Brazilian rapper best known as a member of the rap group Facção Central for a period of 34 years, from the group’s formation in 1989 until 2023, the year of his death.
Raised in childhood poverty, he started working at age 11 delivering newspapers. As the job did not pay off as expected, he decided to become a fishmonger, a profession he held until he was 17, when he joined a photolithography company, which went bankrupt.
Already nicknamed by his grandmother as Dum-Dum from a black comic book character, he decided to enter the world of crime as a drug dealer and also became a user of marijuana and cocaine. He was arrested for the first time at the age of 27. Dum-Dum spent three months in jail, a period during which his daughter was born, until he was acquitted for lack of evidence.
Dum-Dum’s first contact with rap happened at a show by the group Racionais MC’s, the main group in Brazil in this style, and that was when he decided to become a singer. In his own words, “if it wasn’t for rap I wouldn’t be alive”. He joined Facção Central in 1989, when the group already had three members, and remained with them, producing seven works.
With the departure of Eduardo and Smith in 2013, Moysés, a former member of the A286 group, and Bihel were the replacements. In August 2015 Moysés and Bihel left the group. In December 2015, Dum-Dum with the production of DJ Pantera released Facção Central’s seventh album and the first without Eduardo, A Voz do Periférico.
Dum-Dum suffered a stroke and had been hospitalized since 6 April 2023. He died in São Paulo city on 12 May 2023 at age 53 after undergoing surgery. He was put into an induced coma and did not recover.
Link to Wikipedia biography (Portuguese)