Rapper, MC, b-boy, graffiti artist, cultural producer, art educator, and founder of Casa do Hip Hop Ceilândia, Rivas Alves passed away at the age of 56, leaving behind a legacy that spans music, territory, education, and memory.
Hip-hop in the Federal District bids farewell to Rivas Alves, known in the scene as Rivas Alibi and also how KabbalahHer passing was confirmed on Sunday, July 5, 2026, at the age of 56, after battling cancer, according to information published by the local press.
For those who follow the urban culture of Brasília, the name Rivas doesn't just appear as a reminder of an important phase of Brasília's rap scene. He belongs to the foundation of a history built with voice, body, spray paint, rhyme, dance, cultural production, and the training of young people. Rivas was one of those artists who defies a single definition.
He was involved in mic dancing, breakdancing, graffiti, event organization, art education, and creating spaces so that culture could continue to thrive. His journey helps tell an essential part of Ceilândia and the Hip-hop scene in the Federal District. A story made by people who transformed the street into language, lived experience into art, and the periphery into a cultural reference point.
Rivas' testimony to Westside
Video recording with Rivas' testimony for Westside. A document documenting the memory of the Hip-hop scene in the Federal District.
A name formed from several elements.
Rivas comes from a generation that knew Hip-hop before the conveniences of today. Before platforms, before algorithms, and before the rapid circulation of content, the culture arrived through encounters, tapes, dances, jam sessions, walls, clothes, records, conversations, and a lot of observation. It was necessary to search, exchange, learn, and create.
It was on this path that he was formed. Rivas didn't approach Hip-hop as a spectator. He lived the culture from the inside. He was a rapper, MC, b-boy, graffiti artist, cultural producer, and art educator. Each of these roles said something about his way of seeing the world.
In rap, he helped to establish a voice from the periphery of the Federal District. In breakdancing, he was part of a generation that used the body as an expression of identity. In graffiti, he brought color, name, symbol, and memory to mediums that went beyond paper. In cultural production and education, he helped pave the way for other young people to also see themselves reflected within the culture.
Rivas experienced Hip-hop as a complete culture: music, dance, graffiti, knowledge, territory, and community all walking together.
Alibi, Ceilândia, and the identity of rap in the Federal District.
Rivas' story also involves Alibi, a group created alongside his brother, DJ JamaicaTogether, they were part of a generation that helped give weight, accent, and identity to the rap produced in the Federal District.
Alibi emerged during a period when the rap scene in the Federal District was asserting its own voice. The local scene showed that Brasília was not just the political center of the country, nor just the Plano Piloto (the planned city center) seen from afar. There was a capital marked by Ceilândia, Taguatinga, Samambaia, Gama, Planaltina, Sobradinho, and so many other regions with their own narratives.
The rap music produced in these territories carried denunciation, faith, revolt, intelligence, survival, and social observation. It wasn't a copy of other scenes. It had its own weight. It had its own reality. It had its own way of talking about the streets, family, violence, hope, and the contradictions of living on the outskirts of Brazil's capital.
Rivas was part of that construction. His presence in Álibi and his journey as Kabala helped strengthen a lineage of Brasília rap linked to the truth of the territory, the spirituality of the streets, and the affirmation of an identity that didn't ask permission to exist.
Rivas on Hip Hop Express
Episode 01 of the Expresso Hip Hop program, featuring Rivas singing and representing the strength of the hip hop scene in the Federal District.
The strength of a family that left its mark on Brazilian rap.
To speak of Rivas is also to remember his connection with DJ Jamaika, his brother and partner in life. Jamaika passed away in March 2023, leaving a profound mark on Brazilian rap. Now, a little over three years later, the hip-hop scene in Brasília once again feels the weight of saying goodbye to a name linked to the same family, artistic, and territorial roots.
But Rivas shouldn't be remembered solely for his connection to Jamaika. That relationship is important, it's part of history and carries affection. Even so, Rivas forged his own path. He was Kabbalah. He was Rivas Alibi. He was a visual artist. He was an educator. He was a producer. He was a guardian of memory. He was someone who remained active even after witnessing many cultural cycles change.
Her career demonstrates that a scene isn't created solely by those who record, sing, or perform on stage. It's also created by those who organize, teach, document, preserve, bring people together, and create meeting places.
Ceilândia Hip Hop House: memory with an open door.
In recent years, one of Rivas' most important contributions has been linked to Ceilândia Hip Hop House/DJ JamaikaThe space was created as a meeting point, training ground, and preservation hub for Hip-hop culture, bringing together artists, educators, young people, producers, and individuals committed to the history of urban culture in the Federal District.
The House represents something greater than a physical headquarters. It symbolizes the recognition that Hip-hop needs a place, an archive, a schedule, a workshop, a stage, a wall, memory, and continuity. It also represents an answer to an age-old question: where is the history of those who built the culture before it was recognized kept?
Rivas helped answer that question through action. His performance at Casa do Hip Hop Ceilândia shows an artist who wasn't content to live solely off his own story. He worked so that other stories could begin.
This is an important legacy. In a culture marked by much creation and little documentation, spaces like this play a crucial role. They prevent memory from being lost. They bring generations closer. They show the younger generation that Hip-hop in the Federal District has roots, a name, a date, an image, a voice, and continuity.
Rivas Vida Hip Hop: when the journey becomes a collection
In 2023, Rivas's career took the form of an exhibition with Rivas Life Hip HopThe exhibition, which brought together works of art, personalized pieces, clothing, canvases, visual records, and elements from his artistic journey, was shown in important spaces in Brasília and was part of a symbolic moment for urban culture: the celebrations of 50 years of Hip-hop.
This public recognition speaks volumes about the scope of his work. Rivas didn't just produce isolated songs or images. He built a living archive. His aesthetic was present in the canvases, vests, caps, jackets, sneakers, sweatshirts, paintings, and documents that helped tell a part of the history of Hip-hop in the Federal District.
In street culture, many things disappear easily. A wall is erased. A flyer vanishes. A ribbon gets lost. A photo is left without a caption. An important event becomes just an oral memory. When an artist transforms their trajectory into an exhibition, they are saying that that story deserves to be seen, preserved, and transmitted.
Rivas understood this. His visual work and public memory show that he was aware of the historical value of what he experienced.
Hip-hop as a school, document, and territory.
Rivas's journey also resonates with a larger moment in urban culture in the Federal District: the recognition of Hip-hop as an intangible cultural heritage of the DF. This type of achievement does not arise from an isolated decision. It is the result of decades of work by artists, DJs, MCs, b-boys, b-girls, graffiti artists, producers, educators, communicators, and community leaders.
Rivas belongs to that base. He was part of a generation that was already working for the culture before the major recognitions, before the institutional tributes, and before many spaces understood the importance of Hip-hop.
He lived in a time when creating peripheral culture required persistence. It was necessary to create one's own means, occupy one's own spaces, convince people, organize events, build an audience, protect one's own identity, and still confront prejudice against a language born from the streets.
Therefore, his trajectory should not be seen solely as an artistic career. It is also a trajectory of social construction. Rivas helped to show that Hip-hop is music, but it is also education. It is art, but it is also belonging. It is expression, but it is also organization. It is memory, but it is also the future.
An artist who left his mark.
Rivas's passing is poignant because he wasn't just a well-known name. He was a connecting presence. He connected generations. He connected languages. He connected music and image. He connected stage and street. He connected memory and education.
For many young people, artists like Rivas show that it is possible to transform experience into creation. For many older artists, he represents a phase in which everything needed to be built with courage, coexistence, and improvisation. For Ceilândia, he remains part of a cultural memory that cannot be erased.
His name carries a history that spans Alibi, graffiti, breakdancing, art education, the House of Hip Hop, and the affirmation of the peripheral culture of the Federal District.
Rivas was a complete artist because he lived Hip-hop as a complete culture.
Rivas' legacy continues in the streets, in voices, and on the walls.
Every culture needs to care for its figures. Not only when they depart, but also while they continue building. When a presence like Rivas leaves the physical plane, the memory needs to be preserved with respect, depth, and affection.
His legacy isn't confined to just one place. It's in the music he helped create. It's in the images he crafted. It's in the circles he fostered. It's in the young people he met along the way. It's in the artists who shared the stage, the streets, and ideas with him. It's in the Ceilândia Hip Hop House. It's in the history of Álibi. It's in the memory of DJ Jamaika. It's in Ceilândia, the city that witnessed his art being born and circulating.
Rivas Álibi, aka Kabala, leaves behind a legacy that transcends mere nostalgia. His story remains a reference point for those who understand Hip-hop as a culture of presence, attitude, memory, and responsibility towards the community.
Rivas Alves, Rivas Álibi, Kabala: his name lives on in the history of street culture, in Brasília's rap scene, and in the memory of Ceilândia.
Sources consulted by the editorial staff: Correio Braziliense, Metrópoles, Legislative Chamber of the Federal District, Rádio Nacional, Finíssimo and audiovisual recordings from Westside.