Within dance music over the last couple of years there has been a Brazilian element rising hard. And it’s got nothing to do with Pele’s Viagra endorsement.
Baile funk’s slow entwinement into European dance culture has exploded over the last two years via producers like Diplo, Crookers and Sinden, arguably three of the most desirable underground talents of the moment. Since 2005 though, Daniel Haaksman has forged forty South American-inspired releases on his Man Records label, which appears as almost the only modern baile funk label operating in the UK.
Haaksman reveals how it all started: “A friend of mine studied in Brazil in 2003. When he returned, he brought me a stack of baile funk CDs. I was blown away by the music. I started to play baile funk tracks in my DJ sets to enthusiastic responses. As I was in a DJ crisis around that time, bored by techno, house and electro, baile funk was like a fresh kick in the ass. As I tried to get hold of more tracks I noticed it was practically impossible to buy baile funk in Europe. So, I decided to go to Rio myself in January 2004. I found tons of more and exciting stuff and thus emerged my first compilation, ‘Rio Baile Funk Favela Booty Beats’, on my old label Essay Recordings. The compilation became a big seller and I noticed that there was a market for this music.”
Effectively, bringing artists like Deize Tigrona, Edu K, DJ Edgar, DJ Sandrinho, Sany Pitbull or DJ Amazing Clay to a Non-Brazilian audience is a massive achievement, and dance music’s path has been noticeably swayed alongside long-time advocates such as Philadelphia’s legendary Diplo. It’s a sound that has really taken hold in Europe, a fact not lost on the solitary label boss of Man records. “As it incorporates many different music styles, this is music many people can relate to. Also, it’s fun music, it’s very simplistic, yet powerful, it uses a lot of samples, and is exciting and fresh. In a way, baile funk is the tropical version of the whole mash-up movement that people in Europe embraced in the early Noughties. It’s only much more fun….”
Funk Mundial Essentials
Edu K feat. Deize Tigrona – ‘Sex-O-Matic (Solid Groove Mix)’
Crookers – ‘Para De Graçinha’ feat. MC Leka
Daniel Haaksman – ‘Senta Senta’
