José Eduardo Paulino dos Santos (born September 28, 1984), also known by his stage name Coréon Dú, is an Angolan recording artist, creative director, designer, screenwriter, and producer.
Coréon Dú was born in Luanda, Angola in 1984, to José Eduardo dos Santos and Dr.Maria Luisa Perdigão Abrantes, a lawyer and law professor.
This documentary follows stars of this urban phenomenon, including appearances from trans performer and advocate Titica, Nagrelha, Eduardo Paim e Cabo Snoop.
This project was accompanied by a series of conceptual music videos shot using natural and urban landscapes from his home country and some avant-garde that gained a positive response from both fans and critics.
[25] Coréon's second album's first single "Bailando Kizomba" was released in February 2014 and remained within the top 30 positions of the Billboard Latin Charts from the Spring of 2014 to the Fall of 2014.
According to the artist's recent interviews, WeDú's main objective is to provide comfort and allow each individual to express his or her own creativity in the everyday through how they wear it.
[29] Coréon Dú's model scouting efforts have also led to great successes cited in fashion & lifestyle media including VOGUE Italia [30] .
In an effort to advocate for gender equality, he established the Divas Angola Awards in 2007 to celebrate the achievements of women in business, education, fashion, sports, music and philanthropy.
Notable international artists such as Latin legend Juan Luis Guerra, the award-winning Adriana Calcanhotto, and Paula Lima have performed past editions of the event in support of the cause of gender equality.
[46][47] And since its premiere that same year, the educational space caused said conservatives to complain and also criticize that the program was perverting the minds of young people, although it was still popular and because it and also in most cases was politically incorrect.
[48][49][50][51] Health professionals such as psychologists and other experts were invited on the show, who would answer questions in the studio for interaction,[52][53][54][55] and on the street, public figures who shared personal life histories on a wide range of topics of this world of human sexuality: relationships, infertility, pregnancies, abuses, sex toys, prostitution, pornography, "STD" prevention advices, etc.
The contest has produced some of the biggest dance related celebrities in Angolan pop culture including dancer/choreographer Manuel Kanza[57][58] who has been teaching kuduro, afrobeat and hip hop classes all over the world.
[62][63] Semba was at the time the only production company that did not censor Angolan superstar Titica from their programming after she was banned from most local media and events for publicly revealing that she was a transsexual person and not born a biological woman.
She was also prominently featured in Coréon Dú's I Love Kuduro Festival in Angola, Berlin and in Rio de Janeiro, as well as the eponymous documentary, which has helped her ascend into international success and further visibility to her commercial and non-profit efforts.
Da Banda, a part of the Semba Comunicação Group, was also responsible for organizing the Elite Model Look Contests in Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, and South Africa.
[70] Coréon's scouting and mentoring efforts yielded results from the start with one of his first discoveries being Roberta Narciso who became a finalist in the Elite Model Look World Final and made her debut January 2011 at Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week at the Valentino show.
[72] In 2011 she moved to Lisbon, Portugal where she became a favorite model of several local designers and editorial creatives before she was hand-picked by Riccardo Tisci for an exclusive deal with Givenchy which catapulted her into international stardom.
Coréon's most recent discovery Blésnya Minher, from the Lunda Norte province of Angola, has given strong first steps in the fashion world debuting her career in style landing the Spring/Summer 2017 campaign with Valentino followed by an exclusive contract with Calvin Klein which ended spring of 2018.
The two collaborated professionally in 2004 when Coréon was working in the wardrobe department of soap opera Sede de Viver and in previous local fashion weeks in Angola.
However, in 2009, Costa started working closely with Coréon having been the star of his first fictional short film Momentos de Gloria and later in his first international production Voo Directo for RTP.
According to an anecdote by the actress, Coréon challenged her to start preparing for the role by removing her hair extensions and stop relaxing her hair which she claims was a shock at first, but really allowed her to connect with the essence of the character on a deeper level even before the production team provided her with additional acting coaching and training for the stunts and combat choreography she needed to perform as Queen Njinnga Mbandi.
[99][100][101] Coréon Dú has established himself as somewhat of an independent thinker focused on arts, empowering young Angolans with creative talent, as well as creating visibility opportunities for LGBTQ professionals locally and regionally.
[107][105][106] Angolan entertainment news outlet shared a video excerpt of an Instagram live chat between Coréon and his fans where he mentions his fears of returning to Angola due to threats to his safety and potential political violence against him.
[146][147][148] Windeck, the soap series written and produced by Coréon, has had some similar issues due to well-known actors, such as leading man Freddy Costa and Borges Macula, playing gays characters.
[159][160] In interviews Coréon Dú mentioned his choice to no longer live in Angola full-time since 2014 and indefinitely leaving his home-country in 2017 due to being a target of a growing institutionalized homophobia and increasing political intolerance.
After public dismay of the new programming and cancellation of some favourite television shows in January 2018 the Angolan Government's new leadership tried to save face and approval ratings by throwing Coréon and his company under the bus.
[167][168] To which the station and Ministry of Social Communication of the country then made a public statement with the excuse that the lack of image quality was due to a temporary technical difficulty that was soon to be resolved.
[180][181][182][183][184] Some infer that this move was not only to attempt to denigrate Dú's image amongst the more conservative population, but also due to fear that especially the LGBT community would start to organize socially to advocate more aggressively for their civil rights.
In the same, an official press release from Angola's Ministry of Media and Telecommunications ordered that, by midnight of April 21, 2021, all local and regional pay-TV services stop broadcasting VIDA TV, which broadcasts a large amount of content licensed and/or produced by Coréon Dú's production team, including several popular entertainment formats created by Coréon himself, such as Tchilar, Bodas, Hora Quente, Flash Sempre a Subir, etc.
This measure was denounced by the Angolan Journalists Union (Sindicatos dos Jornalistas Angolanos) as well as local activists and public figures as an act of censorship with the intention to silence freedom of press [195] and enterprise for media not owned or controlled by people connected to government or people in their sphere of influence as in the past three years the largest Angolan private media has been taken into government control.