AT THE FEET OF DAVID BRUNO.
A conversation with David Bruno.
A Portuguese artist from Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal.
His work (audio and visual) exults the Portuguese culture and can be considered as a true archaeological object on some classical aspects of his southern European country.
For starters, how did you get started and enter the world of music?
It all started with my father. He was born and raised in Mozambique and was a very avid collector of music and often went to South Africa. In that time Mozambique was years ahead of Portugal, which had a dictatorship and censored culture. So, he started collecting records. I grew up listening to a lot of music that I later sampled, mainly hip hop. That was always fascinating to me.
4400 OG was mostly lo-fi and sample based , how did you transform that into David Bruno?
It was natural. I needed to tell more complex stories, and the instrumentals without lyrics weren't enough. So I created this project to express myself and tell my stories.
How did you end up meeting the other two members in your group, Marquito and António Bandeiras?
I met Marquito at the end of a concert in the venue GNRation in Braga and invited him on the spot to play in the album O Último Tango em Mafamude, warning him that he had to be very popular and sometimes "cheesy". He accepted it! António Bandeiras, or Renato, was my friend and my photographer. One day I invited him to play a character called "Antonio Bandeiras" to be in a skit of my album Miramar Confidencial. We invented a lot of fake facts and created the character for that skit and somehow he made great success and now has an identity of his own.
Many of your videos evoke a strong sense of Portugal’s past. Can you share where you source the footage that shapes that visual style?
I spend a lot of time searching for stuff like that on the web. Some of the videos are public and have 10,20 views. In the middle of them you find gold and the stuff is just so pure, so genuine that you can't fake it or replay it, no matter how much money you have. Otherwise I get them from my own family VHS footage.
Raiashopping feels especially personal, drawing on your childhood in Vilar Formoso. Has living through so much change in Portugal in recent years influenced the evolution of your sound?
Yes, but the main reason for me doing that album was the fact that I lost two of my grandmothers and also I stopped going to the village, due to Covid19. It made me very sad and so, I had the idea of making an album that would work as a tribute to them, to the culture of the region and most importantly, my childhood memories.
Raiashopping feels especially personal, drawing on your childhood in Vilar Formoso. Has living through so much change in Portugal in recent years influenced the evolution of your sound?
Yes, but the main reason for me doing that album was the fact that I lost two of my grandmothers and also I stopped going to the village, due to Covid19. It made me very sad and so, I had the idea of making an album that would work as a tribute to them, to the culture of the region and most importantly, my childhood memories.
Each album comes with its own visual identity. How does clothing factor into the storytelling of your music?
The clothing helps me tell the story! Each album is a different story so each album has a different clothing style.
You performed in Guimarães wearing our shoes. How did they feel to perform in?
I love the overall look of these shoes. They are super comfortable and are very beautiful. It can be worn with a suit, casual jeans, tracksuit, in the mall or on a Sunday dinner. They fit all circumstances with style and I'm in love with them. Besides that being made from scraps of bio material, the concept is incredible. Everything is perfect.
You performed in Guimarães wearing our shoes. How did they feel to perform in?
I love the overall look of these shoes. They are super comfortable and are very beautiful. It can be worn with a suit, casual jeans, tracksuit, in the mall or on a Sunday dinner. They fit all circumstances with style and I'm in love with them. Besides that being made from scraps of bio material, the concept is incredible. Everything is perfect.
When can we get to see you perform in Ireland?
I haven't worked internationally much. But I hope that I can start doing it more now. I haven't been there yet but would love to.
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