RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Zazen, the production company of José Padilha, director of “Tropa de Elite” (Elite Squad), will shoot a movie on the life of rapper Sabotage, Mauro Mateus dos Santos Filho’s stage name.
Budgeted at R$9 (US$2.2) million, the feature film is scheduled for release in 2020, the year marking the seventeenth anniversary of the singer’s death.
On the morning of January 24th, 2003, Sabotage was shot four times on a public road, after leaving his wife, then a kitchen assistant, in her workplace.
His rhymes were charged with reality and inspired thousands of youths. Sabotage quit drug trafficking to write about life in the suburbs and police violence. He had appeared in the film The Trespasser (2002), directed by Beto Brant.
His death led to the arrest of Sirlei Menezes da Silva, seven years after the murder.
Sabotage’s influence as a musician was crucial for the growth of hip hop in Brazil, meaning that his vision and style were unique and inspiring for many rappers.
His lyrics were full of words of wisdom from a man who experienced a hard early life in the favelas of Brazil. To this day, Sabotage is considered by many rappers and Brazilian hip hop fans as the greatest Brazilian rapper of all time, often compared with 2Pac.
In 2016, his posthumous album Sabotage was released.