brazil hiphop
Brazilian rapper Ebony is bringing the final stretch of her acclaimed KM2 era to AFROPUNK Experience Recife, as one of the country’s most exciting young hip-hop artists continues a major year of growth at home and abroad.
Ebony is scheduled to perform at the first Pernambuco edition of AFROPUNK Experience on September 12, 2026, at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE). The lineup also includes Lia de Itamaracá and Daúde, Linn da Quebrada, Barbarize, Marley no Beat and DJ Boneka, bringing together rap, contemporary Black music and traditional Brazilian sounds for one of Recife’s most notable cultural events of the month.
The performance comes at an important point in Ebony’s career. Her KM2 project, originally released in May 2025, has developed into one of the defining works of her rise within Brazilian rap.
Rooted heavily in her upbringing in Queimados, in Rio de Janeiro’s Baixada Fluminense, the album uses personal memories and local influences to explore family, race, independence, adolescence and the experience of growing into adulthood as a young Black woman in Brazil.
Rather than abandoning those roots as her profile has expanded, Ebony has made them central to her artistic identity.
The original KM2 arrived with 11 tracks and featured collaborations with artists including Black Alien and Larinhx. Songs such as “Gin com Suco de Laranja,” “KIA” and “Extraordinário” helped broaden the project’s audience, with four tracks eventually appearing on Spotify’s Viral Brasil chart.
One of the biggest records from the era, “Extraordinária,” has since surpassed 30 million streams, illustrating how far the project has travelled beyond its deeply local inspiration.
The story expanded again in 2026 with the release of KM2 (De Luxo).
The deluxe edition added seven new songs and allowed Ebony to push deeper into themes involving identity, Black womanhood, memory, feminism and independence. The expanded version also became the foundation for a more ambitious live show.
Ebony has previously spoken about being closely involved in the visual production, choreography, fashion and creative direction surrounding the tour. That involvement helped turn KM2 into more than an album campaign; it became a complete artistic era shaped around her personal history and evolving identity.
That era has also taken Ebony far outside Brazil.
In March 2026, she became the first Brazilian artist to participate in the Brooklyn-based hip-hop performance platform From The Block, giving her another opportunity to introduce contemporary Brazilian rap to an international audience.
She followed that appearance with her first European tour during July and August.
The run included performances in cities including Lisbon, Porto, Marseille, Amsterdam, London, Dublin, Berlin and Malmö. According to reports surrounding the tour, Ebony completed four sold-out concerts and appeared at three European festivals.
Her return to Brazil now leads directly into what she has described as the final chapter of KM2.
The closing run, titled “Último Ato,” includes appearances in Belo Horizonte, Ceilândia, Maceió, Recife and São Paulo before concluding at Fundição Progresso in Rio de Janeiro on September 26. The Rio show is expected to become the biggest headline performance of Ebony’s career so far.
That makes AFROPUNK Recife particularly significant.
Rather than being another routine festival appearance, the September 12 show arrives just two weeks before Ebony officially closes an artistic chapter that has defined much of her recent career.
AFROPUNK is also a natural environment for the material.
Since expanding its presence in Brazil, the festival has developed into an important celebration of Black creativity spanning music, fashion, identity and culture. Recife’s first AFROPUNK Experience continues that approach by combining different generations and styles of Black Brazilian music.
For Ebony, the festival offers another opportunity to perform music built around many of those same themes.
From Queimados to major Brazilian festivals, European stages and now AFROPUNK Recife, the journey of KM2 reflects the rapper’s rapid evolution.
The album began as an intensely personal exploration of home, identity and memory. More than a year later, it has become the project that helped Ebony establish herself as one of the central emerging voices in Brazilian hip-hop.
When she takes the stage in Recife on September 12, fans will therefore be watching more than another performance.
They will be witnessing one of the final chapters of the KM2 era before Ebony closes the project in Rio and begins defining what comes next.
