Township Palms by The Fader

DJ Mujava´s killer kwaito-tune Township Funk was easily one of the last season´s biggest hits in the Helsinki club scene. One definitely cannot be mad at this and the whole phenomenon seemed to spark an increased interest in sounds like kwaito, kuduro, cumbia and funk carioca.

Boldly going straight into the heart of this South-African sound, The Fader offers an interesting three part journey into the past, present and future of kwaito. First part comes with a fine little mix to enjoy while reading the second part and the third one, the former being an interview with aforementioned DJ Mujava, and the next interviewing DJ Cleo, "the Timbaland of Kwaito."

Ghetto Palms Kwaito and Pitori House (direct link, via The Fader)

And if you missed Mujava´s mega-hit, fear not, as The Fader also serves us with Radioclit´s take on the Township Funk.

DJ Mujava - Township Funk (Radioclit remix) (direct link, via The Fader)

The Soca Delivery

Here´s a fine soca-mix, The Soca Delivery, fresh out of oven from Finland´s very own Komposti Sound. An incredible dose of energy to lighten up the long, dark Finnish winter.

Komposti Sound: The Soca Delivery (inc. MP3, artwork & tracklist)

Super Classics of Funk Carioca: Injeção

"'Ai, ai... When I go to the doctor´s. I´m feeling a little ache. Why don´t you give me an injection? Prick me doctor! Injections hurt when they enter, they rub when they enter. Oh my God, doctor, my butt can´t bear any longer.' - It was listening to this music that I became funkeira... This is the first lesson I learnt with funk carioca: it´s not for dullards or for anyone who takes themselves too seriously."

That was journalist Claudia Assef explaining how a hard-core paulista sees the light of funk carioca, on the sleeve-notes of Mr.Bongo´s Slum Dunk presents Funk Carioca-compilation. Released on 2004, it was one of the first vinyl releases of funk distributed worldwide. The song she is talking about is "Injeção" - "Injection" - by Deize Tigrona, a former housecleaner originally from São Conrado in Rio on her way to funk-superstardom.

It is a prime example of putaria funk - songs devoted to extremely dirty, explicitly sexual lyrics. If a putaria song has any (hardly covered) double-sentiment, like Injection, it´s just for the sake of funny, ironic symbolism: metaphor here is not meant to hide the sexual content, but rather makes the song much more entertaining than a mere explicit description of sexual intercourse would have been. And while often tiresome, the best of putaria songs, like Deize´s tune, manage to be not just naughty, but also funny, clever and even liberating.

Deize Tigrona: Injeção (zShare)

Today, Deize Tigrona, 29, is married - to funk DJ Raphael - and a mother of three children. September´s issue of the Brazilian Rolling Stone ran a small interview of the artist, where she seems to feel slightly restricted by the conventions of putaria funk and explains how working with electro funk and artists like Diplo or Buraka Som System allow her more creative independence. "My daughter is already asking a lot of questions", she comments on dirtier funk lyrics.

In a way Injeção became world-famous when Diplo sampled the song for M.I.A's first hit "Bucky Done Gun". Indeed, Deize Tigrona seems to be one of the most in-demand MCs in the global funk scene. Currently she´s been singing for Buraka Som Sistema, the portuguese kuduru act, and laid down lyrics for a number of releases for Berlin´s Man Recordings, including the 7" single "Bandida" with Diplo. "Now I can make lyrics with more content, more quality", Deize explains to Rolling Stone, clearly tired but happy about the global success that has given her a chance to tour all around the world.

As a bonus and small demonstration of new directions for Deize Tigrona, here's a song by Lisbon-based producer DJ Manaia. See also his blog and the original Discobelle-post for additional Manaia-goodies.

DJ Manaia: Sobrevivente do Rave (feat. Deize Tigrona) (a direct link, via Discobelle)

Note: I don´t feel very happy about posting a song from a compilation that is still available world-wide. Yet - to white-wash my conscience a bit - I feel that it´s such a fine selection of great funk carioca-tunes from a bunch of central artists in the game that if you like the Deize Tigrona-song, you absolutely have to go and buy the whole album. So shoo, go get it now, clickety click.

Super Classics of Funk Carioca: Rap do Borel

When Carlos Eduardo Cardoso da Silva left the favela of Borel at age of 11 for neighbourhood of Santa Cruz, he was crying. "I swore that I will return to Borel", he told to journalist Silvio Essinger in the book Batidão - Uma Historia do Funk.

No only did he return: he confessed his love for his home in a funk song that put Borel on the map for every kid sweating it out on the floors of Rio´s bailes. Carlos would become known as Duda do Borel, the other half of duo William & Duda, men behind funk hit "Rap do Borel" (aka "Rap da Liberdade").

Carlos moved back to his beloved Borel at age of 19. He wanted to become a football star, but broke his leg in while playing and decided to leave these dreams behind. In Borel, he met an old friend, William Santos de Souza, who convinced him to instead step on the stage and start singing funk.

"Rap do Borel", distributed on casettes around the community, was a hit before the duo even performed it in the local bailes for the first time. Grandmaster Raphael from the legendary sound system Furacão 2000 broke the song for all the Rio through the Furacão's radio show and it was then released on Pipo´s "Volta do Homem Mau"-compilation. Eventually "Rap do Borel" became one of the three classic funk hits of 1995 that propelled the genre into the Brazilian mainstream media. (Other two I have covered in this blog earlier - see articles on "Rap das Armas" and "Rap da Felicidade.")

Fame quickly followed, including performances on TV Globo, "the CNN of Brazil", and even a remix for pop-rock star Lulu Santos. But like so often, success, fame and cash also brought the hardships. First came problems with the manager and personal disputes between William and Duda followed, leading to the breaking up of the duo. "We were like a family, I feel he started to see much money and lost his head", Duda laments in Batidão.

Borel até morrer

Borel até morrer - Borel till you die, rather freely translated. This is what the song is all about, the pride over one´s community. "Rap do Borel" is a celebration of the good will and friendship between the residents of the community: "The most humble hill in big barrio of Tijuca / for my friends, we all are friends / there it´s like a family". (1.)

But the song later takes on a darker tone, lamenting the friends lost to violence. "Lots of friends went to heaven / that´s why William and Duda ask peace for the Hill of Borel / we came to sing, to remember / a little the friends who went, never to return / since our world is blue like sky". (2.) And to conclude, the song also lists other fine favelas to give them a shout-out.

In a way the lyrics are very typical for this genre of funk songs. Very similar song is "Rap da Rocinha", by MC Galo. First, the praise for the home favela, then plea for peace, list of parts of favela and finally some love to a number of other communities. Naive? Perhaps, but I still find these songs very touching in their own way and their simple message is a highly important one: a change for better starts with self-confidence and pride over where you come from and who you are.

A Rolling Stone

When the duo broke, Duda felt crushed. Who convinced him to continue his career was a young up-and-coming MC by the name of Mr.Catra, now a legendary funk MC himself: "Duda was desperate, he was saying that he was not going to sing anymore, that life was at end... So I said: 'Get up!'"

And get up he did. Duda is still working hard, one of the most respected veterans in the funk game of Rio de Janeiro. He has even travelled all the way to Finland to rock the show, thanks to DJ Rideon (read all about Duda´s very succesful Finnish invasion here). His funks are still highly socially concious, as "Rap do Guerreiro" from a few years back demonstrates: "Look at the kid growing / looking for work but not finding / two years later look at the kid / on the hill carrying an AK." (3.)

Rideon describes Duda´s incredible stage prencence pretty perfectly after witnessing him live in January 2007: "Duda is a huge, playful man, reminded me of Biz Markie because of his size and character. He was really taking his singing to another extent with grouwling, shouting, moaning and barking. He was constantly moving around the stage bouncing and he really got the crowd going. It seemed like everybody knew the lyrics and were singing along." (Rio Baile Funk: I Love Baile Funk at Circo Voador)

William e Duda: Rap do Borel (zShare)

As a bonus (and as a sort of an apology for bad sound quality of the previous file), here´s another classic song by the same duo:

William e Duda: Rap da Morena (zShare)

- - -
Notes

1) "O morro mais humilde o bairro Tijucão / porque meus amigos nós somos todos irmãos / lá é como uma família"

2) "Foram muito amigos que foram pra o céu / por isso William e Duda pede a paz pro Morro do Borel / viemos cantar, para poder lembrar / um pouco dos amigos que se foi pra nunca mais voltar / pois o nosso mundo é azul igual o céu"

3) "Olha o moleque crescendo / procurando emprego mas sem encontrar / olha dois anos depois o moleque / no morro portando um AK"

Yes, we are back.

After months of silence, I am working on taking this blog back on-line. Especially a lot of articles on funk carioca are right on their way. Meanwhile, a few free goodies for anyone interested in how is that experimental cumbia stuff doing. Pretty well, apparently.

The grand ol´ men of experimental cumbia in Buenos Aires, ZZK Records, have put on-line a nice selection of mix-tapes from the biggest names in the city: Villa Diamante, Chancha via Circuito, El Remolon and my favourites, the Mendozan "digital cumbia ragga dancehall" duo Fauna (mixed by Daleduro). Also grab the new Fauna song Los Piratas del Zanjon (Zurita Mix) for free. And congratulations to Zizek for club´s second anniversary - and November 2008 European Tour!

Cabeza! is a net label offering digital cumbia (and anything related, from hip-hop to dancehall), on-line, all for free. In their own words, they want to invite you to have a taste of sounds that are nothing less than "super-original, incredibly tasty and finely selected. Danceable in any moment and any place on planet. Rhythms with seal of quality." So give 'em a try and go get that stuff!

And if that isn´t enough cumbia for you, or you want to get your hands on something more physical, Bay Area´s Bersa Discos are there for you. Their third EP is out, this time featuring Chancha via Circuito and DJ Panik. The EP is again getting a lot of love from Turn Table Lab and is available in other selected on-line stores too.

Cumbia Invaders

The finest of the experimental cumbia scene of Buenos Aires, Zizek, toured the North America and have clearly left their mark. A lots of blogs are writing about cumbia and there's this article on subject in URB and another one in The Fader. And XLR8R put out a mix-tape by Villa Diamante, the master-mind behind a lot of what´s happening in the cumbia movement down in Buenos Aires. Up in north Bersa Discos have released their second vinyl EP of experimental digital cumbia already a while ago - and while at the store, you probably should get this collection from Zizek's ZZK Records too. Equally curious are the rumours of some strange mergings of reggaeton and cumbia going on in between the Americas - read more here.

So cumbia just might be slowly invading the northern hemisphere too. It´s been a long trip from the beaches of the Caribbean Colombia via the suburbs and villa miserias of Buenos Aires, but apparently it´s far from over.

A Few Old Mixtapes

To end my vacations for good and to put some action into this blog, a couple of old mixtapes. The first is a mix of tango songs, from old classics to electronic fusion things. It's a very basic introduction, and thus includes loads of basic classics like La Cumparsita. The mix also features number of songs by Astor Piazolla, but none of them played by the maestro himself, just to show the importance of his work.

El Corazón Mixtape vol. 1 (zShare)

Second one was made over a year ago. It was a quick promo-mix for a club called We Try Too Hard, that never became reality, in a bar called Siltanen, that, I guess, never opened it's doors either. It contains hot songs of that time. Some of them are almost nostalgic already, some are just plain over-played. But I post it as the range of the styles on the mix - from baile funk to baltimore and R'n'B, from electro pop and blog house to kuduro - in a way serves to illustrate the focus, or lack of thereof, of this blog.

We Try Too Hard presents: Ruffmixxx 1 (zShare)

And here are covers for the mixes (click on images to enlarge):

Can a Playboy do the Funk?

The last saturday, May 24th, Eu Amo Baile Funk - a monthly funk carioca-event in Circo Voador - celebrated it´s second birthday. The bigger stars like Tati Quebra Barraco, Menor do Chapa, Galo and Duda do Borel shared the stage with loads of up-and-coming artists: DJs, MCs, dancers and even VJs. In other words, something for everyone and something happening on the stage all the time.

The crowd of the event was curiously different from the one dancing to the funk in the community bailes. Girls from better neighbourhoods were drifting around on their high heels, clinging to Luis Vuitton-handbags, and playboys were playing it cool, carrying caipirinhas to their ladies, white Air Force Ones shining in the night. The scene was more reminiscent of the Sao Paulo Fashion Week than a saturday night in Rocinha. This is hardly surprising as the tickets to the event at the gate would set you back 40 reais, over 15 euros, something that a few favelados can afford.

But then again, who am I to complain - which would be completely besides the point of the whole event anyway. Funk for everyone: Forget the class borders and take consolation in the hope that certainly some of those 40 reais (20 for those who have a student card) we paid to get in would trickle down to the actual artists. Everyone did certainly enjoy the show and as the evening wore on, the patricinhas and marcelinhos were shaking their butts on the sweaty dancefloor like any favelado. Happy birthday, Eu Amo Baile Funk. Todo mundo ama baile funk.

Here are a few rather random tunes from the evening's artists. Tati Quebra Barraco, the big bad girl of funk carioca, was already featured in this blog. Menor do Chapa is, ironically enough, a prohibidão-artist singing the praise to the Commando Vermelho. Duda do Borel is the second half of the legendary duo William & Duda from the favela of Borel, more on whom later. Their tune Rap do Morena, below, is a somewhat classic song. Duda is one of the biggest and most charismatic stars on the scene, a proper old schooler, and has performed even in Finland - see for yourself.

Menor do Chapa: Eu tô Boladão (zShare)
Tati Quebra Barraco: Sequência do Entra e Sai (zShare)
William & Duda: Rap do Morena (zShare)

You can read more about Eu Amo Baile Funk from DJ Rideon´s fine report, and Finnish-speakers also enjoy this little clip they made. Or take a look at the event's page in Last.fm.

Super Classics of Funk Carioca: Rap das Armas

All the guns of favela

Guns I encounter when I walk up the hill, through a maze of buildings hastily constructed of red brick, while dodging the moto-taxis wheeling past: pistols and revolvers are carried on belt even when not on guard duty. Uzis go past every now and then. The definitive weapon of choice is an assault rifle, typically an AK-47. Hand grenades don´t seem to be carried around on a regular basis but are used in combat situations. Sniper rifles are not visible either, they are positioned on the top of the favela, from where they can be used without being seen, in case of a police invasion or an attack by an enemy faction. I carry my groceries past the guns with down turned eyes, without daring to look at the traficantes guarding the close-by boca-de-fumo, leisurely leaning over their huge weapons. I wonder how long it will take to get used to the sight, and if I ever get used to it, is that a good or a bad thing?

Rap das Armas starts with Junior and Leonardo singing "My Brazil is a tropical country / The land of funk, the land of carnaval / My Rio de Janeiro is a postal card / But I´ll be talking about a national problem". In the background we can hear blasts of firearms. Then the duo goes on, "pa ra-pa pa-pa-paa-pa-paa", imitating the sound of a machine gun. The song continues:

"Metralhadora AR-15 e muito oitão / A Entratek com disposição / Vem super 12 de repetição / 45 que ´um pistolão / FMK, m-16 / A pisto UZI eu vou dizer para vocês / Que tem 765, 762 e o fuzil da de 2 em 2 ... vem pistola Glok, a HK / vema intratek Granada pra detonar / vem a caça-andróide e a famosa escopeta / vem a pistola magnum, a Uru e a Bereta / colt 45, um tiro so arrebenta e um fuzil automático com um pente de 90"

Selective misunderstandings

You don´t need to understand Portuguese to realize that it is a list of guns. The song also mentions the Commando Vermelho slogan "paz, justiça e liberdade". Back in the beginning of 90´s, all this made the media do the math: "a glorification of crime", the favourite slogan of all the witch-hunts against the certain genres of popular music in Brazil. "Written by Leonardo and Júnior, well-known brothers from the Valão area of Rocinha, the hit underwent a major process of vilification by the media in the mid-nineties connecting them to the drug underworld. As a result, the Rio police constantly harassed the brothers as they came in and out of the favela, despite the fact that their song was never intended to promote the drug gangs and that their own older brother is a police officer in the Polícia Militar", sums up Paul Sneed the controversy around the song in his often quoted Machine Gun Voices.

This is what the media chose to ignore: the brothers also sing "In this country everyone knows / The favela is dangerous, bad place to live in / and is much criticized for the whole society / But there is violence in every corner of the city / because of the lack of education, the lack of information" and the song ends in the sentence "Say no to violence and let the peace reign."

Ironically enough, the conscious content of the songs was also the duo's weakness, according to Silvio Essinger's book Batidão - Uma Historia do Funk (Record, 2005): "...after four years of struggle, Junior and Leonardo decided it wasn't possible anymore to live of music. Both bought a taxi... funk would stay as sporadic activity, in the circuit of few bailes in the city who were interested in conscious funk, based on lyrics, which, in the end, they knew how to write." And I suppose a little has changed today - still remeber Dança de Creu?

Laws of silence

Residents of favelas are not happy to talk about violence. There is one extreme of presenting violence in media, that of films like City of God. Here the media portrays just the flip-side of the coin, favelas packaged in an exiting, violent form and sold to the western markets. "Most people in the community did not see the film because they can't afford the cinema, and the ones that did see it didn't like the fact that it showed only the negative side of life. It suggested that everyone in the favelas is black, violent and ready to be judged", commented MV Bill on the film to The Guardian in the article already quoted in this blog. "After the film came out, people from City of God would go into town for their jobs as maids and cleaners as usual... Their bosses would sack them when they discovered that they were from somewhere so horrible." Despite City of God being one of the most important films in the history of Brazilian cinema both artistically and financially, MV Bill has a point.

But equally disturbing is the silence of favelas. In book Notícias da Favela (written by Christiane Ramalho, Aeroplano Editora, 2007), the story of Viva Favela-portal, Regina Novaes, the anthropologist behind the Favela Tem Memória, asks how can there be any social memory in a space ruled over by 'the law of silence'. She reminds how, according to the anthropologist Michel Pollack, the society only started constructing the history of nazism when the Jewish themselves were able to discuss their suffering. This is what makes it important that Junior and Leonardo are talking about the national problem.

Viva Favela, by the way, is a very interesting project well worth checking out if you can read Portuguese. Aim is to build an Internet-based media for favelas and so far Viva Favela has been very succesful, every now and then making waves also in the Brazilian mainstream media. While the stories are written under the guidance of professional journalists, all the stories in the portal are by "correspondents" living in favelas.

Pages of a history book

But back to our tune of the day. The extremely famous song was a great hit back in the day and is heard everywhere again after being included on the soundtrack of Tropa de Elite. Despite the controversy, along with the duo´s other hit Endreço de Bailes, Rap de Armas brought them chance to grab a full-lenght record with Sony Music, De Baile em Baile. Together with Cidinho & Doca (of whom we've talked earlier) and William & Duda, they were pioneers building the road of funk into the record industry.

Much has been written on it, but I still decided to post the song, as it is made here in Rocinha, catches a part of reality of favela so well, has a huge historical importance and finally, the guys who made it just happened to live right next to Fundação Dois Irmãos.

Junior e Leonardo: Rap das Armas (zShare)

And as a bonus, a track that is in many ways an opposite of Rap das Armas. The song is a prohibidão funk describing the change of power in Rocinha, when Amigos dos Amigos took over and Commando Vermelho lost the control of the favela. But in addition to being a forbidden gangster song, it is - as a friend who copied me the tune described it - a document of an important page in the history of Rocinha.

Unknown: Track 3 (zShare)

(Unfortunately, I cannot provide any information on the artist and sadly end up doing exactly the same thing as the guys behind the Sublime Frequencies´ much critized prohibidão-collection.)

50 Years of Bossa: Nara

This year Rio de Janeiro is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Bossa Nova. I am far from a specialist in the genre, but I do feel obliged to join the party by posting some of my favourite bossas. I already wrote a post on Onde Brilham os Olhos Seus by Fernanda Takai, a recent album of modern versions of the songs that made Nara Leão famous. Now let's take a very brief look on Nara herself - my favourite bossa artist.

Following songs from the debut album Nara take us on an emotional rollercoaster ride. "When launched in March 1964, the fabulous first disc of Nara seemed distant from Bossa Nova. But the time erased this distance", writes Ruy Castro in the linear notes of the album´s remasterized edition. Perhaps it is this originality and unpredictability - the album not sticking to proven formats of bossa, but bravely including songs by sambistas like Zé Kéti and Cartola and back-then up-and-coming composers like Edu Lobo and Baden Powell - that makes Nara so enduring and interesting.

The first song - "March of Ash Wednesday" - is about the Brazilians' favourite subject of mourning: the end of the carnaval. Diz que moves to a more playful mood and finally Maria Moita is a melancholic classic about two generation of repressed females. The first and the last are also notable for the beautiful lyrics of the Bossa Nova's greatest poet Vinicius de Moraes. Moraes is nothing short of a national hero in Rio, right up there in the pantheon with the likes of Antonio Carlos Jobim and João Gilberto.

Nara Leão: Marcha da quarta-feira de cinzas (zShare)
Nara Leão: Diz que vou por ai (zShare)
Nara Leão: Maria Moita (zShare)

And because right now I am feeling very, very sad, the following song catches the moment perfectly. "Always alone / I live searching for someone / who too suffers like me / but I cannot find no-one / Always alone / and life will go on like this / I have nobody to pity on me / I am arriving to the end" - well, maybe I´m not quite that sad.

Nara Leão: Luz Negra (zShare)

The Preacherman

MV Bill - or Alexandre Barreto - is something of a KRS One of the Brazilian hip-hop, a self-made preacherman who started out as an MC and has since widened his scope to span pretty much every possible medium of expression and informing. Despite the consious hip-hop usually being more of a paulista cup of tea, MV Bill hails from the infamous Cidade de Deus in Rio de Janeiro.

The young Alexandre initially got into hip-hop when Miami Bass arrived to Rio, the very same sound that gave the birth to today´s funk carioca. "MV" humbly stands for Mensageiro de Verdade, "Messenger of Truth", a nickname given to the young rapper by his fellow residents of CDD after noticing Bill's penchant for preaching the message of the favelas. In 1998 he released his first album, CDD Mandando Fechado, a collection of true stories from his favela that was later re-released as Traficando Informação. Declaração de Guerra (2002) followed some years later and the most recent album, Falcão - O Bagulho é Doido (2006), is actually a sound track for Bill's documentary film.

Bill has published a pile of books - Cabeça do Porco (with Celso Athayde and the former security secretary Luiz Eduardo Soares), Falcão - Meninos do trafico (with Celso Athayde) and Falcão - Mulheres e o trafico (with Celso Athayde). His documentary film Falcão - Meninos do trafico, based on the book of the same name, made headlines and shocked the Brazil. Bill is also a community activist and one of the founders of Central Uníca das Favelas (CUFA). CUFA has spread all over the country from Rio Grande do Sul to Pernambuco and the community centers of the organization have seen guest lectures by people like Ronaldo and Ceatano Veloso.

The strength of Bill's journalistic work is in his position in favelas. As a highly respected resident he can go to places that are beyond the reach of normal reporters. "When I go to the shantytowns to speak to the kids, I'm one of them, so they are completely honest with me. What struck me most was the hope that they all had. I had barely got back to Rio when I started receiving calls from the mothers of the teenagers to tell me that their children had been killed. My next project was to film all of the funerals. How can I be just another rapper going 'yo yo yo' after that?", he told to The Guardian ( 'Only hip-hop can save us', 13.1.2006). The newspaper was interviewing him about the book Cabeça do Porco that collected the stories of 16 teenagers from favela, all of them already dead.

This friday MV Bill had invited a couple of friends from Sao Paulo - DJ King and MC Mister Bomba of SP Funk - on stage of Circo Voador to celebrate the first 365 days of A Voz das Periferias, his radio show on Roquette Pinto (94,1 FM for those around Rio, also available on-line for streaming). Rainy weather slowed down the party a bit and the paulista guests didn´t quite seem to set the carioca audience on fire. But the time MV Bill got on stage - backed up by a horn section, a few violins, a DJ and two drummers - the party finally got started. Bill gave his best performances when rapping together with the female MC Kmila and the chemistry between the two was a delight to watch.



The video for the song Só Deus pode me julgar (Only God can judge me) from MV Bill's second album is largely shot in the capital city Brasilia, with Niemayer's architecture providing impressive ready-to-film sets, and includes some very slimy scenes of giving a birth.



Soldado do Morro (Soldier of the hill) features an impressive arsenal of weapons in the hands of young men hardly on their twenties. Unfortunately, these are not gangster fantasies of main-stream rap. Instead, Soldado do Morro is actually a controversial documentary clip about kids working for drug-dealers. Clip was accused of being "a glorification of crime", despite it rather just depicts the sad reality. Trafficantes toting huge assault rifles are an everyday sight in many favelas: I walk past a number of them each time I go down the hill to the grocery store.

And to conclude, here´s a selection of tracks from the most recent album:

MV Bill: Falcão (zShare)
MV Bill: Nao Acredito (zShare)
MV Bill: Aqui Tem Voz (zShare)

MV Bill in Internet
Home page (in Portuguese and English)
MySpace (in Portuguese and English)
blog (in Portuguese)

A Street Corner in South

There is a very special place for street corners in the collective heart of Buenos Aires. They are the mythical scenery of tango songs, places for lovers to meet and depart, places for enemies to engage with knifes and places for heroes to bleed to death.

There is a street corner in Boedo district of the city, the most famours street corner of them all. The intersection of streets San Juan and Boedo. The location of the legendary Bar Sur. Immortalized in countless legends and the famous tango Sur - "South". South refers here to the working class neighbourhoods of the southern Buenos Aires, where tango originally was born and where most of it's lyrical dramas are acted out.

The famous tango was composed by the legendary bandoneonist Aníbal Troilo, also known as El Gordo ("The Fatso"). The lyrics are penned by the equally legendary poet Homero Manci. It's a nostalgic, desparate lament of lost love and downfall of the beloved barrio:

Sur,
paredón y después...
Sur,
una luz de almacén...
Ya nunca me verás como me vieras,
recostado en la vidriera
y esperándote.
Ya nunca me alumbraré con las estrellas
nuestra marcha sin querellas
por las noches de Pompeya...
Las calles y las lunas suburbanas,
y mi amor y tu ventana
todo ha muerto, ya lo sé.

San Juan y Boedo antiguo, cielo perdido,
Pompeya y al llegar al terraplén,
tus veinte años temblando de cariño
bajo el beso que entonces te robé.
Nostalgias de las cosas que han pasado,
arena que la vida se llevó
pesadumbre de barrios que han cambiado
y amargura del sueño que murió.

A rather crude translation would be something like this:

The South,
a wall and after...
The South,
a light of corner-store...
Never will you look at me like you looked then
leaning in the window
and waiting.
Never will I light with the stars
our march without disputes
for the nights of Pompeya...
The streets and the suburban moons,
and my love and your window
everything dead, I know.

San Juan and ancient Boedo, lost sky,
Pompeya and arriving to the embankment,
your twenty years trembling with tenderness
under the kiss that I stole.
Nostalgies of the things that have passed,
sand the life swept away
sadness of the barrios that have changed
and bitterness of the dream that died.

It's probably my famourite tango song, one that still send cold waves running down my spine. Here's three versions for your enjoyment. A fatal, bone-chilling, merciless version performed by the great contemporary tango-diva Adriana Varela - think of Diamanda Galas singing tangos. One by the famous Argentinian rock artist Andrés Calamaro. And a classic version with the composer Aníbal Troillo on bandoneon and, speaking of legends, sung by the mighty Roberto Goyeneche.

Adriana Varela: Sur (zShare)
Andrés Calamaro: Sur (zShare)
Aníbal Troilo, Roberto Goyeneche y Su Orquesta Tipica: Sur (zShare)

The myth of South was also traced in the movie El Sur, from 1983, directed and written by Fernando E. Solanas. Here´s a clip from the beginning of the film, with Goyeneche performing the song.



All that remains now in the famous corner are a few rather cheesy tango joints, and a rumour has it that barrio might indeed be on a verge of a change: Some people think that it will become the next Palermo Soho, a trendy barrio of bars, clubs and fashion boutiques. Boedo definitely has it's own rundown charm, and at least it's still cheap enough for artists and such to live in. Whether the change would be for good or bad is a matter of opinion.

Some Mellow Sounds of Salsa

A long, long time ago I posted the song Llora, Llora by Tego Calderon. It features Venezuelan salsa-legend Oscar D'Leon - also known as El Leon de la Salsa, that is nothing less than The Lion of Salsa - singing parts from the classic salsa song Lloralás.

Here´s a live version of Lloralás, just to celebrate the fact that I am back in Rio, almost settled in my new little home in Rocinha and almost ready to start my work at Instituto Dois Irmãos - and I am finally able to go through all the photos and music and notes collected along the way through Amazon, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador. This song came on the huge pile of records that - I yesterday found out to my shock and amazement - had in some mysterious manner made their way into my backpack.

Oscar D'Leon: Lloralás (zShare)

And as a bonus track, almost fresh out of studio, a mellow salsa tune Te Lo Voy a Devolver from La-33, coming from Calle 33, Bogotá, Colombia. Originally envisioned by two brothers in 2001, La-33 quickly grew into a collective than a mere group - with members ranging from musicians to graphic designers - and released it's second album Gózalo in 2007.

La-33: Te Lo Voy a Devolver (zShare)

Guilty pleasures

For a while now, I've had this weird feeling that something is missing. A background noise, a smell perhaps, something. Until I realized what it is: reggaeton. In the rest of the Latin America there is no way to escape reggaeton - even the monkeys must be pumping it in the Venezuelan jungle - and in Brazil I haven't heard a single "boom-chi boom-chick"-beat. A continent divided by the two languages.

I didn't imagine missing reggaeton. It's not a sound that would hold a very high esteem in my native Finland, and I can't say I liked it that much either. Yet recently I've developed it into something of a guilty pleasure. Up north reggaeton usually gets dismissed as the cheesy Latin bastard-son of hip-hop and reggae. Language is again one obvious barrier, but it's a matter of cultural understanding too. I stumbled on this great blog, by the Hunter College researcher and journalist Raquel Z. Rivera, and reading such an in-depth analysis on the genre and it's background makes also the music much easier to grasp. And there are really great reggaeton artists that should appeal outside the Hispanic world too.

The greatest of them all, to me, is Tego Calderon. There is no match for his laidback flow, scarred voice, fat accent and the calm, super-cool style that would eat the aggressive boasting of youngsters for breakfast, without even breaking the sweat. And it doesn't hurt that Tego's beats include few of the most interesting fusions of various Caribbean and Latin American music styles. Seeing is believing: I witnessed Tego live at Buenos Aires, and there is no way to beat his charisma.

Rivera and Frances Negrón-Muntaner descibe the importance of Calderon in breaking the reggaeton into the main-stream of Puerto Rican culture in a highly interesting article Reggaeton Nation: "A turning point in gaining critical attention was the musically, poetically, and politically sophisticated 2003 debut album of Tego Calderón. His populist lyrics — which reminded many of salsa’s El Sonero Mayor, Ismael Rivera — together with his innovative musical fusions, use of world-renowned musicians in live shows, and charismatic yet humble demeanor appealed to the old-school salsa lovers and the intellectual left."

Allow me to introduce The Underdog. Here's a couple of my personal favourite songs. First two from the album The Underdog / El Subestimado and next two from the most recent album El Abayarde Contra Ataca. And to illustrate Tego's love for the salsa, the song Llora, Llora features the Venezuelan salsa-legend Oscar d'Leon.

Tego Calderon: Slow Mo (zShare)
Tego Calderon: Llora, Llora (feat. Oscar d'Leon) (zShare)
Tego Calderon: Ni Fu Ni Fa (zShare)
Tego Calderon: Los Mios (feat. Pirulo) (zShare)

Super Classics of Funk Carioca: Boladona

There is no question that Tati Quebra Barraco is the baddest bitch in the funk game. If funk carioca often tends to treat the ladies with a highly objectifying, though playful attitude, Tati is there to strike back for the girls. The big lady beats the guys in their own game: Tati's lyrics are openly, explicitely sexual, super-funny and dirty enough to make a grown man blush like a teenager sneaking to buy his first porn mag at a local kiosk.

As Paul Sneed wrote on Tati: "She sings that she doesn’t like “little dicks, “Não gosto de piru pequeno,” and graphically describes what she does to the men she catches. She is perhaps the most enduring and widely known female entertainer in funk and almost all of her songs play with the objectification of men and the liberation of the female libido."

Tati also got into the headlines of the tabloids some days ago, as her brother confessed the killing of his ex-wife. The motive for the murder was that the poor woman had been possessed. I didn't read which spirit, demon or other evil entity had taken over the victim, but from the angle of the recent development in the Brazilian religious field the motive isn't that bizarre. Pentecostal christian cults like hugely popular Universal Church - sometimes described as "the McDonald's of religion" - have popped up everywhere and are actually holding sermons to banish the orixa-spirits of the umbanda- and candomble-religions.

But more on the affairs of faith later. Here's a classic Tati-song, produced by DJ Marlboro.

Tati Quebra Barraco: Boladona (zShare)

And now for something totally different

Huoratron's $$ Troopers video has nothing to do with the usual content of my blog, but I have to post it as both the song and the video are just so awesome. I've worked as a VJ for Huoratron on a number of occasions, ever since Koneisto 2003-festival, and it's always been a pleasure to co-operate with this guy (I have nothing to do with this video though). Now the long avaited single on the man's New Judas-label is finally out and is getting everyone very exited. I'll go and buy one as soon as I get back to Finland.

Super Classics of Funk Carioca: Rap da Felicidade

Caetano Veloso, the Brazilian super hero of MPB (Música Popular Brazileira) said in an interview in 2004 that if it was up to him, Rap de Felicidade would be one of the funks that had a guaranteed spot of honour in the history of the Brazilian music. The song, published 1995, is perhaps the biggest funk song of all the time and if you are even slightly interested in the genre, you probably have heard it already a countless of times.

Rap da Felicidade is sung by MCs Cidinho & Doca - born as Sidney da Silva and Marcos Paulo de Jesus Peizoto - from the favela of Cidade de Deusin Jacarepaguá, the Zona Oeste. The infamous favela was built to accomodate the refugees of a deluge in 1966 and quickly descended into an inferno of violence, due to the rich neighbourhoods rising around it and the resulting increase in the demand and traffic for drugs in area. Cidade de Deus was made famous by the book of the same name from 1997, by Paulo Linz, and especially the already classic film based on the book.

The song became an immeadiate success. Together with Rap de Armas and Rap do Borel, the equally classic hits of Junior & Leonardo and William & Duda, published around the same time, it paved the way for the funk carioca to enter the record industry and the main-stream consciousness. Cidinho & Doca made their first full album, Eu só quero é ser feliz, and got to taste a slice of a sweeter life: Cidinho later recalled how he suddendly found himself as a happy owner of a house and a car - the stuff of dreams for a young favelado - and 21 pairs of imported tennis shoes on top of that. Cidinho & Doca have kept up a succesful career for over ten years and Cidinho's daughter, born in 1996, is already following in her father's footsteps on the career of an MC.

The impact the song has made is partly due to it's highly conscious social content. It serves to illustrate that not all the funk music is about praising the organized crime, like the proibidão-funk, or detailed descriptions of sex. That's why I've posted the lyrics below, with a somewhat free translation. I especially like the part about the tourists and coconuts, since like a proper gringo, I often enjoy coconut water by the beach, too. Aqua de coco even rhymes with sufocu.

Rap da Felicidade Eu só quero é ser feliz Andar tranqüilamente na favela onde eu nasci E poder me orgular e ter a consiência que o pobre tem o seu lugar Fé em Deus... DJ! Minha cara autoridade eu já não sei o que fazer Com tanta violência eu sinto medo de viver Pois moro na favela e sou muito desrespeitado A tristeza e a alegria aqui caminham lado a lado Eu faço uma oração a uma santa protetora Mas sou interrompido a tiros de metralhadora Enquanto os ricos moram numa grande e casa bela O pobre é humilhado e esculachado na favela Já não agüento mais esta onda de violência Só peço a autoridade um pouco mais de competência Diversão hoje em dia não podemos nem pensar Pois até lá nos bailes eles vêm nos humilhar Fica lá na praça que era tudo tão normal Agora virou moda a violência no local Pessoas inocentes que não têm nada a ver Estão perdendo hoje seu direito de viver Nunca vi cartão-postal que se destaque uma favela Só vejo paisagem muito linda e muito bela Quem vai pro exterior da favela sente saudades O gringo vem aqui e não conhece a realidade Vai para a Zona Sul para conhecer água de coco E o pobre na favela passando sufoco Trocada a presidência uma nova esperança Sofri na tempestade agora quero a bonança O povo tem a força só precisa descobrir Se eles lá não fazem nada faremos tudo daqui Rap of Happiness My only wish is to be happy Go peacefully in the favela where I was born And be proud and know that the people have their place Faith in God... DJ! My dear authority, I don't know what to do With such violence, I'm afraid to live 'Cause I live in favela and am very disrespeced The sadness and the joy walk here side by side I do a prayer to a protector saint But am interrupted by shots of a machine gun While rich live in a big and beautiful house The poor are humilated and told off in the favela No longer do I stand this wave of violence I just ask from the authority a little more competence Amusement today, we cannot hope for Since there to bailes they come to humiliate us There in the square everything was so normal Now the violence is a fashion in the place Innocent people who have nothing to do with it Are asking today for their right to live Never saw a post card that pictures a favela Just landscape, very nice, very beautiful Who goes by the favela feels sadnesses The gringo comes here and doesn't meet the reality Goes to Zona Sul to meet the coconut water And the poor in the favela have a hard time Change of the precidency, a new hope I suffered in the storm, now I want the calm People be strong, all you need to see is if they do nothing there we’ll do it all from here

"Eight years later after the song's initial success, the Rap da Felicidade is one of the few funks that, in the mixed crowd of the TIM festival, under the direction of DJ Marlboro, is sung together by everyone - from the patricinhas [a nickname for the daughters of the upper middle-class, among whom Patricia is a particularily popular name for a girl] to the waitresses selling beer, from the clubbers to the security", writes Silvio Essinger on the importance of the song in the book Batidão: Uma História do Funk. Batidão, by the way, is a highly recommendable reference, full of interesting anecdotes, for the funk carioca-fans reading portuguese.

And after the duo's letter to the authorities, from the favela with love, let's finally take a listen to the song:

Cidinho & Doca: Rap da Felicidade (zShare)

Sounds of two cities, part 1: Meu samba é assim

A rainy saturday night in Rio

Yesterday there was a show of Marcelo D2 at Circo Voador in Lapa. Marcelo is a rare bird: one of the few big rap artists based in Rio de Janeiro - ones that also need to be mentioned include MV Bill and Mr. Catra, who is actually a baile funk star, but has a very wide spectrum of skills and is also highly respected by the hip-hop-scene. But all in all, it could be said that in Brazil, hip-hop is more of a paulista-thing - that is, born and raised in Sao Paulo.

The difference between the cities is also audible in the hip-hop of the local artists. This is a very crude generalization, but carioca hip-hop might be more playful, like the city itself, whereas paulista sound tends to steer towards very minimalistic and dark aesthetics. It's often produced in prisons and the songs are gloomy tales of life in favelas and jails. More on the essential artists like Racionais MCs and 509-E later, for now let's settle for the softer sound of Marcelo.

D2 is a talented artist. His albums are concious of the importance of samba in the Brazilian musical tradition and many songs go to great lengths to integrate samba into hip-hop - and sometimes rather vice-versa. The songs are skillfully composed, with a lush and rich production. D2 is intelligent, his music is intelligent and he draws totally reasonable comparisons between his work and the Brazilian modernist concept of "the cultural antropofagia". And in all honesty, therein lies the dilemma, for me: personally I prefer the grimy old-school sound of the paulista artists and find Marcelo is a bit too smooth for my tastes.

But let's not linger on my personal preference of bleak beats and bleaker tales, when we could rather listen to a few fine tunes from along the D2's career.

A Dead Kennedys T-shirt and a band of 23

Marcelo grew up between the favela and the "asphalt" - wealthier normal districts - and saw most of his childhood friends eventually die in drug-gang violence. Wearing a T-shirt of the legendary American punk-band Dead Kennedys hooked him up with his first group, Planet Hemp, which released a number of succesful albums and toured Europe, Japan and USA. In 1998 Marcelo released his first solo album, Eu Tiro É Onda, and sold over 150,000 copies.

Marcelo D2: Samba de Primeira

When Planet Hemp broke up, Marcelo decided to continue searching his own sound. The result was the album À Procura da Batida Perfeita, released in 2003. The disc collected loads of awards, got Marcelo recognized for his lyrics by the Academia Brasileira de Letras and was released all over the world.

Marcelo D2: Re-Batucada

After the record the artist built up a band of 23 live musicians to "unplug" the hip-hop. This experiment led to the album Acústico MTV, based on the acoustic versions of the songs from the two previous albums. 1967 here is from the first one and A Procura from the second.

Marcelo D2: 1967
Marcelo D2: A Procura da Batida Perfecta

Marcelo's latest album, Meu Samba é Assim - "my samba goes like this", freely translated - was released in 2006. The album featured respected guest performers from both the worlds of samba and hip-hop, and propelled him to tour the mayor arenas all around the world. The hit Gueto is an honest, dance floor-filling banger, whereas Dor de Verdade shows what I ment with D2's work sometimes being more samba than hip-hop.

Marcelo D2: Gueto
Marcelo D2: Dor de Verdade

And as a little bonus to conclude, I cannot resist the urge to post a song by the aforementioned great Mr.Catra. Here's a funny tune that illustrates his versatility, combining baile funkish singing and an amusing hip-hopish beat.

Mr. Catra: Mercenária 2

Pop Interlude

Apparently I cannot help myself. I've just spent a week in Rio and already a note-worthy pile of new records has grown on my table. It mostly consists of Brazilian hip-hop with a little flavour of baile funk. But before I've had time to properly listen them through and do some background research on the artists, it's time for a tiny pop interlude.

The following songs are from a little jewel of an album, Onde Brilhem os Olhos Seus by Fernanda Takai. The artistic director of the album, Nelson Motta, describes on the linear notes how first seeing Takai perform evoked in him a ghostly impression of the departed legend and renovator of bossa nova and MPB, Nara Leão: "...this girl is Nara Leão of pop rock. The opposite of the exuberance and the vulgarity of pop stars, Fernanda was discreet and original, cool and elegant, had a half oriental look and sung intelligent and ironic songs with sweetness and firmness, a girl as modern, shy and talented as Nara in 1959." Thus, much later, when Motta got to know Takai, he had to suggest her to make an album of songs that defined the career of Leão. Onde Brilhem is the wonderful result of that idea.

The first song is actually a very sad one. If someone is misled to think that Brazilian music is just about partying, let me tell you a little bit about saudade. Especially now, after the carnaval, that strange, sad longing is heavy in the air. It's everywhere, like an obscene scent of some strange flower, bringing back memories of a love that never was there. A lot of the saddest songs in Brazil are about the first day after the carnaval, quarta-feira, the wednesday (the carnaval finishes on tuesday). The dream has ended and the harsh reality takes over. No more are we princes, heroes and harlequins, but beggars, thieves and peasants. I have an impression that the saudade is a lot about longing to a place that in reality does not exist - where as for an example tango is about longing for a happier time or a better place that now is lost and beyond reach. The saudade is the flip-side of the coin, the counter-measure of the carnaval, as creating a temporary realm of fantasy and happiness is the whole essence of this party of parties.

A lot of saddest songs in Brazil sound actually pretty happy. And that makes them all the more tragic. Listen to Odeon (written by Ernesto Nazareth and Hubaldo, with lyrics of Vinicius de Moraes) if you don't believe me.

Fernando Takai: Odeon (zShare)

Well, of course saudade is also about that usual subject of sad songs, love. And of course some of the songs sound properly devastatingly sad. Like the second one, Luz Negra (by Nelson Cavaquinho & Irani Barros) - now even the light in the end of the tunnel is black:

A luz negra de um destino cruel
Illumina um teatro sem cor
Onde estou representando o papel
De palhaço do amor

And forgive me for my crude translation:

The black light of a cruel destiny
Illuminates a theatre without colour
Where I am playing the part
Of the clown of love

Fernando Takai: Luz Negra (zShare)

But clearly we can't end a pop interlude in such a depressing tone. So here's a little more positive tune, by Capinam & Robertinho do Recife.

Fernando Takai: Seja o Meu Céu (zShare)

The hardest beats in Brazil

Every time I am here, back among the lush green peaks and endless, sun-bathing beaches of Rio de Janeiro, I am confident that this is the most beautiful city in the world. All the old clichés about cidade maravilhosa and the encanto do Rio, they are true. Despite the current weather - blazing heat and tropical rain taking turns - the city is as playful, sexy, wonderful, shamelesly sensual, exciting, elegant, outrageously incredible, dangerous, deadly and dirty as ever.



So, let's venture into the Brazilian music for a change and start the adventure with maybe the most succesful Brazilian band ever. Just to take a brief walk down the memory lane, a couple of tunes from, yes, that's it: Sepultura. Refresh your memories with a classic song Territory and a couple of bonus tracks included on some releases of albums Arise and Chaos AD. They actually fit in quite well with the palm trees gently swaying outside my window.

Sepultura: Territory (zShare)
Sepultura: C.I.U. (Criminals In Uniforms) (zShare)
Sepultura: Amen / Inner Self (live) (zShare)

And then to the point: For those following electronic music blogs it's nothing new that Seputura's former drummer Iggor Cavalera now has a very different project going on, called Mixhell. And it's fast becoming a very succesful project.

Though Mixhell, as we will soon find out, might sound very different from Sepultura's grinding death metal, the bottom line remains the same. To quote the Mixhell MySpace: "Hard beat is the main line of Iggor´s work. In his life, the beat has an intensive meaning and appears in everything he does." Which actually sounds pretty much like any Brazilian life.

Mixhell, with headquarters in Sao Paulo, is Iggor's DJing project, spiced up with live production elements like samplers and drummers. And Iggor actually is not alone on this mission: Mixhell is a duo consisting of Iggor and his wife and producer Laima Leyton. They describe their sound as "influenced by underground electronic music... DJ sets travel to many different places blending electro, discopunk and old school hip-hop, with lots of rocks and electronics. With the MPC Sampler they modify and increase elements to the songs so they fit perfectly to the dance floor."

Mixhell has made their own songs, worked with producers like DJ Hell, remixed songs of electro banger acts like Bitchee Bitchee Ya Ya Ya (for Kitsuné Maisón's new 12" release Fuck Friend) and MSTRKRFT - and made a bunch of great mixtapes. A lot of these have been circuiting around the blogs for a long time, but in case you missed them, here's a taste of their numerous parallel lines of work.

From own songs...

Mixhell: Kids are alright (zShare)
Mixhell: Sour Throat Break (zShare)

...and some fine remixes...

MSTRKRFT: Easy Love (Mixhell Favela Blast remix) (zShare)
The Bell: Target Group (Mixhell remix) (zShare)

...to samples of their DJing work. I especially like the funk carioca flavors on the XLR8R podcast. And Iron Maiden-samples.

Mixhell: Electrobangertrashset (zShare)
Mixhell: XLR8R Podcast January 2008 (zShare)

And to put the respect where the respect is due, most of these songs are from a fine Swedish blog called Stockholm Beat Connection. They have been the first to put out the new stuff from Mixhell, so check 'em out, bookmark 'em and keep your eyes on 'em.