Watch the music video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EayCT5tcaHc

Daniel Haaksman´s acclaimed “With Love, From Berlin” album (released on 25th of January 2019) is focussing on Berlin as a city of yearning for international artists. For his album Daniel commissioned various co-artists to reflect upon their live in the German capital. The feature with Angolan singer Kalaf Angelo (formerly of Buraka Som Sistema) e.g. reflects on what it means to be Black in Berlin. Mexican singer Coco Maria sings in “La Añoranza” about feeling homesick and eventually transforming into a Neu-Berliner.

One of the outstanding tracks of the album however features Brazilian singer [{“Cibelle”(})]. Internationally known since the late 1990s as one of Brazil’s most radical and talented singers and interdisciplinary artists. After a musical hiatus for a focus in visual art and transitioning , having come out as a non-binary person - thus addressed in “they/them” pronouns - [{“Cibelle”(})] moved to Berlin in 2015 after finding comfort and room for self exploration in Berlin showing itself as an accommodating, sex positive trans feminist queer hub.
Cibelle’s work addresses a need for us in society to halt the redistribution of violence and structural oppressions stemming from excluding each other on the basis of race, ability, beauty standards, gender assignment, identity or expression.
“Corpo / Sujeito” (“Body / Subject”) unfolds into a radical questioning of what it means to be a man or a woman, a body bound person or a person beyond a body, our gaze upon each other. Lyrically it narrates states of being that lay beyond gender binaries whilst affirming the strength that arises within someone in letting go of complying with the pre-existing gender binary boxes and their roles. Berlin echoes in “Corpo / Sujeito” (“Body / Subject”) as one of the global centres where one may find room to better understand oneself outside of cis-hetero-normativity, and play out one’s existence with moderately more safety than other capitals, such as São Paulo, where [{“Cibelle”(})] comes from.

The video for Corpo Sujeito offers an opportunity to the viewer to reset their own societally programmed gaze towards people in regards to how one perceives and understands gender, queerness and expression.
It shows an intersectional and inclusive selection of individuals in a plurality of sexualities, skin tones, facial features and gender identities across age in the act of simply being.
they “dress up” wearing all items of clothing in unprescribed ways, in an accumulation of layers that may mirror the layers of self that form identity or the layers of societal judgement that could exclude or include a person.
They get completely covered to the point the view looses the sense of the biology which is animating these animated piles of clothes. The bodies move with gestures that would be perceived as “feminine” or “masculine”, or combinations of both in nuance, regardless of their assigned gender. The camera highlights features that a white cis-hetero-normative society would deem as imperfections, unacceptable grooming those bodies.
The goal is to incite radical empathy though a kinder and more present gaze that recognises the validity of all shapes and forms of being and expression beyond assigned gender, identification, performance, age, race, ability, sexuality, class.
To honour the life that inhabits all bodies and expresses throughout.

The single is accompanied by a breath taking remix by LA´s Kelman Duran. Known for his unique deconstruction take on dembow ryhthms, Duran transformed Cibelle´s song into a sacral sounding, introspective track with a gut-shattering bass.

Corpo Sujeito ft. [{“Cibelle”(})] (Kelman Duran Remix)

Daniel Haaksman