Guinea-Bissau was one of the African countries that suffered from European colonization for
centuries and gained its independence on September 24, 1973, through an armed struggle that
lasted eleven years. Throughout the process of creating and consolidating a society free and
independent of the colonial yoke, which persisted for centuries with the European invasion of
Africa, in Guinea-Bissau, the songs, also called popular songs, like other customs and
traditional manifestations, also served as tools to resist the European acculturation imposed at
the time. As in all African countries, songs are indispensable elements of coexistence and
dissemination of culture, and it is an instrument that keeps the secrets, stories and codes of
oral tradition shared in initiation ceremonies and rituals, at wedding parties, crops and
harvests, in funeral and religious ceremonies. The present work entitled Popular songs as
cultural resistance against Portuguese colonialism in Guinea-Bissau, discusses the importance
and role played by artists, poets and musicians and their works in the struggle for
independence, in the affirmation of a national identity and in the consolidation of a sovereign
state, they being the main elements of cultural manifestations, in which social codes are
shared. The guiding question of the research asks how these voices and lyrics theorize popular
resistance against Portuguese colonialism in Guinea-Bissau? In this literary context and in the
struggle for freedom, José Carlos Schwarz stands out, an important musician and poet from
Guinea-Bissau, considered the pioneer of modern Guinean music, is one of the reference
names in this dissertation, since he used his voice and lyrics for the various complaints about
the ideologies and intentions of the then colonial government, as well as the governmental
system implemented after the struggle. The general objective was to analyze the impact of
Guinean popular songs in the struggle for independence in Guinea-Bissau. And as specific
objectives, to identify the denouncements marked in the songs of José Carlos Schwarz,
through popular Guinean sayings and proverbs; analyze the complaints found in the songs in
relation to the period of the struggle for independence; describe the impact of these songs on
the mobilization of the Guinean population during the periods of the armed struggle for the
country's independence. It is a bibliographic research, in which it researches the historical,
political and social context of the period of independence of Guinea-Bissau, to analyze the
lyrics of the songs of that period. It is concluded that the study was important for contributing
to the circulation of these Guinean songs, essential in the construction and preservation of the
Guinean national identity and in the formation of a critical society, which encourages the
critical reading of the lyrics and reveres the voices that were used in proverbs and popular
sayings in the denunciation and to call the people to the fight.
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