[youtube width=”525″ height=”360″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESj164wKc6I[/youtube]

Super excited about this new event, BomBeat, that I am launching with my crew Cumba Mela, and Nickodemus from Turntables on the Hudson.  Its all going down this Saturday, November 24th at Le Poisson Rouge, in Manhattan. Expect to hear a wide range of global bass music: cumbia, dancehall, kuduro, house, moombahton, reggaeton….

We have Jeremy Sole coming from LA, repping KCRW, TheLift, and Afro Funke.

We are going to try our best to get a free EP for ever event. Be sure to check out the first one bellow!

BomBeat EP1 November 24, 2012 @ LPR NYC by BomBeat

Muito obrigado to Alexandra for reaching the brink of near deafness with me and surviving to tell the tale.  Yes I saw windows shake.  Who says favela architecture is precarious if it can withstand the sonic onslaught every weekend while IPHAN declares a meticulous building that took four years to construct too fragile for subfrequencies?  Maybe the real precarity is in the formal city.

Building sound systems is its own architectural gesture too, especially with the elbow room of a big downtown square, a far cry from the tight squeeze of a favela’s improvised public spaces.  Turned on its side, Furacão 2000’s speakerboxes look like they would tower above downtown Rio’s citadel to petroleum, the Petrobrás tower lurking behind in all its sinister, cut rectangular prism glory.

In fact, the vertical architecture of downtown actually served as a sonic prism, trapping in the sound waves that just about made themselves visible — from the shaking window to my vibrating Coke can to the blurry vision when I was trapped in the ricochet effect of speakers against building.  Sonic Warfare indeed. (more…)

A week before Rio Parada Funk, the largest baile funk ever, Brazil’s Institute for Historical Patrimony and National Art (IPHAN) informed the press that they were going to veto its location in the historical epicenter of Rio de Janeiro. They claimed they were worried about the effects of the bass on the windows of century old buildings like the Municipal Theatre and the National Library. A few days earlier the event’s organizers had agreed to IPHAN’s volume limits. But this agreement didn’t satisfy IPHAN. And they required the Parada to move to a different, less elegant, more blue collar street also in Centro.

Yet the most popular street Carnival bloco, Cordão da Bola Preta, which last year had about 2 million participants, has marched without sound limitation for years along the same route.

By transforming the prestigious center of Rio into a ten sound system deep celebration, organizers of the Parada Funk would make a claim of the centrality of funk carioca and assert their rights to the city. In recent years violent police take-overs (called “pacification”) of favelas have resulted in the shutting down of many community bailes. The Parada’s taking over Rio Branco Avenue, the former route of the Carnival samba school parade, would have enacted and symbolically placed funk in the same trajectory as samba, from criminalized, poor Afro-Brazilian music to national rhythm.

Yet organizers like Mateus, who produces Eu Amo Baile Funk, urged MCs and DJs not to talk to the press about prejudice against funk but to emphasize it as a celebration. An MC responded, “Funk is equal to samba. We’re here to show that funk is culture.” The Parada, which is the first major funk event to receive funding from the state–the Secretary of Culture–would have been unimaginable a few years ago.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDWqxRhA25Y[/youtube]

Dado DJ on MPC, then DJ Grazy and DJ Leo tag-team to make up for the one working CDJ

A few days before the event, the location was moved once again–this time by the city–to a huge plaza closer to Rio Branco. Workshops and lectures ran from 10 am to noon, followed by performances by 50 DJs, 40 MCs and various dancers. When I arrived a little after 12pm, speakers were still being stacked by young men who hadn’t slept since disassembling the systems for Saturday night’s parties.

Ten sound systems with walls of between forty and one hundred stacked speakers–and one made of car sound systems– rumbled through funk’s for over eight hours. The afternoon started with freestyle, electro, and Miami Bass, moved to montages (montagems) mixing funk’s North American roots with Brazilian rapping, Candomblé drum rhythms, and sampled phrases from “Bang Bang” (Brazilian Westerns) movies, and ended with stripped down, beatboxed funk of contemporary “PC generation” of DJs, who create songs with “pirated” FL Studio, Sound Forge and Acid from loops exchanged over MSN.

At Cash Box and Big Mix–with each about 100 speakers–I could not stand near my friends DJ’ing. I am used to the bass which vibrates through my skin, chest, ribs. But the good quality of their speakers brought out a fuller range. I felt like my ears might bleed. My friend, Greg, claimed he saw windows wobble.

Over time, the crowd began to swell–different newspapers reported between 14,000 to 100,000–filling the plaza and nearby street. The mass of funkeiros,dancing, listening, remembering and reenacting, affirmed the power of this changing rhythm and asserted its legitimacy within the city.

Montagem do Tango (circa 1998)

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Montagem%20do%20Tango.mp3]

DJ Mandrake-Aquecimento Global (2011)

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Montagem-Aquecimento Global (DJ Mandrake).mp3]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4LisTccRm8[/youtube]

[Go to :37 to skip the song’s credit intro]

Well not “pirates” exactly, but camelô, hawkers. For years I thought street vendors were called “camels” (camelo) and wondered about the connection. And, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil the area of the largest semi-formal, pirate-media-makers/smugglers market is called the Sahara.

The lyrics in the video defend camelôs working to provide for their families and attack social inequality in Brazil and the country’s prohibitively high taxes–e.g. 60% on a foreign “luxury” item like DJ gear. The long-haired kid in red, Yuri BH, sings about how musicians fly throughout Brazil for shows because of their partnership with camelôs who publicize their music. Many MCs and DJs, who I met gave their CDs and DVDs to the camelôdromo (the “hawker-drome”) in hopes of “pirate” proliferation and distribution.

Efficient pirate sales–plus radio play and “free” sites like FunkNeurótico— may have helped catapult another of the MCs featured in the song. MC Bó do Catarina–blue hat & braces–seems to have the song right now in Rio. And he’s not even from there. Funk carioca (“funk from Rio”) as the genre’s name suggests needs to be from Rio. Artists living outside of Rio, historically, have not gained a name within the music.

Bó’s hit song, “Vida Louca Também Ama,” roughly translates to “Crazy Life Also Loves.” Like in Los Angeles “vida loca” refers to gang life. In Rocinha, the largest favela in South America, where I’m living, it’s playing on YouTube at my friends’ homes. The lyrics are on my neighbors’ lips. As I roar up the hill on a motorcycle taxi, I hear it blast from distorted speakers on corners and in front of bars. And it’s somehow this popular without fitting into either of the two currently dominant subgenres. It’s not putaria, about sex; no lyrics, like my neighbors’, cleverly manage to pun camera with getting head. And despite the “vida louca” mention it’s not proibidão, gangsta funk glorifying specific factions or telling tales of local wars.

Overall since MCs–or their impresarios/managers–often have to pay the radio monthly and tip baile funk DJs with bottles of Black Label whisky and Red Bull to get their songs played, “pirates” who distribute their music for free, i.e. without the artist having to pay, can be a good deal. The prevalence of media piracy in Brazil, however, might have contributed to the death of formally released albums of funk. Piracy might be used as an excuse by label-heads to explain to artists why they receive so little royalties and for labels not to produce official CD releases anymore. DVDs of shows are the only commodity nowadays. But as long as the quality of their music wasn’t degraded, many funkeiros said they supported pirate media distribution as a way for their music to take off through Brazil. Cheap, fast, exploding.

Bó do Catarina-Vida Louca Também Ama

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/MC%20BO%20DO%20CATARINA-%20VIDA%20LOUCA%20TAMBEM%20AMA%28DJ%20GAO%29.mp3]

And his newest song–which starts nicely sweetened with some Melodyne/Auto-Tune–which Bó gave me on a burned CD-R:

Bó do Catarina-7 Vidas

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Mc%20Bo%20do%20Catarina-7%20Vidas.mp3]

TIM, nice flag sponsorship, but your cellphone coverage is still awful in Rocinha

A week ago as I walked besides the still-not-entirely-closed off sewer stream in Rocinha, the favela where I’ve been living in Rio de Janeiro, a truck approached. Bamboo stalks and palm fronds filled the bed of the truck. Several young boys and pre-teens with their faces streaked with black paint jumped off the truck as it slowed to a halt. They tumbled on the ground or ran wildly, crying out. I asked my friend what was happening. He answered simply, “Festa caipira,” “country party.”

That weekend and the next this area of Rocinha, Valão, would throw its Festa Junina, a party which no one seems to be able to explain very well to me. In the rural Northeast of Brazil, this celebration trumps Carnival in popularity. Although called Festas Juninas, June Parties, the parties don’t start happening until June 24th and only happen in a big way in July. São João and São Antonio, whose saints’ days come in late June, are the main saints involved. “Junina” supposedly–I’ve never heard this, only read it–derives from Joãoina, from São João. Children eat candied apples, dress up like country bumpkins, brides and grooms, or aristocrats and dance in quadrilhas to forro and other Brazilian folk music. Pyrotechnic explosions have replaced the “traditional” bonfires which people dance around. During the day, dogs bark and I try not to jump (like a gringa) after every boom of firecrackers.

In many communities in Rio, Festas Juninas have died out. But in Rocinha, home of many Northeastern migrants, each neighborhood seems to throw its own outdoor “June” party Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Last Friday I spent almost eight hours at two different festas juninas in Rocinha. At the second one, boys and girls—whose costumes were specially sponsored and more sparkly than most—danced quadrilhas from about 2 to nearly 4am. Rural roots were reenacted and the past re-sounded in a multiply-displaced, secretly pagan celebration of the summer solstice in the middle of (still tropical) winter.

 

Amelinha-Frevo Mulher (written by her famous former-husband, Zé Ramalho who also sings this song)

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/Amelinha-Frevo Mulher.mp3]

Amelinha-Gemedeira

[audio:http://nyc.duttyartz.com/mp3s/AMELINHA-GEMEDEIRA.MP3]

Originally published in Pirate Anthropologies

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/22847992[/vimeo]
Maga Bo – “Gondar feat. Eritbu ‘Solomon’ Agegnehu and Entenesh Wassié”

Here’s a video from Dutty Artz family and habitual transnational/borderless bass collaborationist Maga Bo. Filmed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the beautifully shot video for the track “Gondar” which from Maga Bo’s most recent release Ransom EP out now on Senseless Records. Not only providing a glimpse into Bo’s recording process and collaboration with the two Ethiopian musicians – masinqo player Eritbu “Solomon” Agegnehu and singer Entenesh Wassié, we are treated with some wonderful Addis ambiance, plus some beautiful girls dancing to the traditional Azmari song, which Bo laced up/reinforced with some dancehall-like riddim! Stream to the entire Ransom EP on Bandcamp – with remixes from Filastine, Timeblind, Teleseen, Pacheko, and Fletcher.

It also goes without saying that Bo is repping Dutty Artz extra hard in this one! We’ve some some incredible gear coming your way soon too.

“UPP filho da puta!” (Pacification Police you sons of bitches!) So went the refrain to nearly every funk proibidão blasting out of the walls of speakers lining the main street of the favela Mangueira on a Friday night last month in Rio de Janeiro.  Around the corner, the G.R.E.S. Primeira Estação de Mangueira, the most famous samba school in Brazil with its trademark green and pink trim (verde que te quero rosa sang Cartola, their legendary sambista), had already wrapped up its rehearsal for the evening.  The action had shifted to the jam-packed baile, a series of sound systems lining the narrow street, like a gauntlet of tamborzão.

(more…)

(partial synthesis of posts on Pirate Antropologies)

Just over a week ago, as I settled onto a couch in MC Doca’s living room, a Globo News reporter announced that funk MCs had been sent to prison for apologizing crime. A YouTube video of MC Ticão and MC Frank singing about how FB, the dono (owner) of the recently police-invaded Morro de Alemão was hiding out in rival faction Rocinha. The report next showed an armed blond police woman–with heavy makeup and perfect hair–shouting and banging on an apartment door. The camera revealed two shirtless, tattooed MCs, Frank and Ticão, who are brothers, blinking away sleep. Cut to a table with a watch, a ring, and a few chains. “The police encountered various gold chains” the reporter intoned. Tremendously successful MCs with gold chains?!? How incriminating!

MC Smith, MC Max, and MC Didô had also been imprisoned. They also lived in the two communities recently occupied by the police: Morro de Alemão and Villa Cruzeiro. The deputy accused the MCs of using the Internet to share music making “apologizing” crime and criminals, forming a gang (with the other MCs), associating with traffickers, and doing “marketing” (yes, she used the English word) for drugs and criminal factions.

Next the report announced that MC Galo of Rocinha had been arrested in a traffic blitz in Leblon. He had an arrest warrant for marijuana possession from 1998 and for singing “proibidão” (“very prohibited” music). The police evidence? A YouTube video of Galo singing in Leandro HBL’s and Diplo’s Favela on Blast. None of the press using the clips contacted Leandro to ask permission. And whenever Leandro has used Globo’s footage, he’s had to pay. A lot.

The video, which Globo used, is Galo’s top hit on YouTube.  The clip, they chose, compares the hard life of the MC to the hard life of a drug-seller. It’s not, even “proibidão.” So, why did Globo weave Galo–who had been arrested a day earlier–into the story? Perhaps to build sentiment against Rocinha, a community speculated as a target for police invasion and “pacification.”

Predictably, none of the reports look at the roots of “forbidden” funk–which refer to drugs, violence, and criminal factions. A common story among funkeiros goes that in the mid-nineties when the various judges prohibited bailes funk in clubs, typically in working class suburbs, the parties and the music moved into favelas. Farther away from police repression, some bailes began to be financed by criminal factions. At the same time funk’s base in Miami Bass & freestyle evolved into the Candomblé- and samba-influenced tamborzão beat.

I visited the MCs in prison yesterday along with MC Leonardo, the president of APAFUNK, and DJ Marlboro, who’s credited with recording the first “funk carioca” album in 1989. We met with the MCs in a classroom above the underground prison. After one guard allowed us to enter with cameras and voice recorders,  another returned to confiscate the camera and voice recorder of two human rights reporters. I hid my point-and-shoot camera. Until the guard came back shouting, “The meeting is over! Stop singing. No cameras!”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEZtdKteKm0[/youtube]

When asked if he ever expected to be jailed for his songs, MC Smith responded, “This is a political game that’s happening in Brazil now, so yes…. Ivete Sangalo lives in Bahia. And what’s that? Carnaval, carnaval ‘fora da epoca’ [out-of-season, all the time] and she sings about what happens. And I live in a community that was taken over by the state… one of the most dangerous in the world. And I live in a community with a high risk of violence, a criminal base, high rates of prostitution. And therefore I’ll sing what I live. And what I think. This is freedom of expression. Not only me, but for Max, Ticão, Frank, Didô.”

When will the criminalization of funk carioca stop? People point out how City of God is “proibidão” that was Oscar-nominated. Yet, funk suffers prejudice unlike high-class art. After the police invaded Vila Cruzeiro and Morro de Alemão and failed to capture “bandits,” it seems that they chose easier targets: MCs with “proibidão” videos on YouTube.
[audio:https://duttyartz.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Funk-Se-Quem-Quiser.mp3]
MC Galo-Funk-Se Quem Quiser (words MC Dolores)
[audio:https://duttyartz.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Aqui-o-Bagulho-é-Doido-2.mp3]
MC Smith e MAG- Aqui o Bagulho é Doido

"ABC of Citizen Jail: Graduating Citizens"
"Suffering and Smiling"

TC reached into the roots of one plants on the table. “It’s a baobob,” he told me, “My daughter brought me some seeds from Africa. This tree is also the symbol of Rede Mocambo.” In Portuguese “rede” means network, and “mocambo” is the traditional, thatch building of quilombos, maroon communities of escaped slaves in Brazil. Quilombos continue to this day. TC heads Casa Tainã, a cultural center and initiator of the Rede, in a “modern quilombo” on the periphery of a small city in the interior of São Paulo.  TC told me that he plants a Baobob sapling in each “quilombo” which is part of Rede Mocambo.

The project started when Casa Tainã gained partnership with state-backed Digital Inclusion programs with access to technological resources and computers, and began to set up Internet telecenters in quilombos in the Southeast of Brazil. From these social, knowledge, and material exchanges, a “Quilombo Network” began to take root. Now the Rede extends through almost all the Brazilian states (even though not all quilombos have Internet yet because some don’t have electricity).

How do you get computers to the projects? I asked. “With old computers we practice ‘meta-recycling,’ transforming the computers to give them a new life” Robson, also of Casa Tainã told me. In the quilombos they show them how to practice metarecyling, to install free software, to access the Internet, and to make a video or to record a song. And “the quilombo production will then circulate on the ‘rede,’ the Internet.”

TC said that “this network was created as a tool to fight for and ensure our rights. Communication in a network generates greater understanding of quilombo and black struggles. We have to use the new open technologies to construct with them.”

Robson added that the Rede’s goal is also “to discuss the right to land, the right to religion, the right to culture, not hierarchical culture, but horizontal…. And the goal of the network is to think of a new cartography of African identity.”

“And in terms of cartography,” Robson continued, “The baobob connects all the quilombos in the network to Africa. It’s a remembrance of who they were before slavery, when we were kings and queens.”

TC told me that he also brings seeds from each of the quilombos that he visits to plant back to Casa Tainã and in other quilombos in the network. He had just returned from a regional Rede Mocambo Encounter in Northeastern Brazil. Cacao pods from Quilombo João Rodrigues in Bahia were drying in the sun.

“Palmares was destroyed by cannons. Now the big cannon is the media. But with decentralization of the means of communication and with new open technologies, we also have cannons. Imagine if Palmares had had the Internet. We have a tool for revolution,” TC.