This is a story assignment for Boiler Room. It was first published as an edited and shorter version in May 2025.
Rio is the life and soul of the party. But party here is not a gringo-tainted tropical dream where hollow joy shines from an AI-generated, feather-headed golden face smiling on a magazine ad. Party is conflictual, uneasy, a provocative living being running through the streets and clubs of the former capital of Brazil, one of the most unequal countries in the world. Party is the pulse of Rio, and, once per year, it beats harder through sound. Party at its apex, the carnaval — with an “a” instead of an “i”.
From the violence of the overpacked crowds to the jest of the witty costumes, from explosive soundscapes to colorful sequins breaking the opaque norm of daily life, Brazilian carnaval is forged in transgression. Such obliteration of rules, when regular people squeeze the art de la fête in a handful of days, escapes the dominant lenses. For transgression holds carnaval together, and carnaval doesn’t fit in frivolous analysis that reduces popular manifestations into peaceful tradition or fearful phenomena. In Rio, carnaval reigns.
Carnaval branches from entrudo, a common Portuguese festivity from the 16th century that consisted in taking up the streets tossing water, eggs and powder in each other’s faces. Transgression, indeed. But carnival only evolved to carnaval with the inestimable contribution of Black and Indigenous population throughout years and years. Forced to live under subhumane conditions through colonial and post-colonial times, they sneak into a once catholic-led celebration several practices that gradually turned into a stunning patchwork of Brazilian culture.
Hence samba is the angular stone of Rio’s carnaval. Father of rhythmics and spearhead of drums, heir to old-century Afro-Brazilian percussions soaked in Ibero-American music, samba epitomizes the Brazilian identity and offers the backbone of all sorts of carnaval beats in Rio since the early 1900s. Not by chance some of the most important and sacred popular-musical organizations of the world are born from carnaval and uphold the school title for a name — while West Africa had griots, the escola de samba has the velha-guarda.
Touching ears, hands, feet and hips, samba is a potion: elixir to many, poison to a few. “Those who dislike samba aren’t good people”, so it goes with an old Brazilian song. The drums take hearts and the bodies take the streets during Rio’s carnaval. To date, no other dance mania in human history has had such a reach. Body responds to the sound and the sound responds to the body. It’s realpolitik, straight-forward sonic-body politics. Bate-bolas, also known as clovis, incorporate this ethos. With their hyper-colorful, utterly shocking costumes, these postmodern clowns (that is the origin of their names) blaze a trail of fascination across the city — such as the Turma KND de Realengo.
The beat goes on. Sound pushes the boundaries of Rio’s carnaval beyond what’s seen. In recent years, electronics have joined the ball. The once muffled kicks and rowdy lyrics blasting from sound systems in narrow, hilly alleys and beach-less suburbs (from Baixada to Zona Norte) have grown into a growling, overruling sound that controls the city—baile funk. The genre’s unapologetic polyrhythmic cell blending reappropriations of ’80s US music with local sounds, such as candomblé’s maculelê and playful emceeing, has become the sound of the now and then in Rio.
With tireless creative fuel, baile funk renews itself, mashing up time and space at a speed unreachable to some music critics and connoisseurs. Pioneering collectives such as Furacão 2000 show up to today a compelling assemblage of practices that span from the ’70s funk-slash-soul parties to the ’90s first and second waves of Rio’s MCs and the 2000s female-bar-spitters, such as MC Tati Quebra Barraco, Carol and Marcelly. This is not the sound of a bland nostalgic radio show. The up-and-coming Marcelinho, for instance, finger-drums an homage to the genre’s first innovators on his MPC, blending a fresh stance and some old tunes.
Crews like Heavy Baile spring out the tamborzão into an overarching umbrella that bends dancehall vibes and maximal textures into one baile rendition. Rennan da Penha, a contemporary staple of funk, carves intricate rhythmics in the genre by pouring afro-laden percussions and guaracha-esque beats in his productions. The likes of DJ Vicx set new horizons for the genre reshaping four-to-the-floor structures into the skewed, offpaced baile verve. Baile funk is black and favela music; thus, baile funk is also carnaval.
Rio’s carnaval was once a carnival, and attempts to smoothen the roughness and poignancy of the party still lurk. But carnaval can only exist in transgression. From the first days of entrudo to the samba schools community centers (the quadras), from the riveting bate-bolas to the boisterous open-air parades (the blocos), from the balls to the bailes, Rio’s carnaval is impossible to seize. Body oversteps the dance floor, colors spill out the walls, music overflows the air melding street and club into one. In Rio, once per year, sound is the law and carnaval is the king.