The Rio dance craze gets a fresh treatment by Daniel Haaksman. Baile Funk is music from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Bouncing booty beats with Portuguese raps that make 50 Cent look like a wimp. Baile Funk is a reflection of Brazil's melting pot society, merging a mixture of funk, Miami bass, electro, rap, hip-hop, freestyle and bastard pop. From Black Orpheus to City of God, the idea of life in a Rio de Janeiro favela has changed substantially, and so has its soundtrack. Now, it's time for booty beats, the mutant hip hop that you've probably heard somewhere - the raw groove with mad breaks and shouty lyrics that you can never understand, steering you towards an imaginary party with big speakers in some hot and hidden Rio slum. It's been a while since the DJs from the black music balls in Rio started cutting-and-pasting with Miami bass beats, African drumming, samba, Bahia carnival tunes and pop music - incredible sampling that veers from Front 242 to Dire Straits. Then the MCs, most of them raised in the favelas, came in with rhymes about their everyday life - meaning sex (fun on a low budget), crime, love, guns, faith and anything else. Put all this together and you have funk carioca.
