This essay was first published as the liner notes of “funk-BR – São Paulo“, the São Paulo baile funk compilation released by NTS in 2024 curated by me and Jonathan Kim.

A tale of one city: São Paulo and the rise of funk mandelão

Chances are, by the time the needle drops onto this record and the first scorched kick blasts out of the speaker, São Paulo will already be powering through another sonic revolution under the reign of baile funk (or just funk, as Brazilians say). This new noise will be capturing the hearts and minds of Latin America’s biggest city, with its broad avenues and favela alleys. A new iteration on the megalopolis soundscape debunking the tropical fantasy of Brazil.

But, for now, funk.BR – São Paulo is the future.

This compilation serves to document the here and now – a vital snapshot of a time, a blueprint on wax that records a city convoluted by the music, likened to a persistent rhizome growing from historically marginalised neighbourhoods. Beaming out of favelas such as Heliópolis and Paraisópolis – home to thousands of people – funk is the beacon of a generation that parties in a city that neglects them.

An apocryphal term, arguably referring to the short-lived fame of the Favela do Mandela parties, the word “mandelão” has grown into a major category for baile funk over the past few years. Mandelão today is an all-in-one umbrella, covering the many strains of favela funk blasting through São Paulo’s endless tide of parties (bailes or fluxos). From the Marcone to Helipa, from Bega to Casarão, from Dz7 to Casinhas, this collection of music features some of the most notorious baile funk artists of now.

The Brazilian Funk’s basic rhythmic cell is made of the infectious, now worldly-famous, “thump-tcha-tcha tcha” – in theory, this could be described as a timbre and pitch contrast followed by a countermetric sound. Throughout funk.BR – São Paulo, this pattern is chopped, shredded, saturated, overlapped, eroded, sliced, and reassembled in several forms. This is particularly true for DJ Arana’s ‘Montagem Phonk Brasileiro’, a track that is a patchwork of stomping kicks and jarring broken melodies, a glimpse of Arana’s horrorcore mandelão and the wide funk landscape.

‘Beat das Galáxias’, by DJ Blakes and DJ Novaes, goes down the same road. Blistering, high-pitched sirens jaunt across a drone-like line that, at its peak, overshadow even MC GW – one of the most recognizable voices of Funk. In ‘Balacobaco Hardcore’, DJ Wizard unleashes his grudgeful take on funk, with utterly saturated kicks and firing chords, reshaped as drum attacks. It serves a suffocating atmosphere to the music, close also to tracks: Caio Santos, whose ‘Você Sabe’ is both off-kilter but enticing; DJ Livea’s ‘Best of Both Worlds From Brazil’, reimagining São Paulo early baile funk in this dark scenario where enticing keys encapsulate several beats, from the “bubble” to tamborzão.

With a nostalgic verve, ‘Essa É a DJ Menezes’ also relies on an old-school cell, the 2000s beatbox, fleshed out as a blaring baile jam. The track also serves as an intro to one of São Paulo funk’s substrains: ritmado. This breed is largely known for the use of a wide sonic palette and slightly offbeat drums. That’s what we hear in ‘Mandela Cunt’ by Lorrany, a DJ and producer based in the city’s East side, where funk parties like Casarão keep the genre’s wheel spinning. DJ Saze’s ‘Uq Tenho que Fazer’ is another ritmado gem, a jaunt of minimal assemblage representing a less-explored, but expressive dimension of SP funk.

Quite popular throughout the city bailes, the automotivo lineage has grown bigger with the rise of paredões. These massive, automobile sound systems blast sounds as intense as their colourful lighting, and they are the real stars of favela bailes at Bega and Dz7. That’s DJ Gabiru’s turf, and his ‘Dentro do i30’ is a feverish 4-to-the-floor that sounds better with the subs turned all the way up. DJ P7’s ‘Automotivo Destruidor, P7 Vai Te Destruir’ is no different: the bashing thumps are tailor-made for huge speakers, just like ‘Boca de Veludo’, by Pablo RB. Along with the flanging stabs of ‘Acende o Sinalizador’ by DJ Pikeno MPC, and the chiptune weird phrase of ‘Piranha Perversa’ by DJ Kaups, the mandelão kicks shine.

While unstoppable stomps prevail in automotivo, heavy drums turned into nuanced basslines make the agressivo strain. Few producers in São Paulo know their way round the sound better than DJ Noguera. Hailing from Club Dz7 (a label founded after the party), he has developed his craft achieving a rumbling bass that sometimes is rather felt than heard, like in ‘Pinóquio’ – MC Vitin da DZ7’s second strike in this album. The duo DJ Dayeh and MC Bibi Drak excel in ‘As Mais Top’ following the song intro, they cast off thunderous kicks and trembling whistles into a grim dream crowned by Drak’s enticing vocals.

More of a style than a branch of mandelão, bruxaria also has a place in the album. The dizzying, outlandish keys of Patrick R’s ‘Vai No Chão’ opens the doors of this nightmarish room inhabited by macabre clowns wearing Oakley sunglasses and Mizuno sneakers. ‘Bruxaria de Extrema Periculosidade’, by DJ Léo da 17 and DJ BIG ORIGINAL, stacks bloodcurdling, crumbly chords that ramp up the funk rhythmic pattern. DJ K’s and DJ K Note’s ‘Me Viu no Fluxo’ sneaks in the extremely high-pitched keys that trademark the bruxaria style. Bonekinha Iraquiana and DJ Thiago Martins also take advantage of the so-called “tuim” noise in ‘Submundo Amedrontador 2.0’, building up ostensive, laser-beam drumwork all along the track.

Going under a constant mutation in São Paulo streets, funk is also continually forged in the unpredictable pipelines of WhatsApp audio files,  impromptu TikTok videos, and SoundCloud posts. Artists like Deekapz, DJ Tonias, and Mu540 embrace this spirit as some of the most creative producers bridging São Paulo favela sounds and the world. ‘Ritmado Mágico no Sumarézinho’, by Deekapz, is a carefree drum-busting jaunt. DJ Tonias revisits the montagem format — micro-chopped, utterly-sampled DJ-only tracks — in ‘MTG Ritmado na Última Hora’. And respected figure of Mu540 discharges his inventive drum palette ranging from multiple attacks to none.

Such a groundbreaking, diverse, and yet cohesive sonic plethora couldn’t be more different than the first appearances of the baile funk back in the 1970s. Then, Brazilians were living life under a military dictatorship. Black people and migrants from the Northeast region of the country formed a massive workforce in cities like Rio de Janeiro. This population crowded favelas and low-income neighbourhoods, where courts and football fields hosted weekend parties by local sound systems. The music was US funk, with live bands and DJs playing James Brown and Tim Maia records. This was the original baile funk.

By the mid-’80s, the sound of these parties gradually moved to new trends. NY freestyle, Miami bass, and Los Angeles electro were breaking into the US charts. In Rio, they fused into one. The baile funk music per se kicked off then with dancers on stage toasting over beats and breaks such as Battery Brain’s infectious ‘Volt Mix’. From impromptu emceeing and parodies of English-language music, and shout outs to local crews and neighbourhoods, baile funk MCs blossomed following the first funk compilation of the genre, 1989’s Funk Brasil, concocted by DJ Marlboro.

Meanwhile, in São Paulo, the likes of Racionais MCs and RZO were paving Brazilian rap, broadcasting the harsh reality of daily life in the favelas. It was only in the late 2000s when funk was embraced by its inhabitants, the “paulistanos”, following a generation of MCs and DJs based in Santos. This coastal city bridged Rio and São Paulo sonically, with the likes of Primo e MC Duda do Marapé becoming the first non-Rio MCs to enter the hallmarks of baile funk with songs like ‘Diretoria’ and ‘Cai Lágrimas’. São Paulo would give birth to its first MCs by the end of the 2000s. This generation flourished with Bio G3, Dede, Menorzinha; MCs that paved the way to the funk artists that reached Brazil and global charts, such as MC Fioti with his world-wide 2017 hit ‘Bum Bum Tam Tam’.

The international outreach of baile funk – with its signature rhythm now sneaking its way into the production toolboxes of mainstream artists – echoes the genre’s most watered-down, aseptic facet. Funk went pop in the beginning of the 2020s, but the favela parties and artists still face prejudice and regular attacks from the police, the media, and policymakers. In the 2010s, São Paulo’s first funk iteration was discredited by the local industry. In the 2000s, this genre was nothing but a fad in the clubs of the Brazilian money-capital. In the 1990s, it was hard to imagine that funk would flourish outside Rio. In the 1980s, just thinking of it was impossible. funk.BR – São Paulo beams out of this picture as a relentless struggle against all odds. São Paulo and funk were not bound to merge – but they did, and the baile won’t stop now.