There’s a WhatsApp group called Afrocidade e Broken Pen. It was born at 11:31pm on a humid October night — a digital circle between London and Bahia, where two worlds met on a screen and began to speak in rhythm.

The first message: Salve galera! Grupo criado. Seconds later, Broken Pen sent three voice notes — his freestyle spilling across the Atlantic. Someone replied, Kuduro Bahiano! And suddenly, the group wasn’t just a chat; it was the spark of a new movement.

That spark is Cultura Circular, a collaboration between Broken Pen, one of the UK’s sharpest lyricists, and Afrocidade, the electrifying Bahian collective known for transforming the ancestral pulse of Afro-Brazilian percussion into political celebration. Together they’ll write, record, and perform an original track at Feira Preta 2025, Latin America’s largest Black-culture festival — an event that turns São Paulo’s Ibirapuera Park into a living manifesto of African-diasporic pride.

Broken Pen: From South London to Salvador

Born in Angola, Broken Pen grew up in London amid the kaleidoscope of Caribbean, African, and British influences that shaped the city’s underground sound. A lyricist who fuses spoken word, rap, and Afro-conscious storytelling to create transformative performances, a poet, rapper, and educator, Broken Pen bridges hip-hop’s social conscience with the storytelling of London’s spoken-word scene. 

His name says it all: a writer who breaks pens so words can breathe. 

“To collaborate with incredible musicians who speak my language — maybe not English, but something deeper,” he says. “This is a cultural space I’d never experienced before, but somehow I already understood through rhythm.”

With deep roots in both African and urban British culture, his voice resonates across continents. Having performed at the LatinoLife stage at Brixton’s Lambeth Country Show he was the first artist LatinoLife thought of when we were asked to bring a London artist to Feira Preta to build bridges between African diasporic identity and Brazil’s vibrant urban and cultural scenes.

When Broken Pen first logged into Zoom with Afrocidade, he didn’t know what to expect. “Everyone was so open and encouraging,” he recalls. “From the start, it felt like we were meant to shine together.”

Afrocidade: The Power of Rhythm, Identity and Collective Creation

Afrocidade was founded in 2011 by Eric Mazzone, during percussion workshops where he worked as an art educator at the Cidade do Saber Music Center in Camaçari, Bahia. Drawing inspiration from “current Africa and other possible Africas,” the group challenges North-Atlantic notions of what contemporary music should be.

For Afrocidade, creativity is born from collective energy — a euphoric exchange between band and audience that shapes their sound. “Live experiences are our strongest foundation,” says Mazzone (vocals, musical direction, drums). “That’s where we build our art and share energy. Our event Afrobaile is proof of that.”

The band’s core lineup includes Fernanda Maia (vocals & percussion), Deivite Marcel and Guto Sobral (vocals, dance & percussion), Rafael Lima and Douglas Santos (percussion), Marley Lima (bass & synth), and Sulivan Nunes (keyboard & live PA).

Their sound fuses politicised lyrics with ancestral, African, Jamaican, and Brazilian rhythms — the result of more than twenty years of sonic research blended with electronic processes. Beyond celebrating Africa’s drums, their lyrics reaffirm the strength and influence of Bahian identity — music as both celebration and resistance.

“This collaboration makes perfect sense,” they told us. “Our music is about connecting networks that reaffirm the importance of Black culture in Brazil and across the world. We were honoured to be invited.”

Building the Bridge

With different time zones, languages, and ways of working, the first virtual meetings could have been awkward — but the chemistry was instant.

“At first, we thought it would be a challenge,” says Mazzone. “But when we heard Broken Pen’s flow, we felt a sincere connection. Both sides were excited and open. That gave us confidence.”

Since then, their chat has become a virtual rehearsal room: beats, basslines, and laughter flying across continents. They’re already sketching the live setlist — mixing Broken’s London grime and soul with Afrocidade’s Afro-Bahian percussion. 

“Projects like this feed our dreams,” Mazzone says. “They remind us that art has no borders.”

Broken Pen arrives in Salvador, where the band will record and rehearse at the legendary WR Studio — the birthplace of much of Bahia’s modern music. Afrocidade will handle the local production; Latino Life will oversee mixing and mastering, ensuring the track resonates across Brazil and the UK.

One Rhythm, Two Continents

Afrocidade see deep kinship in this meeting: “We’ve spent years researching sounds that connect us to Africa and its diaspora. To now share that process with an artist who raps in Portuguese, English, and Spanish, and whose roots reach Angola — it feels like the circle is closing. This is the beginning of a friendship, maybe a movement.”

Broken Pen agrees: “It’s been incredible discovering how we complement each other. I can’t wait to step into the studio and then on stage with Afrocidade. Going to Brazil and smashing that show — that’s the dream.”

The collaboration will culminate at Feira Preta 2025, where they’ll premiere their joint track and perform together on the festival’s main stage. More than a show, it’s a reunion of histories — a dialogue between the drums of Bahia and the verses of London, between ancestry and modernity, between what was taken and what has returned.

As the WhatsApp group keeps buzzing — voice notes, emojis, and midnight beats — one message lingers on the screen:

O groove falou por nós. The groove did the talking.

Because when Bahia’s drums meet London’s bars, when the beat speaks both Portuguese and English, you realise the same language was always there — waiting to be heard, danced, and lived.