Afropop Worldwide

Renato Martins and the Brazilian label Funk Na Caixa consistently bring the world up to date with the latest, baddest, brightest, fittest, tightest new Brazilian street jams. Their M.O. is to track the evolution of baile funk (AKA funk carioca), the Brazilian street party music of choice for millions, and the joy of hipster DJs the world over. And evolve it most certainly has! Just this past year Funk Na Caixa brought us two very different releases tracking these changes in style: In April 2013, we wrote about "Pack Monsto" which featured the slicker, glossier "neo-baile funk," and in then December, Funk Na Caixa laid the latest heavy stuff from Rio on us with their "Rasterinha Mix". Now FNC is back with a podcast that digs deeper into this new Rasterinha style of funk carioca, which mixes even more disparate elements than ever, pulling from ragga funk and axé style beats drawn from Bahian street samba, using more diverse singing techniques than traditional baile's rather straight-foward rapping, as well as making more direct references to elements from other genres of Brazilian popular music. To our ears, this Rasterinha style signals a return to the swinging, slower rhythms of Afro-Brazilian popular music, while retaining all the favela street swag and digital brashness of the first outcropping of baile funk from the 80s and 90s. Good examples of these new trends are track 6 "Perereca Suicida" ("Suicidal Frog") by MC Japa, which features both samples of a frog, a knife being sharpened, and Brazilian instruments including pandeiros and cavaquiños. Then there's MC Rhenc with "Arabia Ragga Funk (rala)" which features a fast flow, some "Arabian" style singing, but also samples of Afro-Brazilian atabaque playing. And, of course, there a number of tributes to bunda. Don't speak Portuguese? Don't know what that is? We at Afropop will not be the ones to elucidate, but here are two ways to find out: Click this link. Or watch this video. Pretty self-explanatory. Enjoy!