10 People you must know they’re Portuguese, 1-4 (if you don’t you’re the dumbest individual scrolling this joint)

Now Searching: ART

FOUND!

VHILS

Born Alexandre Manuel Dias Farto — his last two names literally translate to ‘Days Tired’ -, this stencil grandmaster was first introduced to Bansky back in the Cans Festival of 2008. Bansky’s agent was so impressed he specifically requested more space so Vhils could display his street art carvings.

“People call it vandalism and I like the word and the concept of how people see it, and how simple it is to turn it into something people will call art or beautiful or whatever”, says Vhils, “I like to play with that, too, in the way you can reverse what people were expecting to see”.

Vhils is an unique wall craftsman that handles and loves to play around with collages, wood, metal, installations. It’s not every day you walk around your city and enjoy aesthetic beauty and social analysis through etching acid, bleach or pneumatic drills.

This year he premiered Imprint in Beijing — his second exhibit in China — and has travelled and carved around Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Italy, the US of A, Ukraine and Brazil.

Vhils has recently worked with Shepard Fairey, in a collaboration backed by Underdogs, a company co-founded by Vhils that organizes, among many other things, tour guides to check out Lisbon’s street art.

Now Searching: SPORTS

FOUND!

KIKAS

For all the surfer lovers out there — and duuuuudes the fanbase is growing! — you should know that the World Surf League isn’t exactly famous for its European practitioners. In fact, of the 30 top-ranked surfers, only 4 are from the Old Continent.

So who da best European wave tamer?

Say hello to Frederico Morais, aka Kikas, born in 1992, that was destined to be paddling out against the Jordys and the Jon Jons thanks to some crazy-ass surfing.

Portugal has an amazing and diverse shoreline — you got your big waves, your windy favorite stops or the barrel ‘El Dorado’ of Peniche — and Kikas’ powersurfing and versatility is something his opponents may fear in heats to come.

Kikas has opened The Blue Room with a couple of friends, a place to teach surf not only on top of the board but also looking at a blackboard. That’s right. Did you know surf can be studied?!

The Blue Room is basically an open door and amplifier to the surf’s contribution to Portuguese tourism: Portugal hosts more than 180 miles of shoreline and of course you can always learn something about our country’s culture, food and tradition while attending some classes.

That could also explain why more and more Portuguese brands are riding the surfing lifestyle wave.

Now Searching: MUSIC

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THE DISCOTEXAS BAND

Portuguese Music suffered an identity crisis for years but has recently gained some pride with the help of contributors such as Mariza (fado), Deolinda (folk fado) or Buraka Som Sistema (as the English heard and wrote about them for the first time, ‘progressive hardass’!).

Call it reinvention, call it inspiration from scouring the world in search of the most diverse sonic expressions, say it’s a sense of collective collaboration, thank the youtubes and soundclouds of your lives but the fact is that the offer of Portuguese Music has expanded in quantity and, in my opinion, quality. Tipo mesmo. Tipo fo sho.

For all the Portuguese people out there, compare the miserable ‘gate keeping’ of the 90s, where we heard more Portuguese sung by Brazilian artists. And now tune into Radar or Antena 3 and you better grab your pastel de nata while listening to them…

I hope this is not some kind of ‘illusion’. Of course the main radios still spew the same auto-tuned loads of garbage. And maybe the millennials still think Kanye is the shit but once in every music festival — and we have awesome and cheap music fests, just google and drool — they will have to sit through some amount of Portuguese artists. And they will snapchat that bitch even if they don’t like it…

Now let us talk briefly about Discotexas, which is nothing more than the ‘powers combined’ of 3 of the best electronic music entrepreneurs that happen to be my fellow countrymen: they are Moullinex, Da Chick and Xinobi and this single

serves as a welcome beat to their label.

You can feel some Chromeo, Daft Punk or Caravan Palace in it and this is what music should be about in these days of fear and suspicion: feel good vibe!

Discotexas has a weekly radio show at Vodafone FM, in Portugal. If you liked what you heard and want to know more about these beat masters please hit the following ‘dancefloor’.

Now Searching: ACTORS

FOUND!

KIKA MAGALHÃES

When a Portuguese actress steals the show at Sundance in a horror flick where she eats this

you just know the next words coming out of her mouth will be “I’d like to thank the Academy!”.

I don’t know a lot about Kika’s future — just imdb that shit — but I honestly hope that she keeps making us proud.

Because everybody knows that Hollywood needs more

and less quinoa.

Portugal is the least represented Southern European country in Hollywood Blvd. and it’s time you guys know more people than this dude

or this lady right here

So… go Kika!

Next week: 4–10