Help: Favela funk?

nomos

Administrator
I was wondering if anyone could provide some enlightenment on these new sounds coming out of Brazil.

I've picked up Diplo's Favela On Blast and I've been checking out h0mee's collection (big up, mms), but I've found very little written about this music.

I'm wondering who's making it. Where is it being played? Are there riddem-type tracks floating around for people to rhyme over or is it more song based? I'm also curious whether it has any connection to the Mangue scene, which I've read about but never heard. It sounds like there might be some overlap between the two, at least in terms of their approaches to recombining/indigenizing imported musical elements.

Any insight would be much appreciated.

Cheers
 

redcrescent

Well-known member
A great intro is the 2003 Hyperdub interview with maverick DJ Marlboro here.
You might also want to check the liner notes of Essay Recordings' Rio Baile Funk Favela Booty Beats compilation, here.
Paris club Favela chic have released 2 compilations, Postonove 1 + 2, which also include funk tracks. There is some info on the tracks here.
Not much, but it's a start.
If you speak Portuguese or German, there's quite a bit more.
 

DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
All the tracks use the same exact beat. Or a slight variation on it. It's great though. It's been around forever too.

If you go on ishkur.com he has a guide to electronic music, if you look under breaks he has a little box for "Rio Funk", there are samples of 3 tracks. One of them is called "Tapinha" by As Meninhas if I remember correctly. However that is not what the track is since As Meninhas means "The Girls" and the vocals are really gruff. Does anyone by any chance know what this track is? It is so awesome...
 

DavidD

can't be stopped
Anyone know where I can buy the Favela Booty Beats comp? I ordered it like 3 weeks ago from one site but then it was backordered and then cancelled.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
redcrescent said:
A great intro is the 2003 Hyperdub interview with maverick DJ Marlboro here.
You might also want to check the liner notes of Essay Recordings' Rio Baile Funk Favela Booty Beats compilation, here.
Paris club Favela chic have released 2 compilations, Postonove 1 + 2, which also include funk tracks. There is some info on the tracks here.
Not much, but it's a start.
If you speak Portuguese or German, there's quite a bit more.
woah awesome links redcresent. the hyperdub interview with dj marlboro is excellent. never saw that before. a colleague recently accompanied him on a (I think) 12 parties in one night tour of london and the south-east which sounded in his recounting of it, both utterly bizarre and mash-up.
 

redcrescent

Well-known member
Thank you, autonomic/WOEBOT. That 12-venue jaunt in one night sounds surreal - was no one with a camera on hand to film it?

Here's something else you might want to tune into tomorrow (Tuesday), 1 PM GMT on Resonance FM:

"Slum Dunk presented by Eliete Mejorado & Bruno Verner
New electronic and experimental music from the Brazilian slums and beyond. Slum Dunk proudly dedicates this show to our first Funk Carioca compilation 'Slum Dunk Presents Funk Carioca' mixed by Tetine. This show also celebrates one year of the Slum Dunk radio show on Resonance FM. Expect the best of Brazilian ghetto electro from the favelas, give aways and other surprises! Also a special interview with the King of Funk Carioca DJ MARLBORO! Unmissable!"
(Somebody tape this, please!)

Tetine also have a club night called Slum Dunk at Guanabara in Covent Garden on Wednesdays, which sounds like a really good time.
Tetine also release their album (Bonde do Tetão) and Funk Carioca compilation soon. Details on their site.
 

DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
I once stumbled onto a streaming broadcast of some brazilian funk but the next day the link was dead. I noticed that a lot of the songs they played were more like the freestyle (80's latino dance music) stuff with singing than the rapping that is featured on this comps. Where's that stuff?
 

redcrescent

Well-known member
All London favelistas...

Wednesday 20, 9 PM (free before 10) @ Guanabara (Parker Street Corner of Drury Lane, London WC2B 5PW)
SLUM DUNK with Tetine (a.k.a. Eliete Mejorado & Bruno Verner, Resonance FM show hosts - anyone catch their show today?)
"Sao Paulo's notorious artists play another jumping set of dirty-electro-disco-punk known as Funk Carioca!
In all senses funk has been Bazil's bastard pop for year's and Funk Carioca is a direct descendent of the parties of the 1970s, held on the outskirts of Rio, where crowds came to listen to US soul music. The change from soul to funk carioca occurred when a group of plugged-in locals started to make a more tropical and sensual version of the gringo beats. It was much more fun to dance to and more enjoyable to hear words spoken in Portuguese, since no one understood English in the favelas. The parties became more colourful and energised and Funk Carioca was born, becoming without doubt the most genuine form of Brazilian electronic music."

and...
Thursday 21 @ Guanabara
Mr Bongo's Brazilian Beats
DJ's Mr Bongo and Jiva play all the latest Brazilian grooves, from hip hop to funk carioca plus the latest Brazilian films and visuals.

Enjoy! I'd be elated if someone picks up on this.

(meanwhile, over here in ol' Austria, we're.... yawnnn...)
 

DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
What does "carioca" mean? Google language tools is useless with this stuff. Half the words in the lyrics do not get translated at all.
 

bun-u

Trumpet Police
"carioca" is the slang for rio inhabitant, like cockney.....

you should've seen the disdain i got from staff in regular rio record stores, when I asked for this favela stuff, like I'd asked to shit in their beds or something...I finally found the compilations (usually bootlegged) in the markets. I really tried to get to a funk party but the nearest I got were 'hippy hoppy parties' where the predominant US stuff was interrupted by the odd funk track
 

nomos

Administrator
embora

I once used the Google tranlator to find out what Argentine Indymedia was saying about the anti-IMF uprising there. It got all philosophical on me: "And everyone wanted to know nothing."

Similar problems figuring out what people are saying in these songs. I guess I shouldn't expect much. It would be like throwing all the terms from the grime slang thread in there (translate english to english?) and expecting good results. I'm having trouble believing that the fellow who repeats "toma t-to t-toma" about hundred times on Favela on Blast is actually saying "it takes, it t-t takes." But you never know.
 

DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
bun-u said:
you should've seen the disdain i got from staff in regular rio record stores, when I asked for this favela stuff, like I'd asked to shit in their beds or something..

Man...don't they know what they got there? This is like the coolest music i've heard recently. Not on an intellectual/rational level but on a more primal level. A big part of it is the fact that I have no idea what they are saying...that, and how they shout everything. It reminds me of when I used to listen to hip-hop as a kid when I did not know English. The sounds and rhythms of Portuguese are very cool.

It must be the distance too. Baltimore breaks (known as club music here in B-more) has been grouped with rio funk by Simon in that whole shanty house thing. I live in Baltimore and while the only radio here worth listening is the local hip hop station when they do the club mixes, I don't go out of my way to listen to it. You do see the ocasional mix cd in stores here but I have no idea where the music really circulates. Like the actual 12''...or cd's. I am pretty sure they mix with cd's now since I heard those cheesy Pioneer CDJ zap effects in the mix. I guess dj's just get these straight from producers or make them themselves.
 
i went to guanabara's funk carioca night last wednesday and may go again tomorrow. but i must have been the only punter there who wasn't somehow a member of staff or one of their friends. I like that music, but it'll be a while before it's draws a crowd here in London. Alas!
 

mms

sometimes
echo-friendly said:
i went to guanabara's funk carioca night last wednesday and may go again tomorrow. but i must have been the only punter there who wasn't somehow a member of staff or one of their friends. I like that music, but it'll be a while before it's draws a crowd here in London. Alas!


i was gonna go down last week, a mate knows the couple that do it, they are putting out a comp and a 12" of music.
alas felt s superknackered, i think i'll come down when I've got some cash.
dissensus should do a night out :)
 

redcrescent

Well-known member
@ echo-friendly

Nice one! If funky do morro gets a rep, you can say you saw it coming way ahead of everyone else...
More reports please.
 
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