What we see today in the favelas of Brazil, the African slums, and among African and Brazilian immigrants in Portugal is not victory — it’s camouflage. Many artists who rose from poverty kept the same primitive mindset, just with expensive clothes on top. There was no inner transformation — only appearance. Ostentation became the uniform of emotional misery.
They didn’t get rich — they just learned to look rich. Rented cars, borrowed clothes, hidden debts, and deep insecurity masked as confidence. The goal is to create an illusion: showing up with champagne bottles (offered by clubs in exchange for exposure), surrounded by fake luxury, always in VIP. They try to look like kings — but inside they’re broken, empty, and tied to contracts that treat them like modern slaves.
Ostentation is now a control tool. It doesn’t educate, liberate, or elevate. It only feeds the illusion of success through consumption. And the more young people absorb that image, the further they drift from reality. None of these artists — African or Brazilian — talk about deep African culture, true Brazilian identity, or promote critical thinking or inner growth — because they can’t. They were shaped to entertain, not to awaken.
Not all follow this script, it’s true — there are voices who resist, who choose awareness over show. But they’re the minority. The norm, especially among African artists, is submission disguised as success.
It’s mental slavery with a shiny coating. The ostentation they promote is a reflection of colonial trauma: peoples who learned to measure their worth through the validation of the oppressor. Today, a luxury car or an expensive watch isn’t just an object — it’s an inner scream: “I’m worth something!” But it’s all illusion. They’re still mentally chained — now with golden shackles.
The system applauds. The more noise they make with empty lyrics, fake jewelry, and staged lives, the less they think, the less they question, the more they obey. Ostentation isn’t power — it’s a golden prison. They sell the dream to keep others asleep.
None of this is spontaneous. This culture didn’t grow from the people — it was planted. It’s deliberate social engineering, fed by elites and intelligence organizations who realized they no longer need to repress with guns when they can dominate with vanity, music, and consumption.
The goal is clear: create docile masses, obsessed with appearance, unable to question the system — and permanently distracted.
Rich on the outside. Slaves on the inside.
That’s the true face of modern ostentation.
July 2025
This article is in English. Read the Portuguese version ⇒ Ler em português