Photo: Preta Rara\SoundCloud
Joyce Fernandes, popularly known as Preta Rara, (Black Rare) a one-time house maid, is now a rising Rap and entertainment star in Brazil who is sparking conversations about racism, sexism and inequality.
It was a cherished ritual that Joyce Fernandes saved for the end of the shift of a job she despised.
After finishing tidying up every other room in one of the São Paulo apartments she cleaned, Ms. Fernandes took her sweet time dusting a bookshelf in the living room, where she inevitably got lost in a book.
She feared she would get a stern talking to when the apartment’s owner walked in one day in 2008 as she was devouring “Olga: Revolutionary and Martyr,” a biography of a German communist militant who spent years in Brazil before being executed by Nazi Germany.
Instead of a reprimand, the moment spurred a remarkable career transition for Ms. Fernandes, who is now among the highest-profile Black Brazilians, driving candid conversations about racism and inequality.
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