Clinton Manegault, better known in the digital world as GooneyGoogles, had a channel with 2,000 subscribers that jumped to 230,000 when he started covering Brazilian culture.
An American from the New York borough of Brooklyn has become so successful on YouTube reacting to Brazilian music that he was invited to participate in one of the shows on the Racionais MC tour of the United States in July.
“I shook hands with all of them,” says Clinton Manegault, better known in the digital world as GooneyGoogles. The energy of the show and the audience participation left the American in awe.
“I’m 37. Everyone was my age or younger. And they all knew the lyrics to the songs,” she says in awe. Clinton discovered, in Racionais, a connection to Brazilian culture that she could not have imagined when she decided to create her own YouTube channel during the pandemic.
The initial idea was to react to films. Those celebrities that, for one reason or another, Clinton never got to see.
It was the case with The city of God, by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund, released in 2002. The success of the feature film, at the time, attracted the attention of the American. But it made it into that “someday I will see” list of movies.
A few years later, Clinton enlisted and served in Iraq as a Marine. He’s never been in combat situations, he’s worked with computers.
Upon his return he moved to North Carolina, home of his wife known in the military.
Today he lives in a typical house in the American suburbs, the kind you see in the movies, with a garden, courtyard, other houses around it and no nearby shops.
It was in this house, isolated with his wife and son due to the covid pandemic, that he created the character GooneyGoogles, a name borrowed from a presentation by Eddie Murphy.
The first films Clinton reviewed brought nearly 2,000 subscribers to the channel. But when she discovered Brazil, it was a revolution. The number of subscribers has risen to 230,000 and the most viewed videos are those of the comments she has already made on Racionais MC’s songs.
Just talking about the band, the views skyrocket into the millions. But it was through Fernando Meirelles, the director, that the American came to Mano Brown, the poet.
The city of God it was a revelation. “I saw it and I loved it,” Clinton tells BBC News Brasil.
“I made this connection because of those black people on screen. I knew guys like that when I was growing up. Obviously the numbers here are smaller. Black people aren’t as large a population here. But what I’ve seen is something I recognise. I recorded the reaction and two months later the number of views started to climb. Out of nowhere!”
In the United States, blacks make up just over 13% of the population, while in Brazil, 9% of the population declare themselves black and 47% of Brazilians declare themselves brown.
Americans watch Clinton’s videos, but they attract an increasing number of Brazilians to the channel.
For this reason it started having Portuguese subtitles. An investment with no return for the curious New Yorker, owner of a disarmed and captivating smile, who maintains an intense and constant dialogue with an audience that is also rediscovering itself.
advice from Brazilians
In this two-way street, the comments reveal how much Clinton’s gaze and sensitivity give Brazilians a renewed vision of the country’s time-honored successes.
A current reflection on issues of yesterday and the past for this Brazilian public who never tires of giving advice to Americans. There are also suggestions of songs, artists, movies and historical facts.
“I knew nothing about the military dictatorship in Brazil,” says Clinton. But with the questions and comments on the channel, he became more and more interested. cared for Mariguelaby Wagner Moura, but also the documentary on the guerrilla leader directed by Isa Grinspum Ferraz with music by Mano Brown.
“I also learned a little thanks to a documentary by the American Henry Louis Gates Jr. who talks about black people in Latin America. He says that most of the slaves on the Atlantic route went to Brazil. I couldn’t believe it! This is too much nice and I didn’t know it!”
With this revelation, he took to the internet in search of black Brazilian musicians that he is sure to meet someday.
Fernando Meirelles’ film was only the door to a complete discovery that Clinton still doesn’t know where it will lead. He is hungry to know more and follows, without haste, the path dictated by intuition.
The same intuition that guides the comments on rhythms and beats that he recognizes as very familiar. They hark back to hip hop’s heyday in the late 80s and early 90s and tackle themes that are hardly found in American rap today.
“That song no longer tells the story of what’s going on. What Public Enemy did, what Rakim did. It was the real story and not an escape from reality. That’s what I was looking for and that connection was what I seen”.
A deeper dive
He emphasizes that it is also necessary to look at the musicians who came after Racionais. He mentions Djonga, Emicida, and thinks the same could still happen in the United States.
“We have Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole,” he lists. Artists who portray the subjects that Clinton wants to see portrayed and who, for him, can have a great impact on the country’s culture. But while he doesn’t find that narrative force in American music, he dives into Brazilian music.
“I heard Cassiano for the first time. Wow! I love it. I listen to it now in the car,” she says.
Tim Maia is a separate chapter for the New Yorker of a religious family who grew up listening to hip hop, blues and gospel.
And the Brazilians want to further expand the range of GooneyGoogle. So it was that he fell in love with Alcione and accepted the challenge to try his hand at samba.
Recently recorded a video on Lucidityby Jorge Aragão, and another on the singing of Gal Costa strange force
He promised he would listen to Clementina de Jesus. If time is short, due to the work on logistics and goods handling systems, there is no shortage of curiosity and the desire to know even more about the culture that sinks into the heart of this American.
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