Unsound Dispatch: A Brief Overview of Brazilian Funk
GG Albuquerque takes us on a tour of the rich and varied world of Brazilian Funk. Plus: an Unsound Podcast featuring VTSS b2b Sherelle.
Intro
Welcome to the second Unsound Dispatch, which has replaced the Unsound newsletter, with regular features as well as Unsound news.
The main feature for this month is by journalist and academic GG Albuquerque, who began the influential website Volume Morto in 2015 as a place to document the most exciting musical developments in Brazil and the Global South. He’s also the co-founder of Embrazado, a journalistic portal that scours the peripheries of the Brazilian scene. Having published on Bandcamp, Vice, KondZilla and in a slew of other publications, Albuquerque recently released his first feature-length documentary film about São Paulo’s funk scene, focusing on DJ K, whose debut album landed on Nyege Nyege Tapes late in 2023 (he also played a set at our festival last year). An edition of GG Albuquerque’s collected writings will be available via Nyege Nyege Press at the end of 2024.
Albuquerque gave a talk at Unsound 2023 on Brazilian funk as part of the festival’s discourse program. We’ve published a video of the talk on the Unsound Youtube channel – watch it here. As a companion piece, we asked Albuquerque to write an overview of Brazilian funk for the Unsound Dispatch, which you can read below. Additionally, check out this Spotify playlist curated by Albuquerque, which connects to both the piece and the talk.
But that’s not all! We also just dropped Unsound Podcast 99, where you can relive VTSS and Sherelle’s back-to-back set from last year’s festival in Krakow:
Remember, the Unsound Dispatch is free of charge, but any paid subscriptions will go directly into paying for the writing and editing of content here - thanks to those who gave support over the last month.
Mat Schulz, Unsound Artistic Director
A Brief Overview of Brazilian Funk
One day in 1986, anthropologist Hermano Vianna gifted DJ Marlboro with a Boss DR-110 electronic drum machine, taken from the studio of his brother Herbert Vianna, the lead vocalist of the pop-rock band Paralamas do Sucesso. Hermano, studying the emerging Rio funk scene for his sociology master’s degree, received a stern warning from his professor, who cautioned that this seemingly simple gift could radically alter the history of the movement and the people involved. “It’s like giving a rifle to a tribal chief,” the professor reprimanded him. And history did change. Three years later, DJ Marlboro released his album Funk Brasil Vol. 1, one of the genre’s early milestones. Where previous funk LPs, typically compilations, had mostly featured covers of American and European hits, Marlboro’s was the first LP to extensively feature MCs singing their own songs in Portuguese. It went on to sell 250,000 copies.
Since its origins, funk has blended various electronic influences, including Latin freestyle, Miami bass, rap, and electro. Those influences often took on new meaning on Brazilian soil: Kraftwerk’s “Boing Boom Tschak,” for instance, was known in the favelas as “Melô do Porco,” meaning “The Pig Song”, because the funkeiros related the track to the grunts of a pig. Over thirty years after Marlboro’s album, this blend has become even more intense, creating a myriad of funk styles across Brazil—a vast and diverse country. In each region, the music takes on a different form, reflecting the specific characteristics of each funk party, known as a “baile funk.” (In Brazil, the term “baile funk” refers to the parties, while the music is called just “funk.”) Here’s a breakdown of the main styles and how they developed across different areas.
São Paulo: Bruxaria e Ritmado
São Paulo is the most populous city in Brazil and receives people from all over the country, who bring with them different cultural backgrounds and form a very vast and diverse funk culture. In the present day, there are currently two main branches of funk: ritmado (rhythmic) and bruxaria (witchcraft). Ritmado, derived from the word “ritmo” (rhythm), is known for using samples of percussive instruments (such as atabaques and berimbau) and syncopated beats, creating a vibrant energy suitable for the viral dances and choreographies that have spread on TikTok—an important platform for the spread of the genre, both in Brazil and internationally. A good example is “Puta Rara, Puta Mexicana” produced by DJ Jeeh FDC.
Bruxaria, on the other hand, takes a more nocturnal and sinister direction, with artists like DJ K, DJ Blakes, and DJ Rafinha DZ7 incorporating antihero and villain references, along with a noisy and distorted approach to sound. A key component is the locally known “tuin,” a hyper-shrill and pitched sound, as heard in DJ K’s “Isso Não é Um Teste.” This sound connects with the drug culture of the bailes, led by lança, a mixture of chloroethane and perfume that causes sensitivity to high pitched sounds—the music enhances the vibe, and the vibes the music. Another important element is the assobio (whistle), also called passarinho (bird beat), that became especially famous after "Praticante Sedutora 2" by DJ Eduardo.
Recife: Bregafunk
Bregafunk’s roots date back to a period when DJs and MCs in and around Recife emulated the influential funk sounds of Rio de Janeiro. But the genre developed its own signature as it began incorporating elements from other genres in the Northeast of Brazil, a region known for its beaches and tropical music. The current bregafunk is characterized by metallic sounds of pans and bells and intricate rhythmic changes from producers like MK no Beat, Mano Dembele and John Johnis.
Belo Horizonte: Minimalista and Barulhado
Located between Rio and São Paulo, Belo Horizonte funk scenes shifted from hip-hop influences to slower BPMs with atmospheric beats in the 2010s, thanks to DJs like Swat, Gordão do PC, WS da Igrejinha, PH da Serra, TG da Inestan, João da Inestan, and Anderson do Paraíso.
In addition to minimalism, Belo Horizonte also has the noisier barulhado, with saturated and distorted textures featuring horn sounds. These tracks are designed for car soundsystems to be played at high volumes throughout the favelas.
Belém: Tecnofunk
Tecnofunk is a fusion of funk from São Paulo and Rio with tecnomelody, a type of electronic music from the Northern Amazon region. It features a faster and more frenetic beat, popular in massive soundsystem parties known as aparelhagens, accompanied by a unique dance called “treme” (shake), in which dancers shake their shoulders as fast as they can.
South and Midwest: Megafunk and Eletrofunk
Eletrofunk, also known as megafunk in some places, combines funk with house grooves and a specially designed bass for car soundsystem clashes—competitions, in the style of classic Jamaican soundclashes, to determine who can play the best music on the heaviest soundsystem. (In this case, though, the soundsystems are installed in cars). This style is popular in the southern states of Brazil, such as Paraná and Curitiba, and in the Midwest, such as Brasília, where Deboxe is located.
Deboxe started an auto parts store and became an influential soundsystem crew known for building cars packed with speakers playing eletrofunk at the highest volume . They also promote their own parties and festivals.
Rio de Janeiro: Funk Carioca
Rio de Janeiro’s funk, which originated in the 1980s as a local evolution of styles like electro and Miami bass, has undergone various transformations in recent years. The beats of funk carioca (which means the funk from Rio de Janeiro) used to have a standard 130 BPM until 2017, when a new generation of DJs, led by DJ Rennan da Penha, DJ Polyvox, and Iasmin Turbininha, realized that dancers got more excited with a faster pace and decided to speed up to 150 BPM. One of the signature sounds of this movement was the tambor Coca-Cola (Coca-Cola drum), a beat that DJ Polyvox created after recording the sound of his son hitting a Coca-Cola bottle on the door of his home studio.
Following the boom in African popstars such as Burna Boy and a growing interest in African electronic music, the genre later flirted with afro house and kuduro, as seen in Mumu do Tuiuti’s tracks. Now, the scene has returned to 130 BPM, dominating TikTok viral videos with songs like “Sarra nos Menor” and “Tá Ok,” which are composed taking into account the choreographies and dance steps that can go viral and make the song a hit on the platform.
In São Paulo, DJs don’t usually mix on CDJs. They just connect a USB to the soundsystem and play their new tracks, one by one. In Rio the scenario is different: DJs have to mix—and the bailes become interesting places for experimenting with new techniques using CDJs, iPads, and software like Virtual DJ.
At this moment, the most intriguing aspect of funk carioca is connected to DJs who develop a unique mixing methodology, featuring frenetic backspins, sample clusters, DJ tags, and saturated bass. DJ Ramon Sucesso gained prominence through his style showcased in the “Sexta dos Cria” series, posted every Friday. But he’s not the only master of this style, as DJ GL Sucessada explores new possibilities in mixing with videos on his iPad.
The various branches of funk reflect not only Brazil’s musical richness, but also the diversity inherent in the country’s favelas. To truly understand funk, it’s important to understand the cultures that it encompasses. Despite its growing international popularity, in Brazil funk is often viewed in paternalistic manner, due to entrenched classism and racism and related assumptions about funk’s social significance. Even internationally, there’s still a profound lack of knowledge about the scene, and only a few artists—typically those affiliated with international labels—are recognized. Yet funk is a collective and diverse art form that deserves to be appreciated for its originality, nuances, and contribution to Brazil’s rich cultural tapestry, as well as its pertinence to the global history of electronic music.
Watch my Unsound 2023 Talk “Tuin Infernal: Baile Funk Technologies” to go even deeper in the sonic vocabulary, production techniques, and musical innovations of the funkeiros. Also, check out the Spotify playlist I curated, to go with this piece:
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