Vinicius is a PhD student in Social History at the PUC-Rio (Pontifícia Universidade Católicado Rio de Janeiro). His current research focuses on the emergence of the rap scene in SãoPaulo in the wake of the redemocratization process and it's funded by the CNPq (ConselhoNacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico).More broadly, he has been working with the theme of race relations and black activism,from a transnational perspective, since his master's thesis: the study of culture and socialidentities as foundational to political organization, namely the way in which blacktransnationalism and antiracist movements challenged the idea of a racial democracy inBrazil in the 1950's.