Vetor Interviews: Juan Duarte

Resignifying the masculine, Juan Duarte releases “Pitbull Miumiu”. Joining his country roots, and his multimedia experience, with producer Guillerrrmo’s beats, they create a decentralized underground in their first joined EP

Text and interview by Pedro Paulo Furlan

Photography by @gabrielcvlc

São Paulo, 7PM. After the release of his first EP, me and Juan Duarte were able to find a timeframe to stop, sit and talk. At the end of a busy day of post-release rush, the singer, songwriter, DJ and stylist stopped to tell me all about the creation of “Pitbull Miumiu”, EP he performed at the release party for the latest Vetor edition, in São Paulo, at the end of December.

Coming from the countryside of Goiás, specifically from Catalão, Juan built the universe of “Pitbull Miumiu” based on his own lived experience, pulling inspiration from the notion of what’s masculine in that kind of environment.

“To me, it was always interesting to understand what, inside this masculine, fit me, what didn’t and why it didn’t”.

With a graduation in performing arts, Juan Duarte has been analyzing masculinity since his thesis, where he analyzed the symbols that made one of the most classic masculine figures: the cowboy. “Can I, when creating a masculine image, take all its signals to the most extreme and, from that, get to an image of emancipation? It’s a question for which I don’t have the answer, but that pushes me to keep researching”, he tells me about his theory, that also became the roots of “Pitbull Miumiu”.

Photography by @gabrielcvlc

On the EP, with lyrics by Juan Duarte and production by the Manaus-born producer Guillerrrmo, both artists, connected to their masculinity by their perspectives as queer people, unpack the masculine hyper performance, with a lens that mixes underground sounds with roots in Brazilian traditional music.

“Cosmopolitan ambition without losing my regional ties”

In “Pitbull Miumiu”, Juan Duarte tells me, both artists got together to develop a project that finds itself in the balance between different concepts, like, the masculine and feminine, the metropolitan and the country, the electronic and the organic. Even in the title, this dichotomy makes an appearance, balancing the pitbull, canine symbol of virility, and the meow, a symbol of fragility and sinuosity.

Exploring these dualities, Juan used a specific saying to describe his musical brand: “Cosmopolitan ambition without losing my regional ties”. In his first project, the artist makes it clear that he has zero need to abandon his roots, but, also doesn’t let go of the metropolitan world that he found as soon as he moved to São Paulo.

“We really wanna have this conversation, this exchange with what’s happening around the world, without missing out on what’s happening on our world, our region, our cities”.

Photography by @gabrielcvlc

Duarte had his first contact with music while singing at the church he went to with his family as a kid and teenager - and realized right there his desire to be an artist. For him, the church, even though it wasn’t the most freeing place for queerness, was the first place where he fell in love with the stage.

“There is a real ritualistic pulse”, Juan Duarte says, about his experiences singing at church - but he points out that he feels a similar pull at the stage of an electronic party, for example: “It’s not just about going there and watching someone sing something pretty, the music, in those environments, really moves people”.

At 17, the artist started a reggae and pop-rock band, in Uberlândia, where he lived at the time, and there he had the first glimpse of the stage as a job possibility. But, at the end, Juan decided to move to São Paulo, where he graduated in performing arts.

It was during that graduation that the theory that birthed “Pitbull Miumiu” was born. In his thesis, after four years of studying, Juan Duarte decided to explore the possibility of pulling from a queer essence inside Goiás’ most masculine character: the cowboy.

“When I came back to Goiás, I was, for four months, doing a study about this masculine figure, this cowboy”, Juan tells me, explaining that: “I had all these characters that I kept on playing through the city, on Grindr, creating these ultra masculine figures, these cowboys, and interacting, going to places dressed up and all”.

Photography by @gabrielcvlc

After that, these performing experiences, Juan noticed how deep were the masculine roots in the cowboy - and decided to research where queerness played a part in that character. Then, the artist created a musical narrative that walks along the countryside queer person’s journey, in a movement commanded by different forms of desire.

“Along all the process of this project, even though it’s about a lot of things, it is mostly about the pulsing of life and desire - the desire to explore, fall in love and get over that”.

In “Pitbull Miumiu”, Juan says, he created the project based on this narrative, a story he really wanted to tell - and that’s the way he sees all his artistic work. Be it musically, performance based, or visually, the artist always sees his work as building narratives.

In his other pieces of work, for example, his work in fashion, Juan sees his creation as a stylist as a way to tell stories. In “Alibi”, the singer Sevdaliza’s hit song, where Juan took care of the costumes, the artist created the references and the visual clues based on the narrative present in the lyrics - the same process he has while creating the visuals for “Pitbull Miumiu”.

“My longing is for communication, I see myself more as a communicator, sometimes, than an artist, my longing is to communicate with what I build”.

Photography by @gabrielcvlc

What is a meowing pitbull made of?

Made up of four tracks, Juan Duarte’s EP, “Pitbull Miumiu”, tells a narrative, encompassing the multiple steps in desire - and, solidifying this character of the “mega masc” character. Through the songs, “Cavalgada Ritmada”, “Sobrenatural”, “Cachaça, Rodeio e Moda”, and “Máquina Latina”, the singer, with Guillerrrmo’s producing, builds up a universe populated by unique sounds, only possible by the joining of these two artists.

“The first song, ‘Cavalgada Ritmada’, is an invitation”, points out Juan, describing this track as an introduction into the project’s universe, leaving a mysterious aura that’s enough to attract the listener. After presenting this cowboy, Juan Duarte dives into his country roots with “Sobrenatural”, his own version of the song “Seu Astral”, by Jorge & Matheus, the most pop song on the EP, according to the artist.

“It’s resignifying something that’s inside the hypermasculine, in which me being the one that sings it, already gives the lyrics another meaning, only the fact that I’m singing it”.

Photography by @gabrielcvlc

After that, “Cachaça, Rodeio e Moda” is the way Juan found to pay homage to other section of his professional life, fashion. Resignifying a rodeo opening song, the artist presents this character, a parallel for himself, in a moment of freedom, where, even after a lot of deceptions, the cowboy chooses to run free.

“Pitbull Miumiu” ends with “Máquina Latina”, the song that mostly exemplifies Juan’s talent in creating narratives, and Guillerrrmo’s in following these stories with music. With a growing and descending beat, Juan Duarte tells the story of a couple that meets late at night, and, even with a risky situation, lets their horniness take over.

In these four songs, one thing is clear: the complete harmony created between Juan and Guillerrrmo. With each of Juan’s rhymes, Guillerrrmo knows the perfect beat to fit into the lyricism, uniting sonic inspirations coming from Goiás and Manaus.

“Guillerrrmo has the dimension of creation sonic ambients that go beyond music, they are full on situations, sonic narratives”.

Photography by @gabrielcvlc

“Pitbull Miumiu” was created after a complete immersion, where Guillerrrmo spent two weeks at Juan’s place in São Paulo, the artist tells me, and in those days, they composed and produced all the tracks. The EP, that was, at first, presented at Tesãozinho Inicial, one of São Paulo’s main underground parties, comes after the release of the singles “Monja Rebelde” and “Manacaos Night Life”, and it’s the first project of many that the duo wants to release together.

The decentralized “underground”

The connection between Guillerrrmo and Juan Duarte is one of a mission, besides one of music. Both from outside of Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo, the cities with the most cultural spotlights, the two create their art in a decentralized way, fighting for the recognition and the discussion around electronic music produced in Brazil, outside those cities.

“What we understand as the electronic music scene is really based on what Guillerrrmo lives in Manaus, and what I lived in Catalão. Today I live in São Paulo, but, our desires aren’t from here”.

Photography by @gabrielcvlc

Making moves to elevate artists from outside São Paulo, Juan describes the EP and its message as a presentation of the artist Juan, and his movements to decenter the scene. These movements are also really important for Guillerrrmo as well, that is a main player in a Manaus’ resistance, being one of the minds behind Vacilo, one of the biggest reggaeton parties in Brazil, that brings artist from North or Northeast Brazil, besides other Latin America countries.

Even then, Juan Duarte doesn’t deny that São Paulo and its underground scene are undeniably parts of him. His intention, though, is to be able to point out the blossoming of new scenes in other parts of Brazil, that are bubbling up.

“I want people to see these spaces as less like close-up moments, and more as spaces to create your own reality”, he tells me, pointing out that what attracted him to the underground is its innate possibility for self-expression, and the sense of community - that, for Juan, is the heart of the scene.

Photography by @gabrielcvlc

Finishing our conversation, Juan Duarte says that he’s open to the next step in his career as a musician, with his next project already being produced, bringing sounds even more connected to his roots, like piseiro and reggae. Still closing up “Pitbull Miumiu”, he’ll release a music video fully recorded in Catalão.

Opening up his heart about the importance of music to him, the artist points out that all his creations will forever be rooted in the enchantment he feels towards this art form and in the present that he’s going through.

“Music represents the escape from what social reality can’t take care of, you know? Be it in São Paulo, in Catalão, in Manaus, it’s an environment for dreams”.

Editorial Credits:

@juanduarte photographed at São Paulo, Feburary, 21th, 2025 by @gabrielcvlc with iPhone 4s. Beauty and nails by @actedboy and special thanks to @lucasokuda <3