Wednesday, May 11, 2005

meu microfone é um fuzil...

the slums outside of Rio in Brazil are totally fucked. police can't enter because drug lords own the territory, and the drug dealers think nothing of shooting someone with their AK's for crossing into their territory or looking at them the wrong way. at their parties, 12 year olds can be seen carrying guns and doing lines of coke. the favelas are a pretty destroyed place. yet, at the moment some euro and american djs are discovering their music - baile funk.

Baile Funk (aka funk carioca) is amazing. it draws on american hiphop and miami booty bass as well as brazilian musics like MPB (musica popular brasileira) and is unabashedly sex/drugs/guns themed, but it is spectacular lo-fi DIY angry folk music from a lost sector of society. Diplo put 3 tracks of baile funk on Piracy Funds Terrorism, and did the Favela on Blast mix I mentioned a while back, but there's lot's more to the story. there's a few new compilations on the way or just released as well. still, in any reputable neighborhood this music is the lowest of the low, a signifier of the class that lives that life.

check out Funky Do Morro for some more info/tracks from the favela musical underground

No comments: