Underground artists go Sounderground with Red Bull
By Hugh Jordan. Underground is an overused term in music today, usually applied to some tanned hipsters, and once also labelled ‘the next big thing’. But Red Bull’s upcoming music festival Sounderground aims to celebrate those pallid performers who really do sacrifice the sunlight for the chance to perform. We’re talking buskers.
Brazilian Marcelo Beraldo is the founder of the inaugural Sounderground festival, scheduled to take place in Sao Paulo this November. His inspiration came from a four-month trip taking in 17 cities – New York, London and Paris among them – where he filmed underground buskers entertaining en route passengers.
“With the exception of the streets, underground stations are the biggest public spaces of any metropolis in the world,” says Beraldo. “Since people use the underground to move around rather than to listen to music, it is the perfect place for the artist to experiment… I began to develop an idea of something that would promote the busking culture, the underground station musician, and that was how Red Bull Sounderground, the First International Festival of Underground Station Musicians was born.”
Entries are welcomed from buskers all over the world. Musicians must complete an online application form and upload a video of themselves performing. Those entrants lucky enough to be selected win the chance to compete in Sao Paulo, playing at underground stations across the city.
To keep the competition authentic, musicians will only be allowed to perform in station mezannines and walkways, not on platforms or in train carriages, just as in real life.
For Beraldo this underground environment provides genuine artist-fan interaction in an increasily digital marketplace.
“The response of the public is immediate even if they know nothing about music,” he says. “Good music reaches for the heart. So if there is quality, people will stop to listen carefully for a few minutes. If the musician is not good, even his mother will not waste her time.”
A firm advocate of artistic endeavour in public spaces, Beraldo hopes Sounderground will spark much-needed discussion about the role busking has to play in society.
“As the festival is international, it will stir up this debate, not only here in Brazil, but also in other places that should be aware of this culture, even where it already exists,” he says. “After all it is a unique festival in the world. Never before has there been an event that brought together underground musicians from all over the world in one place.”
