Who makes the most exciting electronic music in the world and why is it always Brazil?
In the last couple of years we’ve witnessed a breakthrough moment (again) for the country’s funk scene, an ever-expanding universe of bone-shaking low-end, CDJ theatrics, synesthetic drug cocktails, barking MCs, extreme production choices and a fuckton of wraparound sunglasses.
We’re following on as best we can from 6,000 miles away. But as well as listening to Living Gatlato and hanging onto every recco from funk blogger Bill Differen, we’ve recently learned so much more about baile culture from GG Albuquerque. GG is a journalist and academic researcher from Recife, who last year accompanied São Paulo’s DJ K on tour in Europe where they both performed at Unsound, with GG giving a talk on funk culture that was a highlight of the festival.
We had to have him on – and we had so many questions for GG that we’ve made this into our first ever No Tags two-parter. So we begin this week with a dive into the trajectory of funk over the past decade, from KondZilla to 150 to bruxaria, with detours into music distribution, DJ culture, the pacification of the favelas and the real favourite tipple of funkeiras.
We also get into our Warhammer mailbag with a frankly conversation-ending contribution from internet thinker Jay Springett, whose own 301-second podcast you should immediately subscribe to. Plus, inevitably, a brief note on Brat.
If you like what we’re doing on No Tags, please do all the good things for us: follow, rate and review on your podcast app of choice, correspond with us on Substack or wherever, and consider subscribing to our paid tier. Thanks for listening/reading!
Tom Lea: It'd be good to start with a quick introduction – where are you from? What do you do?
GG Albuquerque: My name is GG Albuquerque. I'm from Recife, it's a city on the north-east side of Brazil. We have baile funk culture here but it's totally different from São Paulo or Rio, which is something you're more used to. And I'm also an academic researcher, I'm finishing my PhD which is about Black electronic music and sound technology, focused on baile funk, kuduro, singeli and Balani Show. Also I'm a filmmaker, I'm releasing my first full-length movie called Terror Mandelão, which is about DJ K and the baile funk of São Paulo, the bruxeria scene that is now emerging. It's an experimental documentary, we just released it in Brazil at the movie festivals. Hopefully we will be releasing in Europe too this year.
Tom Lea: Is there anything else you’re involved in, events or anything like that?
GG Albuquerque: No, I don't work with events. I was involved with a lot of stuff from DJ K, his release through Nyege Nyege Tapes and his tour. We became friends, and this was a universe that he was not familiar with. Also he was going through a hard moment in his career, he was thinking about giving up. He didn't even want to do the European tour last year because his career was not going well, he had some financial problems, and then I was like, ‘Okay, but we can find a way to do it.’ And that’s it. I don't work with events or bailes directly.
Chal Ravens: We know that there are multiple styles of funk from different cities and regions, and within those there are subgenres – sometimes almost specific to individual DJs, as with DJ K. There are probably seven or eight genre names that I’ve seen in recent years [bruxeria, mandelão, 150, ostentação, proibidão…] and it can be hard to get a sense of how they relate to each other. Could you give us a brief overview?
GG Albuquerque: That's a big question. But the first thing you have to keep in mind is that funk is like a national music in Brazil, and Brazil is the size of a continent. So basically every region in Brazil has its own culture. Sometimes someone in São Paulo doesn't know the cultural values of the north of Brazil, so it's like a different country. even though there's some connections and some links. Baile funk cuts across Brazil, but it transforms its sound in each region.
Sometimes there are national hits, like one of the most streamed songs last year in Brazil was ‘Baile Do Bruxo’, a project by the soccer player Ronaldinho Gaúcho, with a DJ – when I say DJ, keep in mind that it's the producer, because in baile funk people say DJ when it’s a producer. So it's a producer from Belo Horizonte [DJ Ws da Igrejinha] and some singers from São Paulo, and this song became a national hit but it was remixed in each different area of Brazil, so you have a lot of versions of the same song.
This expansion of funk becoming a big thing on the national scale was [because of] the internet and music videos, especially about 2013, when Brazil had political improvements with the left governments of Lula and Dilma [Vana Rousseff] from the Workers’ Party, and we had more money. People could buy smartphones, notebooks. It’s interesting because there are studies that show that most computers at the time were bought by people from the lower classes. So these people were connecting to a culture that was going online. Before that, they couldn't access it. If you were in Recife it was hard to access baile funk culture because it was more limited to Rio [and places] like that. So at that point it became easier to access this new culture, these new trends.
I think this was an important moment. KondZilla at some point was like the third biggest YouTube channel in the world, producing music videos of baile funk. Now it's not so relevant because it became too mainstream. [The founder, Konrad Dantas] wanted to go towards a more advertisement style, you know, more clean. But he was really something at one point, like ‘Baile De Favela’ was released there and became a huge international hit. Also ‘Bum Bum Tam Tam’ by MC Fioti, which now has one billion views, I think, on YouTube. That also had international versions, MC Fioti recorded with Future [plus J Balvin, Stefflon Don and Juan Magan]. There is a whole political and economic background to this, right? People buy more laptops and smartphones and all of that. They were also learning how to produce. They were getting access to all of this software, especially FL Studio.
Tom Lea: Is FL Studio the go-to software for funk production?
GG Albuquerque: It's hard to say. I thought it would be that, but during my research I saw that a lot of people were working with Acid Pro too, and another one that I can't remember the name of. But I will say that basically it's FL Studio.
Tom Lea: That's interesting because I think a lot of the early Jersey club stuff was Acid Pro. There's actually quite a few sonic hallmarks that link the two, like the big distorted low-end.
GG Albuquerque: Yeah. The guys are interested in FL Studio because you have more educational content on YouTube for it, and there is this logic of looping. Baile funk is loop-based.
Tom Lea: As far as I can see, YouTube and now TikTok seem to be the main distribution channels for funk. But it's so simple to self-distribute to DSPs like Spotify and Apple, through services like Distrokid – are funk artists doing that? Or is that not really a priority?
GG Albuquerque: The producers always publish their music on Spotify, but I don't see the the public, like the people that go to the bailes and all of that, listening to music on Spotify. They usually go to YouTube. I would say that not every song that is trending at the baile funks is available on Spotify. Sometimes they just put it on YouTube because it's easier. You don't have to go to a distributor. Some scenes are also really strong on SoundCloud too, like Belo Horizonte and Rio de Janeiro, but in São Paulo it depends. Some DJs use it a lot but some others don't, like DJ K doesn't use SoundCloud so much.
But one thing that is interesting is there are groups on WhatsApp with people who go to the bailes, who create groups to share music. I don't know how they get them, but they get some exclusive, unreleased tracks. They’ll post like, ‘Oh, I heard this music at the baile,’ and they post a video, then someone knows which track it is and sends it. I saw that in São Paulo, people have these WhatsApp groups. I was a member of one group that was just baile funk from the north side of São Paulo, which is different than the funk from the south side [with a style called ritmado, heard at bailes like Marcone]. I'm not even talking about Brazil, it's like one city, so you have differences inside one city.
Tom Lea: I had some friends who went to work with gqom artists in Durban and they said everything was just done on WhatsApp. They'd be like, ‘Can I get a WAV of this?’ And it’s, ‘No, I only have it in Whatsapp quality’!
Is there a way for music to be distributed among DJs as well? Or is it more common for DJs to just play their own music?
GG Albuquerque: In the bailes, the DJs that produce their own stuff usually play their own stuff. There's a thing in baile funk called vinheta, that is like a DJ tag. So you hear a lot of music that has like four or five DJ tags in just one song. They usually play their own stuff, but some DJs that don't produce, who are just DJs in the favela, they play everything. In Rio they are more open to the DJs in the big bailes, like Baile da Disney, that is an amazing, huge baile in Rio. They play everything, they play the trending hits of the moment in baile funk versions, so they're more open to this.
Chal Ravens: When you say that it's possible for a song to have four or five DJ tags in it, how does that work?
GG Albuquerque: I mean, DJ K will produce with another DJ, so you have his DJ tag, which is like, ‘DJ K, no longer producing, he's making witchcraft,’ and then the DJ tag of the other DJ will be like, ‘He's breaking everything into the favela, DJ X.’ So that's it, lots of DJ tags in the same music.
Chal Ravens: But is it a remix?
GG Albuquerque: No, no, it's one song made by different producers, the same song.
Chal Ravens: Oh, I see, a collaboration. I was wondering if it was a sort of remix system.
GG Albuquerque: No, no.
Chal Ravens: Just to return for a second to the earlier question about this evolution of genres… I think the moment when I revived my interest in funk was probably 2018, in the wake of the 150 sound that was emerging at that time. Could you explain where this 150 movement came from and what happened to it? That's also a city-based sound as well, right? It was a return to Rio being the centre of funk.
GG Albuquerque: Rio went through a moment... I would say it was a violent moment in Rio, but Rio has a lot of issues. But at some point there was a project called Pacifying Police Units [Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora]1 in the favelas that was basically the police and army going into the favelas and installing themselves there to prevent organised drug trafficking and all of that. I mean, this was the idea. But one thing that happened is a lot of bailes closed, because the police units didn't allow them. And Rio became a little bit stuck in its own thing. There were not a lot of national hits coming from Rio. That was the moment when KondZilla and the São Paolo movement was really strong.
What happened with the 150 sound is that some bailes start popping up, especially Baile da Gaiola which was conducted by DJ Rennan da Penha, and the Baile da Nova Holanda conducted by DJ Polyvox and Iasmin Turbininha – who is a girl by the way, which is something rare in the funk scene, women DJing and producing. MCing is [more common for women]. And they started to [speed up] the pace, [speed up] the rhythm, the BPMs. Funk was usually produced at 130, and they were speeding up to 150. They started doing that because when it’s early in the morning, when the bailes are at their peak, a lot of dancers are just coming to the baile at 6am and they felt that they needed a punch, you know? An energy punch. And they started to speed up just by changing the pitch, and the music became distorted. They were saying that this was the voice of Alvin and the Chipmunks.
Then a lot of old school DJs started to criticise the new DJs, the new generation, and there was a public debate in the funk scene about this. People that were just dancers immersed in the culture, not even producers or MCs [but] people that go to the baile and usually hang out there, they were posting about this and filming, and it became a real topic of discussion. It's interesting because it shows how they are connected to electronic culture even though they don't see themselves as electronic music, because electronic music in Brazil is so associated with the rich and the bourgeoisie.
Chal Ravens: Because house and techno is more middle class in Brazil, right?
GG Albuquerque: I wouldn't say middle class, I would say like... gentrified culture! Even though we have a history of popular electronic music. But you know, that's the image that stays. So it's interesting, they were discussing things that were connected to electronic music culture, they were discussing BPMs, frequencies and all of that. The history says that DJ Polyvox was the first to actually produce a song in 150. From that moment on, they started to create with this BPM standard. A lot of new music came and put Rio back into the scene, into a national scale.
Tom Lea: So funny, isn't it – no matter where you are in the world, electronic music fans will have big debates about BPM. It's just the one thing that binds them all.
Chal Ravens: I got the impression that with the rise of KondZilla, and São Paolo becoming the new hub of funk, that there was also a move towards a more... not necessarily commercial sound, but a very visual culture that was itself more commercial. Does that ring true?
GG Albuquerque: Yeah, definitely. I mean, KondZilla is the guy that gives an interview to Billboard, you know? He's that guy. He's the guy that will produce almost like a soap opera for Netflix, talking about baile funk and the favelas. Right now we have some other producers and labels that are on the opposite side, that are interested in the favelas, and they allow MCs to sing the bad words. They don't want to clean up the thing. But yeah, I think KondZilla was a transition point. That is really important.
Chal Ravens: Can you tell us about DJ K and what makes him such an unusual producer? What are his sonic innovations?
GG Albuquerque: I listened to DJ K for the first time during the pandemic, I think 2020. There was a specific song called ‘Tuin Destrói Nóia’. Nóia is a word that can be used in a pejorative way, but also as a joke – it means a drughead. And tuin is the high-pitched sound. So it's the sound that destroys the drughead, something like that. That song was interesting because he used this high-pitched sound through the whole music, like the beat was this [makes high droning noise] and I was like, there is something happening here that is special.
I started to realise that there was a new sound emerging in the bailes that I was not checking. I mean, it was in the pandemic, but the bailes were still happening anyway in the favelas. People were allowed to go to work, they were allowed to get on extremely crowded buses and subways, so on the weekend they said, ‘OK, if I can do that then I can also go to the bailes.’ Maybe not the right choice, but it is how it is. And then this new sound was emerging, we could see that in the MC Bin Laden songs from 2015, 2017.
This sound came from the culture of the baile funk, because people use a drug called loló that gives you this sense of buzzing in your ear, and you get more sensitive to the high-pitched sounds. This is scientists saying this, not me… ! And you can see how they connect with the culture of the bailes and translate that into music. This was the moment that [DJ K] caught my attention, and he's not the only one doing this. We have a lot of people going more and more extreme. There's a song by DJ Rafinha Dz7 and DJ Daniels which is in a subgenre called ‘rock’, which is basically noise music, it's like Merzbow into the favelas. It's amazing, and it's crazy because they see this as something [danceable] and enjoyable, not like a nihilistic approach to noise. Their conception of the sound is different.
Chal Ravens: It feels like there’s competition between producers pushing each other to go harder.
GG Albuquerque: I'll give you an example of this dynamics of competition but on the other side. Around 2022, when the baile funk scene in São Paulo was going to extremes, to the bruxeria side, a song was released called ‘happiness beat’ – ‘Beat da Felicidade’ by DJ Jeeh FDC, which was the opposite side of this darker sound. It’s made with steel pans, steel drums, it’s just a happy song.
I talked to the producer, who was 18 years old, and he said, ‘I think we have to always go against the grain so you don't become competition. You're doing your own thing to make your thing become the trend, and then people will follow your trend, not the opposite.’ So I see this in a lot of producers, they have a mindset that comes from the market and from business, but the approach is not to make the same thing, not to make what the market is waiting for – they make a new thing.
Chal Ravens: Yeah, pursuing novelty.
GG Albuquerque: Exactly. It's an innovation culture in funk. Even when they talk, they use words that you would think would be the same words used by some guy in the phonographic industry and major labels, but somehow their music doesn't go where you expect. They go to the innovation side. There is a DJ called Dennis DJ who was a big name in the funk of Rio in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and now he's just a major pop star doing things with Anitta, and he is now producing in the bruxeria style. So what was conceived as radical and outside the margins of the pop music industry is now being appropriated by these guys.
Chal Ravens: I had another question about the parties and the atmosphere. From what I can imagine about loló, this drug, I think it’s probably quite similar to the rush of poppers, but I gather it can have auditory hallucinations too. But thinking about how a baile compares to a rave over here, do people take ecstasy? Is MDMA a part of rave culture in Brazil?
GG Albuquerque: MDMA, sometimes. Cocaine, sometimes. Weed, a lot of weed. But I would say that the drug that they use more, besides loló and weed, is whiskey with energy drinks.
Tom Lea: [Laughter] The final boss of rave drugs.
GG Albuquerque: Yeah, it is way more dangerous than a lot of these drugs! But yeah, they drink this like water.
Tune in next week for part 2 of our conversation with GG, plus a special funk playlist from our guest!
For more on the so-called “pacification” of the favelas, try this LSE blog or this article from The Urban Violence Research Network which references Mark Neocleous, who’s absolutely your boy if you’ve ever wanted to expand on the recurring thought, “fuck the police”.
18: The expanding universe of Brazilian funk, part 1