This music is wild. It’s the sounds that grind through dance parties in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the slums high on the hills made famous in City of God. The first thing you notice is the energy, the next the proudly crappy lo-fi nature of the beats. But you need to pump it up, just like they do in Brazil, with competing sound systems just like Jamaica, building walls of speakers to pump these crazy tunes out. There’s rapping in Portuguese, mostly sleazy nursery rhymes, cursing, bragging and letting it all hang out, and it’s hilarious, even if you can’t understand the words. It’s incredibly raw, the soul of the hills, often violent, crude and sexually explicit, but there’s no doubt it taps into something. The music is a melting pot, a hybrid of electro, hip-hop, Miami bass and freestyle. It’s incredibly minimal. It feels like anyone could do it. It’s simple direct and very sexual. It packs a punch. There are 19 tracks here, and they’re all as wild as each other. It plays like a mix tape, incredibly short tracks that just flow into each other. The music is infectious; it genuinely feels like something new. It’s hip hop like you’ve never heard it, electro funk like you’d never thought possible.
Bob Baker Fish
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