Jacare dos Patins, (literally, “the Skate Alligator”), blowing your mind at the Batalha do Passinho in the City of God. You read that right. Passinho is a new wave dance battle culture coming out of Rio de Janeiro. Like funk (and samba long before that) passinho comes out of Rio’s favelas, but it’s very much a [...]
Love Diplo. This is his new music video, Express Yourself, and it just hit the web. Diplo and a DJ named Marlboro brought Brazilian funk international in the mid-2000s. Check out their 2005 profile in The New Yorker and read up on the origins of The Funk Phenomenon in XLR8R, which calls Marlboro the “godfather of favela funk.” Want to [...]
Rio’s new police forces may have shut down the famed funk parties in Vidigal and Rocinha, but the Sunday night funk party in Rio das Pedras has been going hard for years. Since Rio’s pacification forces (UPP) have been retaking control of strategically located and highly visible favelas like Vidigal and Rocinha from drug traffickers, they’ve [...]
Meet the kind-of Eminem of Rio’s kind-of hip-hop scene, but SO MUCH HARDER. The New York Times calls him Rio’s Bravest Gringo. His stage name, Times correspondent Simon Romero says, roughly translates to “Sir Whiteboy.” Real name: Alex Cutler, born and raised in Los Angeles, MBA from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. But to fans of Rio’s [...]
Sou Foda (“I’m the shit”) is the best worst music video of 2011, and with over 11 million views, one of the biggest memes to hit the Brazilian web this year. The group is called Os Avassaladores, literally “The Overwhelmers,” they’re five friends from the Vigário Geral favela in Rio, and they’re about to overwhelm your face off: Are [...]
Exhibit A: BandaUó. Mickey Mouse sweater? Check. High-waisted hot pants on a transgender singer in a Hard Rock t-shirt? Check. Hawaiian print, mustaches, glitter lipstick, blood and a hypercolor ginger? Check check check check check. This is Shake de Amor, a cover of Willow Smith’s brilliant Whip My Hair, by tecnobrega band Banda Uó: Banda Uó is part [...]
