wrote poems,
but I knew that those who have similar names are brothers,
or at least from the same family.
(Laughter)
She said, “I will recite the poem.”
And the poem said,
“There was a stone in the middle of the road,
in the middle of the road there was a stone,
never should I forget this event in the life of my tired eyes,
that there was a stone in the middle of the road,
in the middle of the road there was a stone.”
When I heard that poetry, I had the following interpretation:
“There is a stone in the middle of my mother’s smile,
which is the person I love the most in the world, and I don’t see her smiling.
There is a stone in the middle of my construction as a human being,
I’m 14 years old and I have to pick up cans, sell coconuts, be a car watcher
and a tennis ball boy to get some money.
There is a stone in the middle of the fortress which my father represents,
because my father taught me that real men don’t cry,
and for a long time he was a crime icon.
Nowadays, he has a chemical dependecy,
and this chemistry is crack, he sold everything and my mom and I ran away,
and now I am here with my four-year-old brother.
A stone in the middle of the road.
Mariano, Carlos Drummond is awesome,
and poetry is awesome,
because he is talking about crack.
At this moment …
(Laughter)
(Applause)
It means that,
from the moment the content is attached to your story,
it starts having a different meaning.
DJ, I need sound.
Here we go, you got it?
(Music: “Zareia”)
The place is Fortaleza.
♪ The place is Fortaleza
The favela is Zareia
Where I walked barefoot with my feet in the sand
That’s where I was raised and smiled with so little
That’s where I learned to solve my problems with my fist
Child labor, children struggling for their life
Crying for food in the market
Romário from the Brazilian team running after the ball
And I running after life at the school court
I have always been the best in class
The little, the little one
Sometimes the smallest one felt so lonely
It was good for me to manage on my own, I learned on my own
I found the value of dreaming, I managed to achieve them
Trying to figure out where happiness lives
Till my father say, “Swallow your tears, men don’t cry”
Holding the phrase into my head and the dream into the heart
I looked over the horizon and went to get the solution
I picked up my pieces and went down to the arena
Feeling greater than any problem
I went out to get the solution at the drums of the heart
I picked up my pieces and went down to the arena
Feeling greater than any problem
I went out to get the solution
The solution
I close my eyes and see a movie into my percecptions
So many stories to tell and a emotions maelstrom
I’m outside, mom at home, dad in crime, brother in prison
There is no way out without feeling the pains and the weight
The weight of the Taurus fully loaded on my hand
The pain of my dad in crack and my mom crying for my brother
I dreamed of succeding in crime and following the flow, with no options
Will you judge what is reference?
Childhood friendship, loves, personal conflict
Ambition, greed, guns and social project
A skittish boy discovering poetry
With the boldness of a man managing risks
Rap, Racionais, poetry by Drummond
The stones in the road I poeticized into music
Seeing my mother doing the laundry, cleaning the house
My father planning robbery and I making rhymes
I picked up my pieces and went down to the arena
Feeling greater than any problem
I went out to get the solution at the drums of the heart
I picked up my pieces and went down to the arena
Feeling greater than any problem
I went out to get the solution at the drums of the heart
At sixteen I cried by living the revolution
The miracle of art, flying in a plane
Hotel rooftop
Pool and chips
Ten seconds on and I realized where I come from
I picked up cans, ate garbage
I did what I could
At that moment I realized where I was
And with tears in my eyes I asked one thing to myself,
“Where do I want to go now that I am here?
The heart answered that I wanted to go through the country
Discovering what it is to be happy
Today I cry seeing my mother crying when she hugs me
Happy, emotionally saying, “I love you, son”
My father always being made as an example in this story
My brothers and friends living this victory
What can I say about that besides I am here to conquer?
Believe in your dreams because they have power ♪
(Applause)
I would like to thank you.
You brought so much energy and emotion!
And I would like to invite the people I love
and that are part of this story,
to show you that dreams have power.
You can come over,
all of you.
(Applause)
These people
are part of this story.
This is my father.
(Applause)
My family: my nephew, my sister, my buddy from Batuque do Coração,
Mariano, Matheus, Andreza, Carolayne.
My mother.
(Applause)
Bell,
Salmos and Márcio, that are from Batuque do Coração.
I am really happy.
Because sometimes you fight hard to get money to spend with your family.
It’s so much time for the money, and so little time for the family.
The time goes by, it consumes you, everything changes and you don’t see.
And sometimes the money comes, and your family is gone.
But if you don’t stand up and go to work,
the time will pass, and what will you achieve?
The trust of a father?
The smile of a mother?
Happy moments and a toast from the best champaigne?
Meet your friends, chill out, go with the tide?
What do you need to feel alive and smile?
What is your place? Where do you want to land?
And how much you can pay to enjoy this life?
We live in a new world,
a new world of looks and hypocrisy.
He is a dreams killer, an obfuscator of poetry.
It’s the world and it’s patterns, what you can do and what you can’t,
where who can do, can, and who can’t …
gets fucked at the end!
They make you believe your victory is unachievable,
they make you believe your dream is impossible.
They undermine education, concentrate billions,
they convict a kid who might be a pusher,
but they are illusion dealers.
Life presents you two sides of the same coin.
Who will be there for your glory, and who will be for your fallen.
And between life and the world, everybody is struggling,
some for a plate of food, some for a brand new car,
but only you know your misery, and nobody cries in your stead.
Two or three of them will give you love, and thousands will get you judged.
And the problems, they are yours.
They will come to undermine you,
but they can never take out the power of dreams from you.
Thank you.
(Applause)
Thank you so much.
(Applause)
”
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