Favela on Cast

There's been some funk action on the podcast front for the last month or so, but the arrival of Sany DJ's new mix is too good not to holler about. Check these out:

• DJ Mavi: Dropped in early August with his first set, but apparently fell off since there hasn't been anything since. Funk light for sure, if you want something pretty pop-oriented.

• Mad Decent Worldwide Radio (click 'podcast' in the upper-right corner): "a sort of NPR for the streets" from Diplo & co., you've probably heard of it by now. It's crisscrossed from Bmore to Brasil to Buenos Aires to Nawlins, and even dropped by my new stomping grounds on its second to last incarnation. Deserves credit for not just uploading party mixes, but using the podcast as its own format by splicing interviews into the milieu.

• Carioca Funk Clube: Launched by Adriana Pittigliani, who I've written about previously, the publicity manager (for lack of a better term) of Sany DJ. Definitely the most reliable podcast coming out of Rio right now. It starts with an old bossa nova bit by her father, who was apparently of some fame in Rio back in the '50s and '60s, but then segues into straight funk. "Rio Bootylegs 2006", "Faroeste Mixtape", and "Funkin' the Classics" all pretty much pull verbatim from the CDs she burned me the week before I left Rio. I guess I've become the bellweather of what Americans would want to listen to, for better or for worse. So if you like any of those three, I can probably pass on specific tracks -- drop a comment my way. I'll leave a few at the end of the post though. ("Funkin' the Classics" is more or less off-limits, however, as they're unreleased tracks from his upcoming album that I was told not to share. Sorry, you'll just have to wait for the Sany melody in my funk mix, once I get around to learning how to use Ableton properly.)

The best mix so far, however, is the just-released "Baile Funk Big Bang" (latest on Carioca Funk Clube, #8 on the Mad Decent roster). Sany pulls out turntables to take a tour through the Miami bass and freestyle that's one of the principle influences on funk, and expertly connects the dots with Rio tracks that borrow the Miami beat, but lay some of the earliest Portuguese rap vocals overtop.

Highlights:

• The 13-minute mark, where "Summer Lovin'" gets the original funk treatment, far more legit than any obnoxious treatment by Bonde do Role (somehow I'm not surprised the "Funk da Esfiha" parody was about 10 years too late -- Curitiba's planned middle class neighborhoods [where BdR hails from] aren't exactly a hotbed of funk).
• 16:24, as 2 Live Crew's "Do Wah Diddy" slips right over to a Brazilian interpretation, "Mêlo de Mulher Feia," the MC's humorous (and sexist -- obviously not too much was lost in translation) account of a mulher feia ("ugly woman") coming to the baile.

This mix is particularly exciting to me as a vindication of the Miami bass compilations I bought at Uruguiana, as over half of the two dozen songs I found are in Sany's mix. Even 15+ years later, the same Miami bass tracks are circulating in the pirate markets.

Gigolo Tony - It's the Gigolo
Madonna - Hung Up (Sany DJ Funk Remix)