Various Artists
Rio Baile Funk: More Favela Booty Beats
Catalogue Nr.: AY CD 09

The Rio dance craze gets another fresh summary treatment by Daniel Haaksman. After the worldwide success of his first compilation “Rio Baile Funk Favela Booty Beats”, Berlin based DJ and music critic Daniel Haaksman went again to Rio de Janeiro to explore street markets, producer studios and baile partys for hot tracks from the sugarloaf city

Baile Funk is music from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Bouncing booty beats with Portuguese raps that make 50 Cent look like a wimp. Baile Funk is a reflection of Brazil's melting pot society, merging a mixture of Funk, Miami Bass, Electro, Rap, Hip-Hop, Freestyle and Bastard Pop.

The liner notes

From Black Orpheus to City of God, the idea of life in a Rio de Janeiro favela has changed a lot. And so has its soundtrack. Now, It's time for the booty beats, the mutant hip hop that you probably listened to somewhere – the raw groove with mad breaks and shouted lyrics that you'll never be able to understand, driving you to an imaginary party with big speakers in some hot and hidden Rio slum. It's been a while since the DJs from the black music balls in Rio started the cut-and-paste with miami bass beats, African drumming, samba, Bahia carnival tunes and pop music – incredible sampling that goes from Front 242 to Dire Straits. Then, the MCs, most of them raised in the favelas, came with rhymes about their everyday life – which means sex (fun with no money), crime, love, guns, faith and everything else. With all this, you have the funk carioca, music that doesn't need no TV or radio to become popular – it only takes an MC and a DJ in a ball to spread the song. If the crowd enjoys it, they're gonna sing it, then the other MCs will sing it and history will be made.

More Favela Booty Beats paints a musical picture of what you'd listen if you lived in Rio in the last three or four years. Underground music that will reach you even if you don't want it – it´s something that urges to be listened, with its sound attack and lyrics that speak about things that may have just happened and will be lost if you take too much time to pay attention to it. Stuff so powerful that it went further than the people involved with it could ever imagine. Thanks to the same technological advances that made it possible for people in the favelas to have computers with simple but useful musical software, file sharing on the internet spread the groove to the world – soon, some well-connected DJs in Europe and America were mixing this unexpected music, that sounded as global as strangely local, with other off-centre pop genres as reggaeton and crunk.

It didn't took too long until the dancefloor people took notice of Rio's wild groove. And then compilations like Favela Booty Beats (2004) paved the way for funk to go truly global. More Booty Beats reflects on what happened in Rio ever since. One of the first tracks on this CD, "Rap de Caxias", by MC M DY, gives a good introduction. Over some beats that sound like a crossover of the musical heritage of Miami, Rio and Salvador, he names the stars of the funk carioca and the favelas they belong to: MC Galo (Rocinha), Cidinho & Doca (of "Rap da Felicidade" fame, from Cidade de Deus), Mascote (Vidigal), Mr. Catra (Boréu), Serginho (Jacarezinho)... Keep these names in mind – you'll hear from them further on.

Catra, the James Brown of the Booty Beats (powerful voice, sex machine, black philosopher, a mystic, a leader and a fierce non-conformist), is represented here by two of his strongest tracks: the overtly sexual "Vem Nha Nha" and the claim for loyalty "Cabelo Voa". If he had a women's counterpart, it would be Deize Tigrona, the lady from Cidade de Deus who had her track "Injeção" redone by Diplo and British MC M.I.A. as "Bucky Done Gun". She comes in a collaboration with Edu K that has the simple title "Sex-O-Matic" – a track that, by the way, appears here on a new version, remixed by DJs Mavi and Sany, two of Rio's best kept funk secrets. Edu is the unlikely case of a white avant garde rocker from the South of Brazil turned booty beats star by "Popozuda Rock'n'Roll" – the track which was featured in Favela Booty Beats and later was chosen for a big TV advertisement in Germany. Well, isn't this what globalization is meant for? Yeah! And, wait, there's more Mr. K on More Booty Beats: "Hot Mama", another track from his album Frenétiko, gets an insane remix by Bonde do Rolê, a bunch of white kids from Curitiba (a southern Brazilian city) whose reckless crossover of booty beats and rock draw the attention of Diplo, who's just produced their new album for an international release.

The boys are alright. But the ladies are doing it for their selves in Rio Funk. Alongside Deize, comes MC Sabrina, the young diva from the favela Morro da Providência, with the beautifully sang "Eu Solto a Voz". And then MC Chris with "O Meu Marido Não", a call for the nasty girls not to mess with her husband. The boys, on the other hand, don't seem to be interested in fidelity more than they are in having lots of sexual fun. Os Magrinhos (The Skinny Ones), a bonde (a kind of group with MCs and dancers) of Parque União favela, brings the "Japonesa", making double sense jokes with the name of a Japanese girl – pure teenage bullshit. And there´s also "Toma Dengosa" (by Bonde do Vinho, from Cidade de Deus, with a very well known sample), "Perereca Pra Frente, Perereca Pra Trás" (dy DJ Victor Junior, with lyrics that makes some bizarre methapor for sex comparing pussies to frogs), "Dança do Rodo" (with Moleque Manhoso & Bonde do Vinho, remixed by Dennis DJ) and the incredible "É Só Sentar", by MC Cula (ex-Tan & Cula), with its country & western and folk Brazilian Music samples, praising the joys of having sex in the horse-riding position. It's the Kama Sutra with beats!

And there's still more music to keep you busy with More Favela Booty Beats. "Vascão 2000", by Dennis DJ, released on the label of Furacão 2000 (Rio's most enduring sound system) is a curious reworking of a football team hymn with the mutant Miami bass beats – the fusion of two of the city's biggest passions. If it doesn't move you, surely the rhythm fuelled "Jiu Jitsu", "Catita" and "Dança do Dedinho" (with gunshots making the breaks – a terrifying but real situation in Rio) will. With all these tracks, you have the vivid and colourful picture of what is to be inside this big, exciting and often paradoxical party called Funk Carioca. Better than this, only actually being there – which, as a carioca born guy, I proudly recommend to anyone with blood still running on their veins and arteries.

Silvio Essinger, Journalist and writer of Batidão – Uma História do Funk (2005, Editora Record), a book about the history of the booty beats in Rio de Janeiro.

TRACKLIST

01 Dennis DJ "Vascao 2000"
02 MC MDY "Rap de Caxias"
03 Mr. Catra & MC G3 "Cabelo Voa"
04 Os Magrinhos "Japonesa"
05 DJ Sandrinho "Berimbau"
06 Isaac DJ "Jiu Jitsu (Montagem)"
07 MC Sabrinha "Eu Solta O Som Da Voz"
08 MC Cula "E So Sentar"
09 Mr. Catra "Vem NhaNha "
10 Veronica Costa "Desce Glamourosa"
11 EDU K feat. Deize Tigrona "Sex-O-Matic" (DJ Mavi+DJ Sany Mix)
12 Juliana e as Fogosas "A Bocquinha É Minha"
13 MC Cris "O Meu Marido Nao"
14 MC MDY "Perrereca Pra Frente"
15 DJ Disconhecido "Dedinho Pro Alto"
16 Moleque Manhoso & Bonde Do Vinho "Dança Do Rodo"
17 Bonde Do Vinho "Toma Dengosa"
18 Roque Bolado "Catita"
19 Voltair "Cleck Cleck Boom"
20 EDU K "Hot Mama" (Bonde Do Role Mix)
21 MC Marcinho "Favela"