WIZARDS-OF-OS 4 Brasil, the free cultural nation: (by SABRINA FIDALGO & FABIAN RESS) Digital culture in Brazil - "BAILE FUNK" (IMPORTANT: BAILE FUNK started as a form of party Baile=ball and turned into the name for this new style of music = FUNK CARIOCA) - What is Baile Funk? - Where does Baile Funk come from? - The history about Baile Funk __(from the 60s until NOW) - Baile Funk international - Baile Funk and it´s role in the digital culture __in Brazil and worldwide

BACK     ___BATIDÃO ___Uma história do FUNK ___by SILVIO ESSINGER ___(Editora RECORD, 2005)

What is Baile Funk?

Baile Funk was born as a kind of party especially for dancing. They came up only in the Favelas and poor areas of Rio de Janeiro.
Baile Funk started already in the 60s with the aim to give an option to party for the poor and underprivileged people of the suburbs and favelas.

At the beginning the sort of music that was played was soul and funk from the USA. Some years after, more and more different influences happened. At the end of the 80s with the appearence of electronic/digital music from f.e. Kraftwerk from Germany, Funk music changed and somehow emerged as Electro, Freestyle and after all Miami Bass in the middle of the decade.
With the beginning of Miami Bass, Baile funk turned into as we know it today.

This kind of Baile Funk beat has no more link to the real funk music from the past, but it became the name of this kind of music as we know it. "Baile Funk or Funk Carioca".

Where baile funk comes from?

Since the beginning, Baile Funk was made by ... and for por people from the poor suburbs (north zone of Rio) and favelas.
In the south zone, this phenomenon only exists since the beginning of the 90s.

Rio de Janeiro including its suburbs has a population of nearly 12 million people, nearly 1/3 of the habitants are poor and unprivileged and live in favelas. There are around 700 favela comunities within Rio de Janeiro.
Every 3 out of 4 inhabitants of the favelas (slums) are black or so called mulattos.

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History of Baile Funk.

The first bailes in rio were originally from the need to give the people with less social conditions a possibility to enjoy themselves celebrating in their leisure time. With the black american music like funk and soul, also in Rio a new black movement (Movimento Black) has started.

After a short time the scene was growing and names like Toni Tornado and Gerson King Combo built up the national soul and funk scene.
The parties were a kind of phenomenon which only took place in this unprivileged areas, far away from the city center and the south zone includes f.e. Copacabana, Ipanema, Botafogo or Leblon, where the usually the richer people live.

Every weekend there were more than 500 balls in the suburbs. With the perspective of dancing and enjoying the music, the parties became more professional as events and the first soundsystems were born.
Along with technique and djs, soundsystems like Furacão 2000 (which originally were djs for rock music from Petrópolis) or Soul Grand Prix, from Rio, started to organize these events reaching a capacity for more than 5.000 peoples.

The philosophy of the black consciousness even has been lost with the start of the disco era.
From the end of the 70s, the so called "Baile Soul" became strong influenced from new styles of sounds and the balls had its first rebirth.
With electronic sounds and the first raps from New York´s ghettos like Grand Master Flash or Africa Bambaataa, (already using loops and scratches) as well as in Florida the Miami Bass movement with artists like the famous 2life Crew, (using a lot the strong basses of the Roland T808) also the sound in Rio has changed a lot.

Producers like DJ Marlboro started playing this new kind of sounds, at the beginning of the 80s, which were still very underground in Brazil.
As the audience neither understood English, nor knew the name of the songs or lyrics, they named it baile funk, still there and so became the name as it still is nowadays.

The songs were given Portuguese names only from its way of understanding.
So, for exemple, the song "Do wah diddy" from 2live Crew became called "Melô da mulher feia" (melody of the ugly women).

So being the first, DJ MARLBORO had the idea to remix the song and have a Brazilian singing (Abdullah) to it and produced the first brazilian Miami Bass, which turned out to be a hit and was played in nearly every radio station in Rio.

At that time also the middle class realized the existence of this kind of events/sounds because of the radios.
Violence in soa me bailes, the influence of drug dealers and organized criminals as well also the media started to make such pressure regarding these balls, that they even became forbidden for a while.

Nowadays there are still Baile Funk parties all over Rio and also in the rest of the country. Brazilian artists started to present this music also worldwide.

In Rio itself it´s the main movement today, independ from the social class, young people started to enjoy these parties and there are more than 700 events every week.

Baile Funk International.

The Phenomenon of Baile Funk outside Brazil started through the curiosity of some foreign producers and labels, at the beginning of this decade. DJ Fat Boy Slim (UK) started to play Baile Funk in his sets around 2003. But it was through an international TV Spot of Nissan, that Baile Funk beats became internationaly known. In 2003 the song "Quem que cagüetou?" of Hip Hop Mcs Black Alien and Speed, from Niteroi, produzed by Tejo (from the collective "Instituto" from São Paulo), was the main theme of the British AD of the pick up "X-Trail".
The spot was shown worldwide and many people became curious about this "new kind of sound".

At the same time, Dj Marlboro started his first DJ tour in Europe, where he played Baile Funk tunes for the first time in Clubs like Favela Chic in Paris (one of the main supporters of Baile Funk in Europe), as well as in electronic music festivals such as Sónar, in Barcelona, as also in some clubs in London.

One year later, based in Berlin, the German DJ, producer and journalist Daniel Haaksman has compiled the CD "Rio Baile Funk Favela Booty Beats", which became a top selling album worldwide, and two years later, in 2006, he compiled more Baile Funk tunes for "More Favela Booty Beats", both albums released by Essay Recordings.

From the same label, in 2005, came out also the Compilation "Coconut FM", produced by the German producer Uwe Schmidt, aka Señor Coconut, who has chosen some Baile Funk tracks like "Gira" featuring Alessandra such as "Nova Dança" (Melô do James Brown) and "Labirinto dos Carrascos" to represent the Brazilian underground scene in the compilation.

Also in 2005, the Italian label Irma Records came with the fourth CD of the serie Colors Music named "Rio Funk", presenting some funk tracks produced in any of Rio de Janeiro´s 700 favelas.

Yet in 2004, the DJ and Producer DIPLO (USA) was for the first time in Rio to research Baile Funk Balls and Tunes after he has been introduced to some Baile Funk songs in Philadelphia.

Born in Mississipi and raised in Florida, he knew that familiar beat, which remainded him to the 80´s old-school Miami Bass, and became a kind of international Baile Funk´s ambassador by including in his sets wordwilde a huge amount of baile funk tunes.

He bought the music rights of the song Injeção", from Marlboro, - big brazilian success sung by ex-maid Deize Tigrona from Cidade de Deus - and re-created it in a quite similar version with some addicional production´s beats sung by based in London and born in Sri Lanka solo artist M.I.A.
"Injeção" became "Buck Done Gone" and appeared on M.I.A´s first album "Aurular", which became a big hit worldwilde.

Nowadays, Baile Funk still hasn´t reached so much popularity compared to other electronic rhythms/beats or to brazilian rhythms like "Bossa Nova", "Samba", "Forró" or "Samba-Funk".

Even though there are already lots of international DJs and producers playing this sound in their sets and including it in their compilations.
And the appearence of some international Baile Funk acts like the in London based duo "Tetine", formed by Bruno Verner and Eliete Mejorado from São Paulo, who mix in their sound Punk/baile Funk/Miami Bass, and "FAVELA FUNK MCs" from Berlin, of the carioca singer and MC Bani Silva together with the DJ and producer Ronaldobossa (suBa Berlin) from Salvador.

These acts are producing, singing and performing "Baile Funk" outside of Brazil, far away of the suburbian clubs and favelas of Rio de Janeiro and spreading out the idea and conception of this genuine Brazilian Electronic Music (BEM).

Baile Funk and it´s role in the digital culture.
- national and international

Baile funk still gets more and more popular in Brazil, but also worldwide.
This happens because the presence in the national medias of Brazil has grown a lot in the last years.
Were it at the beginning only the radios (as radios communitarios,broadcasted from the favelas) who presented "Baile Funk", also the TVs became more and more interested in this phenomenon.

After DJ Marlboro also reached an international success, he f.e. also became a frequent guest at Brazilians biggest TV show, the "Domingão do Faustão", which is broadcasted every sunday at TV Globo with a hugh audience, and short after, Baile Funk also appeared in famous soap operas (novelas) as "America" (TV Globo), in 2005.

In spite of the presence on TV, baile funk became also an example of how important the internet is. As the number 1. medium to push this music to its international success. Websites, like "myspace.com" have started to create new stars, independent of the style of music.
Also for Baile funk the new way to get contacts, or even to deal directly with music labels started over the internet.

F.e. the music from "Bonde do Role", the latest newcomers from Brazil who already toured in the USA and Canada were discovered at "myspace". From there they showed up in some independent internet radios and finally got a contract with Diplos Label „Mad Decent“.

But also the internet community "orkut" from Google (a huge success in Brazil), takes part as communication platform to promote parties and artists as also to give information about where to find and download the newest sounds.

DJs who got in touch through by the internet started to change out loops or even they started to produce music together over long distances in a short period of time.

Brazil is a fast growing nation regarding computer technology.
Only this year, already more than half a million computers were bought all over the country.

This together, including blogs (fotologs, myspace, youtube,orkut) helps a lot to distribute this native cariocan phenomenon "Baile Funk".

Specially Baile Funk, born as a 100% Rio thing has changed a lot behind the international publicity.

As there are many people making Baile Funk successfully but actually do not come from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro where Funk Carioca actually comes from, the real funkeiros are still in their ghettos, earning little money by doing their shows and still today with few proposals from major labels.

Information are taken from:
-Batidão – uma história do FUNK by Silvio Essinger (RECORD)
-“Wikipedia online“

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