Tom Wilson's online emporium of fun

Sex, drugs, guns and funk

Why is it that the poorest, most underprivileged people are always the most musical? Take a look at any poverty-stricken group and you can be sure to find a burgeoning musical heritage. The social underclass of the gypsies in Romania; the desperately poor Republic of Cuba; the black community in New Orleans; and, of course, the poverty-stricken Jamaica, a country whose music has been adored and imitated the world over, yet is an island that’s just 146 miles in length. The general rule is that if you take an underprivileged community, you’ll find a thriving musical scene.

Baile Funk is just the most recent addition to this list. It’s the sound of the favelas in Rio de Janeiro , the huge shanty-town settlements that spread into the surrounding hillside in the shadow of the multi-million pound developments of the city. It’s produced and listened to by the dwellers of these settlements, a staggering one fifth of the city, and is played at the huge outdoor parties, or Baile Funks which often take place in the streets of the favellas. And Baile Funk (pronounced BYE-lee) is made with a single purpose in mind: to make people dance. It’s a combination of electro, hip hop, samba, ‘ Miami bass’ and funk, finished off with furious rapping in Portuguese.

Jamaican music is one example of how whole genres of music developed from a lack of resources: ‘dub’ for example developed out of the need to fill the b-side of a single without having to create a whole new song, and so ‘versions’ or ‘dubs’ developed, playing with inexpensive echo effects instead of paying new musicians. Baile music is exactly the same. Its trademark sound comes from the fact that it makes use of the cheapest equipment possible. It’s made extremely fast by kids on computers, and released extremely fast on the cheap, democratic technology of home-burned CD-Rs. In Rio , hardly any of this music is released on vinyl, being too expensive, too impractical for the needs of the scene, where hits are burned onto CD and passed around local DJs like the undoubted King of Baile, ‘DJ Marlboro’.

Just like rap in the US , Baile Funk is seen by many youngsters as a way of gaining respect, earning money, and getting out of the ghetto. However, unlike the exaggerated, Tom and Jerry style violence that middle-class rappers in the west can often be found making use of in a desperate effort to gain credibility, the kids who sing Baile funk aren’t making it up. Baile funk is extremely violent. Guns are openly carried and frequently fired into the air at the ‘funk balls’ – apparently it’s a sign of appreciating the music. Rio has one of the highest levels of gun ownership on earth, and when the rappers threaten to shoot members of rival gangs who are seen on their territory, they mean it.

There’s an even more sinister side to the scene. Just like the favelas themselves, Baile funk is basically controlled by the local drug gangs, making vast profits from dealing cocaine. Local barons even commission songs to be written about them, hoping to raise their image by being name-checked in a hit. The gangs that control the favelas, going under a variety of names, such as the infamous ‘Red Command’, even pay for these parties – a cynical attempt to win over communities and give their barbarous rule a sheen of altruism.

It’s as though the music were dreamed up by an advertising executive: it’s the perfect music for suburban, middle class white kids. 50 cent and Jay-Z’s tales of their gun-fights and crack-cocaine dealing simply can’t compare to this level of terrifyingly real violence. Moreover, the lyrics, if you can understand them, take obscenity to the next level. Aside from shooting other people, anal sex is a hugely popular theme for Baile Funk singers.

A heady cocktail of sex, drugs and guns: all in all it sounds like the perfect music for MTV, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s almost exclusively sung in Portuguese. Unsurprisingly, then, it’s not the music itself, but a carbon copy of it that has been making its way into the charts this summer, a trend certain to continue next year. Mercury Music Prize nominated London/Sri Lankan rapper MIA has basically taken Baile Funk as the blueprint for many of her songs. Her club hit ‘Bucky Done Gone’ is basically a note-for-note remake of a Baile hit, and much of her debut album carries a strong Baile influence.

If the Dancehall reggae craze has provided the sound of the summer for the last few years, with Jamaican artists like Sean Paul breaking through to the mainstream, 2006 could be the Summer of Baile - albeit in a sanitised, watered-down form. Here’s hoping that they don’t bring the guns with them too.