SPOTLIGHT: The Sonic Eroticism of Bia Soull
Spotlight
Spotlight
☆ GIOVE PEREIRA ☆
Photos by Ernando Prado
“TALKING ABOUT DESIRE IS COMMON”—Bia Soull reflects on the eroticism present in her music. “What makes it fresh is the desiring agent; it’s the act of centering a Black bisexual woman and her experience.”
Her work represents a shift in perspective on sexuality and sensuality in Brazilian music: deeply embodied, earnest and provocative. It engages with the matter both from an artistic and a pornographic standpoint. It reclaims the agency historically denied to racialized women in post-colonial societies, bearing out her fantasies.
Borrowing from both reality and imagination, Bia Soull engages the sexual sphere in its full potential. “My creative process is largely tied to lived experience and experimentation, but I also tell stories about my friends or about how I wish our tales could be,” she states.
She draws inspiration from musicians who have spoken openly about female desire over the years, often using shock value in their compositions, like Valesca Popozuda, MC Carol de Niterói, and Tati Quebra Barraco. In the track “Malandro TouchScreen,” in collaboration with WES and Paulo DK, she sings: “Turn on your side / Two little fingers on your prostate / Chill, babe, you’ve never been harder / This doesn’t make you gay / Let’s not be childish about it.”
She released her debut album, Pornografia Auditiva—or Auditory Pornography—in April through Warner Music Brasil, quickly reaching commercial success and critical acclaim within the country and beyond. It blends minimalist beats with husky spoken word, traversing genres such as rap, downtempo, witch house, Brazilian funk and MPB. She explains that “taking eroticism into new spheres and genres is the intention behind this album.” As such, each track seems to expand the soundscape and the visual narrative surrounding her work—fashion-centered, alternating between kinky, esoteric and Afrofuturistic.
Her musical journey began as a teenager, within a mother-daughter rap duo called Crias MC’s. After moving out, she started exploring her sexuality and writing lyrics about it. Then, a deep desire to pursue a music career led her to São Paulo, much like an artist from a small American town moving to New York to try to make it big. She recalls, “I needed money to move there and make it happen. It was then, at twenty years old, that I became a sex worker and, through prostitution, gained access to different facets of the erotic world.”
The past few years have seen a rise in awareness surrounding sex work, as activists and artists with experience in the industry tell their own stories, in their own terms. With nuance and irony, Bia Soull skillfully critiques the intertwined systems of oppression that shape her existence, while moving far beyond them through her music: Pornografia Auditiva is filled with pulsating eros, delectation and lust for life. Alongside her peers, who affirm their right to pleasure and embodiment through their own creative practices, she helps broaden our cultural horizons.
