Brazilian funk singer MC Daleste (born Daniel Pellegrine) was laid to rest in Sao Paulo on Monday, two days after his shocking shooting death during a concert in the city of Campinas.
The 20-year-old rising star was honored by a throng of fans who came to the Vila Formosa cemetery, some of whom sang his songs during the ceremony. According to a report by the G1 news service, Pellegrine’s father, Roland, told reporters that his son was done in by the resentment of rivals.
“It was envy. Jealousy kills,” Roland Pellegrine said. “[He] was a very good boy, a charismatic boy, docile. He had no enemies … My son was the king of funk.”
Daleste was performing a free show at a public housing project in the San Martin neighborhood outside of Sao Paulo during the incident, which was caught on tape in a disturbing video (warning graphic images) shot by a fan that has now been screened nearly six million times. In the clip, Daleste can be seen performing and then dropping to the stage suddenly and clutching his stomach.
At his funeral, a fellow funk singer, Leonardo de Freitas (aka MC Leo da Baixada), said Pellegrine was eager to help other rising musicians and lamented that the image of Daleste’s dead body on stage would be the lasting one of his friend.
“We see him onstage trying to cheer everyone and it happens there,” Freitas said (in a page translated from the original Portuguese). “Some people have no heart.” Freitas agreed that Daleste was done in by envy, but would not speculate on who the culprits might have been. Another MC, Rodrigo GR6, rattled off a list of three other funk singers who’ve been killed recently.
Witnesses said Daleste was shot at least twice near the beginning of the show attended by 3,000 fans. He died a short time later after being transported to a local hospital. The homicide division of the Campinas police department has opened an investigation, but at press time no suspects had been named. The fan-shot videos will be crucial to the inquiry, according to police.
“It is a murder of much complexity, every minute new information arrives,” said sheriff Oswaldo Junior Diez. “There are several lines of investigation, from crime of passion to revenge.”
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