Biography:

Washington Roberto Santana (25 March 1969 – 12 May 2023), known professionally as Dum-Dum, was a Brazilian rapper.^[1]

He was a member and one of the founders of the Facção Central group next to the Carlos Eduardo Taddeo who decided to pursue a solo career.

He died on 12 May 2023.^[2]

Biography

Washington was born in São Paulo in 1969 and had a poor childhood. He started working early, at the age of eleven, delivering newspapers. As employment did not yield what he expected, he decided to become a fishmonger, a profession where he served until 17, when he joined a photolithograph company that went bankrupt.

Washington – who at the time had received the Dum-Dum nickname, placed by his grandmother in a black character comic – then decided to enter the world of crime, as a dealer, as well as a marijuana and cocaine user. He was first arrested at age 27. Dum-Dum spent three months in jail, during which his daughter was born, to be acquitted for lack of evidence.

The first contact of Dum-Dum with rap happened in a show by Rational MCs group, the chief of Brazil in this style, and that’s when the ex-con decided to turn singer. According to his own words, “If it was not rap I would not be alive.” He joined the Central Faction in 1989, when the group had grown to three members, and remained the same until his death, with the production of eight jobs.^[3]

Credits: