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Baile funk            'll'

Brazil has a way of changing things to its own temperament; soccer moved from its slow Anglo beginnings to a stylish fanciful game, Religion blended with music for Latino carnivals and so on. It was in this climate that Baile Funk was born; the locals were just trying to create plain funk music, the result was something different.

Having spent the last 20 odd years fermenting in the darkened corners of Rio de Janeiro, Baile Funk has finally managed to pull off what most of its creators have yet to achieve: leaving the slums behind.

It's a sweaty spring evening in Sydney, and thousands of locals mill in a city park to see the closing act of Parklife Festival. The headliner is UK artist M.I.A., who prowls the stage in hotpants, sneakers and a sailor cap. Fluro kids, disco babies, surfies and princesses gyrate in the audience en mass, high on the music and belting out the lyrics with one collective voice.

'All I wanna do is (bang! bang! bang! bang!) and (trigger pull) and take ya money…' they chant along with the Sri Lankan born singer. The majority of these firmly middle class kids will have never seen a real gun up close, but that doesn't seem to matter to them. 

The lyrics to M.I.A.'s Third World Democracy are irrelevant. 'It's the fact that it doesn't sound like anything we've heard before,' one festival patron explains. 'She's doing something different, and it just sounds good.'

Those sounds M.I.A. has found and collected in recent years are directly imported from home grown Brazilian ghetto music, adapted from late 80's Miami Bass and known the world over as Baile Funk.  The rhythmic, beat driven dance music is traditionally overlaid with sharp rapping, bleating sirens and, often, the sound of heavy gunfire. To the youth of Rio's poorer, crime ridden areas, it's a symbol of belonging, and of hope. 

Baile Funk is the informal soundtrack of the favelas; shanty villages that collect on the outskirts of the Rio. The rundown clusters of slum housing are home to an approximated 1 million people, nearly a fifth of the city's population.

One of the few locals to have made a living from the music is DJ Marlboro, whose 1989 compilation Funk Brasil sold more than 250,000 copies nationally and brought the genre to the attention of the entire country. Far from slum-dwelling these days, Marlboro rests atop a media empire of sorts, hosting a series of national radio and television shows as well as weekly rotations in the hottest Brazilian clubs.

Fragments of Baile began seeping into the international scene when a song by Brazilian hip hop duo Black Alien & Speed was picked up for use in 2003, as the soundtrack for a European car advertisement. The track was later remixed by British DJ Fat Boy Slim the result: commercial music industry began to take notice.

Historically, the provocative lyrics used by Baile songwriters had largely deterred record labels from buying into the genre. Brazilian law prohibits the glorification of crime in songs, deeming much of the music of the favelas inappropriate for radio play or CD sales.

However Female singers are one exception, tending to prefer highly sexual lyrics as opposed to violent ones. One of the most popular female DJs in Brazil at the moment, MC Tati, writes of little else. With tracks names like Siririca (female masturbation) and Frango Assuado, named after a sex position known as 'baked chicken', her lyrics highlight the use of sexuality as a form of power by the younger women of the community. Booty shaking, body rubbing dancing accompanies every Baile Funk gathering. What you're wearing is less important than the way you move for the girls of the favelas.

To locals, the underworld ties of Baile Funk are not that significant. Drug gangs are a part of life in the area, and police are in the minority. Compliance with gangs can offer its own form of protection for residents, which is often more effective than seeking help through official channels. In many cases gangs commission vocalists to write songs about them and their exploits.

But the illicit connection has helped only to anchor the music firmly to its roots. Without commercial interest, the distribution of Baile Funk on the international scene has been slow, occurring by a kind of musical osmosis. Artists like M.I.A. have helped spread the word through collaborations; such as the Piracy Funds Terrorism track she recorded with U.S. producer (and rumoured ex-lover) Diplo. In turn, Diplo has spent several stints DJing with Fernando Luis Mattos de Matta, better known as DJ Marlboro. Tokyo born Tigarah, who landed in L.A. via Rio, is producing some killer Japanese-influenced Baile Funk sounds of her own.

With clipped-down lyrics and better technology to produce on, these artists have brought the urgent, thumping sounds to a new and welcoming audience. The hard beats and classic funk are a potent combination, fusing a wild tempo that, at the end of the day, just makes you want to dance.
This is the atmosphere as M.I.A. steps off the stage in Sydney, leaving behind a beer-fueled audience not ready for the day to be over. A quick look at her tour schedule shows just how far her music will travel. No less than 30 shows are planned for Japan and North America before the end of the year.

Baile Funk might have come a long way from Rio, but it's clear that some things – like its frenetic energy – are universal.

Rhiannon Elston