Stirring the Pot

Timo (aka DJ Rideon) was kind enough to big up my mix A Seleção do Gringo on the Rio Baile Funk blog. But he raised some questions about my admittedly ad homonym (or at the very least sneaky linky) digs at some of my fellow "funky mediators." I expected as much and he's fair to call me out on my URL trickery, so lemme explain:

Diplo -- I've been writing about funk&Rio, among other sounds&cities, for going on a year and a half, but I've largely avoided mentioning Mr. Pentz, whose shadow certainly looms large over the crowd of gringos who've gone south. I have to admit that back in the spring of '06, I was still easing my way into the heady world of int'l sounds, c/o knowledge jewels like Music E-145 (and hey, now I'm the TA!). And it was via Diplodocus that I, like many who live above the equator, first heard of Rio's booty beats. Not that there weren't contemporaries or even precursors -- cf DJ Philomena and the unfortunately-named Slum Dunk Presents Funk Carioca (in part orchestrated by Tetine, who claim the equally unfortunately-named album L.I.C.K. M.Y. F.A.V.E.L.A.)

But I'm definitely of the opinion that some of his early efforts at popularizing the genre were problematic.


Favela On Blast / Favela Strikes Back / Piracy Funds Terrorism


This mixtape triptych from '04, when funk was the hottest thing in the Diplo repetoire, is shockingly disrespectful to the music he was building a reputation on (not to mention the cavalier use of "favela"). All three do not credit any tracks with artists or titles, and in Piracy Funds Terrorism, tracks named "Baile Funk 1" "Baile Funk 2" &c brush up with properly credited MIA mash-ups and dirty south hits.

Why are funk MCs less important as artists than The Clipse?

I'll grant that o movimento funk itself is not known for its scrupulous organization, and plenty of mixtapes you pick up in Rio are creditless too. But it's not like Favela On Blast is chock full of hardcore proibidão (where anonymity is the order of the day) -- it's got mainstream funk hits like Bonde do Vinho's "Labarinto vs. Vem Cá Nenem" (popular here too for using a "Rock the Casbah" instrumental) and one of the many remixes of the Flamengo anthem (both of which are on Seleção do Gringo, properly credited).

Timo points out that I, too, have some uncredited tracks in my mix -- but I tried to avoid them (they are the exception, not the rule) and at the very least I explain why I don't have the info, even after some hunting around Google Brasil.

A review of Favela Strikes Back ultimately argues that such culture vulture moves may not be so bad if, in turn, they translate into $$ (or more precisely R$R$) in the hands of artists, although the review itself really flounders with terms to describe the music (hardly an unknown occurrence outside their indie rock bread and butter). Difficult questions about favela economics (will it just lead to more gringos buying drugs?) and commodification aside, I agree that Diplo and early funkeiros up north certainly paved the way for DJ Sany Pitbull, DJ Sandrinho, and MC Dudu do Borel (among others) to bring the funk direct without relying on such mediators. But how much of a north-south reversal are they making if Sany ends up playing at a place called Favela Chic, which could easily happen the night after he plays the baile funk in the favela of Cantagalo (which in turn I've heard called "baile chique" because of the number of well-heeled cariocas that have been coming up for the party)? And of course, it's only a select class who are making the leap outside of their communities, much less Rio. Trickle-down economics definitely don't apply.

This is, of course, dating back a few years, and I applaud more recent efforts like HeapsDecent and the Favela On Blast film (which could go either way) as making up a little bit for past transgressions.

It's a question if he can really focus long enough on these projects to make sure they come to fruition properly. As Wayne&Wax has already pointed out, move too quick and you'll miss the details.

[After delivering a similar argument in a Music E-145 guest lecture two weeks ago, I copped Soy Cumbia!, a MadDecent podcast mix that is mad indecent -- BsAs champ Sonido Martines loses remix credit and rumor has it that vocal drops and shout outs (y'know, local color, marks of identification) were cut from the beginning of the tracks. Just go listen to Sonido on RuptureRadio . . . he spends a lot more time in BsAs than Philly's finest.]



Essay/Man Recordings: As an acknowledged commercial success with two hit compilations, it might just seem like a case of jealousy. But I think these comps were another opportunity squandered -- the cropped mid-sections of the first cover replicating the same anonymous-as-exotic canard of Diplo's mis- or non-labeling. I feel better about the more recent Funk Mundial and Baile Funk Masters series, as they actually draws distinctions between different DJs and MCs, their personalities, the styles they bring to the table. Funk is not monolithic in this format, and that's a big improvement. Still, as recently as this summer, an MC I'm friendly with who ended up on this release said the contract presented to her was in English and explained to her by a (European) bilingual friend of Man's man on the ground, Daniel Haaksman, who in turn is still struggling through his Portuguese ABCs. I'm really shocked that after so many releases, they haven't gotten their act together enough to find a Brazilian lawyer and draft a contract in the lingua franca (or just have a notário do a certified translation). I haven't seen the contract, although I offered to look it over, so I don't want to claim that it was misrepresented or offers poor terms, but the fact of it still strikes me as a disservice.

CokeGunsBootyBeats: My favorite example of hyper-sensationalized funk coverage. This guy Alex Bellos, "reporting deep from the slums of Rio de Janeiro" like a modern-day Livingstone, has produced one of the most telling statements in English-language press about o mundo funk carioca. "Welcome to the most exciting--and the most dangerous--underground club scene in the world." The real message here is that it's the most exciting because it's the most dangerous. The interest of Bellos ("a world expert on Brazil" ?! -- stick to futebol) and his readership is fueled by an image -- even a fantasy -- of drug- and violence-infested third world slums populated by 12 year olds snorting cocaine and holding AK-47s. Does proibidão, the focus on Bellos' article, revolve around the culture of drug trafficking in Rio? Of course. But it doesn't require such preposterous reporting, cf Machine Gun Voices.
___

All of which makes me appreciate all the more the kind of approach engendered by the Blogariddims series. I realize I'm comparing apples to oranges with a podcast stacked up against record label releases, mixtapes, journalism, and well, another podcast. But there's room in each to show a little more care (and interest -- is it about you or the artists you're bringing to another audience?) w/r/t cross-cultural contact.

Moral of the story: If the world were more like Blogariddims, maybe it'd be a more ethical place.

A Seleção do Gringo, Part 3

Rounding off my mix for Blogariddims, I've got commentary for the final section, which trades in "pós-baile funk" (post-baile funk), a term recently coined by Hermano Vianna, who wrote his master's thesis in anthropology on funk waaaay back in 1988, basically before any track in my mix existed.


I've been reading it this past week in preparation for my own thesis on cultural comings&goings of favelas cariocas and it's been a continuous exercise in reevaluating the stereotypes I've had about the genre's low-tech, low-budget production. In the mid-80s, funk soundsystems were still playing a big mix of American music: disco, soul, American funk, nascent hip-hop. How did they get it? Simple: Find someone with travel agents connections, send them on the Rio-NYC red eye, they'd race around Manhattan for a day buying records, send them back on the NYC-Rio red eye that night. In the pre-Internet, pre-post-9/11 visa days, that was probably the cheapest and most effective way.

Now, 20 years later, funk having evolved through the Volt Mix and tamborzão, it's participating in that global music exchange at a much more equitable level. In the last few years, a considerable number of artists have made the leap out of Rio via albums, singles, and tours. Still small potatoes (cassavas?) compared to the vast scene of MCs and DJs struggling to make ends meet. But, a noteworthy phenomenon nonetheless as it's led to a bigger blending of styles and beats than the straight tamborzão, which at times can get a little rigid in its formula.

18. MC Red Vocal Drop

MC Red isn't a pós-baile funkeiro, just a kid from around the block in Tijuca, but I wanted to share the love on the vocal drops so I had him drop a quick line.

"Eu sou MC Red
Aqui do Rio de Janeiro
É a Seleção do Gringo
Sobre Diáspora de Batidas"

(I'm MC Red
Here from Rio de Janeiro
It's the Gringo's Selection
On the Beat Diaspora)

19. Digitaldubs Soundsystem ft. Mr Catra - Se Liga Nelas


Speaking of diasporas, no better example than Digitaldubs Soundsystem, the premiere reggae outfit in Rio. "Díaspora" is even the name of the first track on their album Brasil Riddims (and a proper riddim to boot!)

Their sense of dub and reggae in as rich a musical environment as Brazil is very ecumenical, including some guest vocals from Mr Catra, who made an appearance a little earlier on the mix. In a sense, Catra is the only funk MC I can imagine doing something like this, as he's more or less the only funk MC accepted outside the movimento funk -- I saw him share the stage with samba-rapper Marcelo D2 and he's well-regarded in the hip-hop community, based chiefly in São Paulo.


[I plugged it once before, but Digitaldubs' selector MPC's baile-dancehall mixtape is still not to be missed.]

20. Cabide DJ - My Neck, My Beck (Remix)

Cabide goes wild in his remixes, and his amazing treatment of Khia's "My Neck, My Beck" is a banger through and through.


21. Sandrinho DJ - Medley Yazoo / Nirvana / Indeep


Sandrinho DJ is a great example of the current wave of funk's international minglings. He's a huge fan of Baltimore club, for one thing, which in its way has a lot in common with funk. Also toured Europe and launched Man Recording's Baile Funk Masters series. In my opinion, he mixes Yaz, Nirvana, and Indeep with the tamborzão way better than those jokers from Curitiba. And, more to the point, he does it all from favela do Borel.


The view from the deck off Sandrinho's studio.

22. DJ Phaybo de Castelo - Electro Base

If Sandrinho bringing in Yazoo was any indication, pós-baile funk is starting to hear the beat more in an electronic than a strictly hip-hop vein, a phenomenon that Vianna writes about in the blog post I linked to at the beginning. Even Mr Catra, when I interviewed him, was convinced that funk achieved popularity in Europe because it was heard as Brazilian electronic music rather than Brazilian hip-hop or any variation of global ghettotech. Then again, the open-minded among us are treating all of it as electronic music.

23. MC Xana - Seduzir Você (Rio Neurótico Mix)

MC Xana has been a funk MC for going on decade, battling it out at bailes in and around Cidade de Deus (City of God). But on this track she sings more than raps/chants, perhaps another indication of the direction pós-baile funk is going. Rio Neurótico, meanwhile, is a side project of the Apavoramento Soundsystem (Apavoramento = terror), a kind of hip(ster?) outfit from the Zona Sul. I find their mixtapes kind of lackluster, although the production on this track is pretty nice. That they would be working with an MC like Xana at all is also an indication of how funk's international success has made it more credible back home.

24. DJ Sany Pitbill ft. MC Loura - Troca Aplica


Now to the maestro, DJ Sany Pitbull, who elicited the title "post-baile funk" in the first place for his "Funk Alemão" (German Funk), a Kraftwerk/funk mash-up. His roots in the movimento go back to the earliest days of Miami bass loops, and after 20 years he's a prime example of a talented and creative DJ who wants to take the sound one step further. He speaks at length in this interview about past/present/future.

25. DJ Sany Pitbull - Amazônia

"Amazônia" is my favorite example of Sany's avant-garde funk beats. He brings in a rave synth -- old-style rave apparently being very popular in Amazônia -- as well as some indigenous chanting. His manager told me he's drawing a thematic link between the violence in the Amazon (the Yanomani massacre in particular) and violence in favelas.

He's told me that if he plays this kind of stuff at a baile funk in Rio, people will come up to him and ask "Are you gonna play rave all night?" They really don't recognize the tamborzão beat in it, but they're the tunes he can bring out in Europe. I can't fault him for wanting to take his music in different directions, and if he has to leave Brazil to find an audience for it, so be it.

26. Cabide DJ - Megamix das Comunidades

Back to Cabide, but not really pós-baile funk, I admit. "Comunidades" was an open-ended track that circulated around Rio in '06 -- basically a roll call of favelas that was appropriated by each MC, who in turn namechecked the communities most important to him or her. Cabide puts it into a "megamix", incorporating snippets from a bunch of popular MCs of the day, including Gil do Andaraí, MC Sapão, Menor do Chapa, MC Sabrina, and probably others I don't recognize. All looped over an Aaliyah sample with some very haunting, even emotional strings. No matter where funk goes musically or geographically, I'm convinced its stronghold is still the comunidades that nurtured it and continue to love it week in, week out. It deserves its place in the nu-whirl music pantheon, certainly, which I'm clearly participating in by featuring it in a Blogariddims mix. But no matter how I hard I try to blog in translation, I've gotta step aside in amazement at the crowds sweating it out on a hot Rio night doing it for themselves and no one else -- the rest of the city, the country, and the world be damned.

27. Pé de Pano Outro

I couldn't be happier about having um pequeno freestyle to close it off, c/o Pé de Pano yet again.

"Humildemente então se liga nessa rima
está geral ligado na diáspora de batida
Tu tá ligado vou mandar no sapatinho
Porque o DJ, o DJ é o Gregzinho
o DJ é o Gregzinho

Tu tá ligado quando eu canto eu não me engano
Para quem não me conhece
Sou MC Pé de Pano

Tu tá ligado vou te dar um papo maneiro
Tu conhece o meu funk aqui do Ro de Janeiro
Tu tá ligado igual meu funk tu não viu

Represento aqui no Rio
Represento o meu Brasil"

Humbly, then, watch out for this rhyme
Everyone's hooked up to the Beat Diaspora
You hear me I'm gonna do it discreetly:
Because the DJ, the DJ is Gregzinho
the DJ is Gregzinho

You're hooked up when I sing I don't deceive myself
For those who don't know me
I'm the MC Pé de Pano

You hear me I'm gonna give you a cool deal
You know my funk here in Rio de Janeiro
You hear me funk like mine you've never heard

I represent here in Rio
I represent my Brasil

A Seleção do Gringo, Part 2

The second part of my Blogariddims funk mix enters a crucial moment in Rio's funk culture: the shift from Volt Mix to the tamborzão (big drum). Maga Bo explains the shift from looped Miami bass beats (mostly of DJ Battery Brain's "808 Volt Mix", held aloft by my man Cabide DJ here) to a new riddim, for lack of a better term, built on the Roland 808. It has become the quintessential funk sound, and definitely its prime sonic signifier for the rest of the world. If reggaeton is the boom-ch-boom-chk, funk is the BOOM-bdoom-boom-boom-boom-boom.

Unlike in Jamaican dancehall, which really cycles through the riddim method, tamborzão is pretty much the sound in contemporary funk. (Not that you can't try and draw lines in between, cf MPC's excellent Baile-Dancehall Mixtape.) It's gotten to the point were some younger funkeiros don't even recognize Miami bass loops as funk. The genre's short memory is definitely an unfortunate phenomenon I've encountered. You can buy funk antigo compilation CDs at the Uruguiana market downtown and I saw one "velha guarda" (old guard) funk show advertised that I missed this past summer, but on the whole it's relentlessly fixated on the newest tracks, newest MCs, newest freestyles about what was going on in the neighborhood during the last week.

Bo describes it as "a big dry sound that works really well on a massive sound system in a mostly open air space." He couldn't be more right, as it's the tamborzão that really shakes up the sound system at a baile funk. This is the beat that does it all up in Rio's hills.

Tamborzão Ruling the Nation

6. Pé de Pano Interlude

Keeping with the Blogariddims exclusive vocal drops, Pé de Pano prepares for the tamborzão explosion.

"Se tu quer vim, pode vir, vai ser bem vindo
Tá tudo mundo ligado na Seleção do Gringo
Tu tá ligado quando eu canto eu não me engano
Para quem não me conheçe eu sou o MC Pé de Pano"

(If you wanna come, you can come, you're welcome
Everyone's connected to the Seleção do Gringo
You're hooked up when I sing I don't deceive myself
For those who don't know me, I'm the MC Pé de Pano)

7. Pé de Pano - Ela Tá Querendo


He segues right into his own track, a nice little dancefloor burner. "Eu não posso passar, ela não pode me ver, ela tá querendo aperecer (I can't get through, she can't see me, she's wanting to make an appearance.)" Borrows an upbeat sample from a '90s American dance hit (I forget the name but I feel like it was ubiquitous at the time) at the end.

8. MC Rose (prod. by DJ Byano) - Nova Holanda

This came from one of the few pirated CDs I've bought over the years that yielded mp3s of decent quality, which unfortunately means I don't know anything about the artist -- never again came across an MC Rose (or a DJ Byano). But the Nova Holanda favela is one I know something about, having paid a visit to the Complexo da Maré in late July. As a complex, or big group of a favelas, it has some notoriety, the rude awakening that greets visitors coming off the Linha Vermelha highway from the airport and into downtown. It's home to a large concentration of Rio's Angolan population (although I couldn't find much on Masala's behalf) and according to MC Rose, the "bonde pesadão (heaviest gang)."

I like this song's mix between Volt Mix and tamborzão beats, as well as the liberal use of Miami bass samples (Hassan's "Pump Up the Party" especially). It bridges the two riddims well and the production definitely has a sense of funk's roots in it.

9. Unknown - Mangueira Remix

Grabbed this from the many gigabytes of funk I've been besieged with by the mysterious DJ Zezinho. I try to avoid unknown artists as much as possible, but even a little Google Brasil hasn't turned up much. The track is worth slipping in for a minute or two, though, because the refrain "Mangueira: Verde e Rosa" refers to the most famous samba school in Rio, Mangueira, and its colors, green and pink. Funk and samba have always been an interesting comparison in my mind, mostly because despite vast musical differences, they've evolved similarly in Rio. Samba had to take refuge in favelas once criminalized in the early 20th century, as funk did in the '90s, but both in turn became wildly popular. Will funk be parading down the Sambódromo anytime soon? Doubtful. But they're not the exact opposites they might first seem to be.

10. Deise Tigrona - Injeção

I originally had no intention of bringing in this song, embroiled as it is in questionable sampling practices (to my knowledge, early releases with "Bucky Done Gun" didn't credit Deise, but later ones did). Flipping through a CD case that DJ Edgar gave me as a parting gift, however, I took a liking to this version for putting the first word "Quando" through a serious sonic blender that isn't on the other version I've heard, which I guess comes from the Mr Bongo comp.

"Injeção" was pretty popular, from what I understand, and is a great example of funk's playful sexuality. "When I go to the doctor, I feel a little pain / I want him to give me an injection, look how big the doctor's is / the injection hurts when it pierces / it's rough when it enters." You get the idea.

Plus, of course, those horns -- a great segue out of the sample in the previous track and into . . .

11. Unknown / Montagem de Rocky

Another Sou Funk EP track, what they call "Rocky Theme" is basically a monatgem (montage), an instrumental mash-up by a DJ. And there's just no hope of finding the person responsible for this one. Montagens circulate like mad, and while every DJ has his own style, using the same material over and over doesn't lend itself to distinction. For what it's worth, Cabide DJ does claim to be the first DJ to use the horn sample. He told me he found it on a CD of cinema soundtracks and thought it sounded cool. That's all it takes . . . I tried explaining the path that led it to M.I.A. and funk's ensuing American popularity, but it didn't really register.

12. Bonde do Vinho - Labirinto vs. Vem Cá Nenem


Another great example of sampling on the it-sounds-good principle. Bonde do Vinho are something of a funk boy band and the song, which relies heavily on The Clash's "Rock the Casbah," doesn't appear to make any reference to its source material. The song is all about meeting some cute girl at a baile, telling her she's gotta dance with everyone in the band, etc. But "Rock the Casbah" is a universally acknowledged dancefloor hit, so why not bring it into the mix? I don't know who produced the song or where he came across The Clash, but it was definitely a fortuitous combination. That said, it's one of very few instances I know of rock or indie being sampled -- there's a Smiths track floating around that I still haven't heard, but I think it's a rarer phenomenon than otherwise represented.

13. DJ Edgar - Flamengo


I'm still Flumninense de coração, but there just aren't any Flu-themed funk remixes. So it's with a certain sense of futébol treason that I bring in Edgar's remix of the Flamengo anthem. It is undeniably catchy, I admit, and the most common football anthem remix I've heard played live (although I know they exist for Botafogo and Vasco, the other major Rio teams).

14. MC Sapão - Diretoria (Radio Mix)

This track has been hot since since I was there last year, probably earlier.

"O natural do Rio é o batidão
A playboyzada e os manos do morrão
Funkeiro é nós com muita disciplina
www.com brasília"

(What's natural to Rio is the big beat
For the playboys and the boys from the big hill
Funkeiros are us with lots of discipline
www.com Brasília)

15. Beto da Caixa - Blindão

Beto dropped the Blogariddims introduction and now I've got a proper track for him. Blindão, which comes from the word for 'armor', is slang for the code of conduct in the favelas (don't steal, don't snitch, don't take someone's girl, etc). Easily my favorite track from '06, I can't get enough of the half-gunshot sample and the chorus "tenho fé não tem o medo, a gente sempre no blindão (I have faith, not fear, we're always in blindão)."

16. Mr Catra - Vem Todo Mundo (Remix / Bass)


Oh Mr Catra, an endless enigma. He is the closest thing to a star that the movimento funk has, trying very hard to straddle a sense of favela roots (even though he grew up in middle-class Tijuca) with national and international success -- having toured Europe a couple of times. He now lives waaaay out in the Zona Oeste of Rio, a nice new house with a pool and plenty of seclusion. It's sort of like a funk pousada (a pousada is a Brazilian guesthouse, usually located in the countryside or in small coastal towns), with a constant stream of DJs and MCs passing through for their brush with greatness.

That said, most of his itinerary is playing huge clubs -- or his favorite, small brothels -- and continuing to wreck his voice by smoking obscene amounts of marijuana. I interviewed him in '06 and he was smoking blunts from when I arrived until when I left, only stopping to take a break for lunch. I began to think this summer that he may just not be worth the hype, but he's still got some classic tracks. "Vem Todo Mundo" is probably his biggest hit and I really like the 909/handclap combo in the background of this remix, which I got off the album "Proibido Para Menores de 18 Anos" (Prohibited for Minors Under 18).

Even Brian Eno has weighed in: "Catra is apparently known as the James Brown of the Booty Beats. It's from brazil, of course, and features the dirtiest and most musical laughter I've ever heard on a record."

17. Menor do Chapa - 1969 Vida Louca


Here's one MC I wish I'd had the chance to meet. He looks like a scrawny white guy with glasses, BUT . . . he churns out the most vicious proibidão funk. Singing exclusively for the Comando Vermelho, as in "1969 Vida Louca", which opens with a brief history of the founding of the CV. At the same time, he's pretty popular with a very high-tech website, a pretty good indication of funk's ascendancy since the days of rough Volt Mix proibidão cuts that had to remain anonymous.

Round 3 Coming Soon: Post-Baile Funk

A Seleção do Gringo, Part 1

I've been a longtime admirer of Blogariddims and its emphasis on dropping serious knowledge jewels in podcast form. So I chomped at the bit when the ringleaders over at The Fear opened it up for a second round.

Unfortunately, I was running on Brazilian time and it all came together past deadline. So grab the mix or better yet the whole series, then take a gander as I try to make some sense of this musical feijoada.

Blogaritmos 28: A Seleção do Gringo

The Beat Diaspora aims to take an ecumenical approach to beats and the cities that inspire them, although over the last year it's largely been usurped by all things carioca. Two consecutive summers of study, research, and volunteer work in Rio de Janeiro have just proved too captivating not to write about. And even if by Northern hype standards I came a year too late to ride the wave of buzz, I was still amazed at how much Rio really does move to the beat of the tamborzão. While there's a small cadre of DJs, MCs, and producers with an eye to the rest of the world (and you'll hear from them at the end), the funk scene doesn't need the rest of the world's attention (nor, for that matter, its crude characterizations, cheap rip-offs, failure to credit artists, and questionable contracts).

In my wanderings around Rio, rolling up to bailes, meeting DJs and MCs, and bartering for pirated CDs, I've amassed quite a bit of tunes. Rather than try to do a "definitive" take on funk, whose inner-workings, trends, ebbs, and flows are still kind of a mystery, I put together a mix of an hour's worth of favorites, roughly divided into funk antigo (old-school) that rides looped Miami bass beats, bangers on the tamborzão (the beat underneath most funk since the late '90s), and a new crop of "pós-baile funk" (post-baile funk), a term coined by Hermano Vianna. Vianna is an anthropologist and music journalist whose book O Mundo Funk Carioca (The Rio Funk World) was the first book-length study of funk waaaaay back in 1988. Granted, it was ahead of its time, but academics (like myself, I must admit) taking their ever-critical eyes to this stuff is going on its 20th anniversary. I don't think I'm in a position to offer any conclusive observations, but it's worth presenting in less sensational terms. Sure, it's wrapped up in the city's complicated and tragic socio-economic-narcotic disparities, and provides an intriguing window into Rio's social relations. But funk has also taken off as national pop music, the tamborzão beat even used for advertising jingles. It's a vast, vast world.

So instead of trying to represent, or re-present, here's my seleção. Selection, literally, but with a more important meaning in Brasil. The seleção is also the national team in a given sport, the proper noun "A Seleção" almost always referring to the national futébol squad. These aren't just any old tracks, but some of my favorites, whether it be for beats, lyrics, samples, community, or an MC or DJ I'm fond of.

As for gringo, that's simple. Rio is a city bringing in millions of tourists a year from the northern hemisphere, and they're all expected to plop down on Copacabana beach and drink caipirinhas. The last place any carioca expects to find gringos is hanging out at bailes funk or, as was the case this summer, actually living in a favela. It's not a term of hostility, just a fact. It's no use trying to act Brazilian, I'll always be the gringo, no matter the circumstances.

Pronto? Vamos.

1. Beto da Caixa Intro / Praia do Leblon

Couldn't resist a few exclusive vocal drops. "Blogaritmos número vinte e oito, é a seleção do gringo, tá ligado? (Blogariddims number twenty-eight, it's the gringo's selection, you understand?)"

c/o Beto da Caixa, one of the MCs I spent the most time with this summer. We hooked up some (digital) dubs for the Liberation Sound System.


And with the generous use of studio time by our main man Sandrinho DJ, who makes an appearance in the mix later on.


Then the soothing sounds of the Atlantic along Leblon beach, a guy hawking cold drinks on a hot Sunday. Everyone congregates here, in theory the beach serves as the city's great democratic space (although that's come under question in recent years). It puts you in the right mood for what comes next.


Part 1: Funk Antigo

2. MCs Júnior e Leonardo - Endereço dos Bailes

Easily my favorite old-school funk hit, "Endereço dos Bailes" (Address of the Bailes) is simple but eloquent.

"No Rio tem mulata e futebol, Cerveja, chopp gelado, muita praia e muito sol, é... Tem muito samba, Fla-Flu no Maracanã, Mas também tem muito funk rolando até de manhã

In Rio there are mulatta chicks [this is a good thing] and soccer
Brews, cold beer, lots of beach and lots of sun
It has lots of samba, Fla-Flu [soccer rivalry] at Maracanã Stadium
But it also has lots of funk rolling through the morning."

After listing all of Rio's tourist attributes, they cinch the quatrain in the fourth line, asserting that funk deserves its place in the city's cultural pantheon. And even at this stage around 1993, they were obviously right, as they go on to rattle off a whole list of bailes that were kicking at the time. Some, like the Clube de Emoções in Rocinha, is still there:




MC Dollares holding it down while the crowd works it out on the dance floor.

The version of this song I got on relatively high-quality mp3 ripped from the Sou Funk EP, which I later discovered was 100% pirated, a pretty rough culture-vulture case. Fortunately, Flamin Hotz Records turned out not to be such bad guys, and I helped them track down which artists we could and pay them back. Júnior and Leonardo were one of them.


Reppin' Sou Funk with Rocinha in the background. In a huge coincidence, the house where they grew up (and where Júnior still lives) backs up to the Instituto Dois Irmãos, where I volunteered these last two summers.

3. MC Mascote - Rocinha e Vidigal

Staying in the Zona Sul (South Side), just behind Leblon Beach is Vidigal, something like a little brother to Rocinha (Rio's largest favela).


The unfortunate juxtaposition of a 5-star Sheraton just below it on the beachfront besides (how guests can sip cocktails and play tennis with this behind them I will never understand), Vidigal is home to the amazing NGO Nós do Morro (Us from the Hill), who interestingly enough trained many of the actors in City of God, which made favelas something of world famous.

MC Mascote, who lives in Rocinha now to my knowledge (although he says he lives in Vidigal in the song), keeps the friendly spirit alive with "Rocinha e Vidigal." With a short "Push It" sample he explains in the chorus, "Quem dança no Vidigal dança na Roça também (Whoever dances in Vidigal dances in Rocinha too)." Kind words for both too: Vidigal is a "morro de valor (worthwhile hill)" and Rocinha "uma comunidade linda, a maior favela da América Latin (a lovely community, the biggest favela in Latin America)." Both of these first two songs are really earnest takes on being proud of your neighborhood, and of course of their blazing bailes funk.

4. Unknown - Morro do Cantagalo Proibidão

Of course, not all songs holding it down for the 'hood are so upbeat. Proibidão (extremely prohibited) is the style of funk that's really raised eyebrows–the songs that big ups the local criminal faction (which is usually paying for the baile anyway), incite them to go to war with one another, and memorialize dead gangsters. Even if you can't understand the lyrics (which mostly talk about the righteousness of the Comando Vermelho, who run the favela of Cantagalo), the gunshots punctuating the track are hard to miss.

No surprise, then, that Paul Sneed, founder of the i2i and a prof at UKansas, would title his study of proibidao "Machine Gun Voices." He makes a brilliant case for the proibidão MC not as another part of the criminal apparatus, but a crucial link between the community and the gangs, speaking from to another in really the only public forum the favelas have. The Comando Vermelho doesn't give press conferences (although I believe they actually did once upon a time). "Rap is CNN for black people," says Chuck D. "Funk is TV Globo for favelados," this anonymous MC might say. It's notoriously hard to find artist names for proibidão by the way, since having your name associated with this stuff can get you in trouble with the authorities (or rival factions, for that matter).


Cantagalo is also the baile da comunidade (free favela party thrown by the local faction) I've visited most, presided over by Rio's finest DJ, Sany Pitbull.


5. Júnior e Leonardo - Rap das Armas

"O meu Brasil é um país tropical
A terra do funk, a terra do carnaval
O meu Rio de Janeiro é um cartão postal
Mas eu vou falar de um problem nacional

My Brasil is a tropical country
The land of funk, the land of Carnival
My Rio de Janeiro is a postcard
But I'm going to speak about a national problem."

I wanted to end the old-school tunes on a peaceful note. Back to my boys Júnior and Leonardo, who had a massively popular hit with "Rap das Armas." They run down a list of heavy weaponry because the difference between an Uzi and an AK-47 is a part of their daily lives.



Here's a recording of them on TV . . . this track was a huge, huge hit. Which made it all the more surprising to hear that later in the '90s, they were so hurting for cash that they had a taxi and drove it in 12-hour shifts each, keeping it on the road 24/7. One hit does not equal success for life. They're on a resurgence, though, planning to tour Europe as part of the release Tropa da Elite, which features "Rap das Armas."
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That brings the old school section to an end. Tamborzão bangers coming soon.