Sleeping on Buses, Then Rapping on Brazilian Primetime

Xamã is a Brazilian rapper who has also become a television actor. During an appearance on the podcast Podpah, he became emotional as he talked about the hard years before his fame, when money was short for him and his family. At that point he was already performing shows and earning a little, but it was not enough to secure a place to live.

He described a period without a home that lasted, in his words, somewhere between six months and a year. His bed was a bus that ran between the bus station and the city centre. He rode it back and forth to sleep, and when that was not possible he slept in a public square. The article does not state a specific cause and does not give exact dates, but he places the end of this stretch around 2015 or 2016.

Between nights outdoors, friends took him in and let him sleep at their homes. He later moved in with a friend named Carlinhos, sharing a small house with Carlinhos, his mother and his brother. Xamã slept in the living room.

From there his career moved forward. He built his reputation in rap and later added acting to it, and the article notes that he now appears in Globo's telenovela Renascer.

The story he told on the podcast is one of ordinary generosity: a few friends and a shared living room standing between a young artist and the street.