From its birth in the eighties the Brazilian genre of funk carioca cast a wide net, pulling from samba soul, Miami bass and Latin freestyle, the chanted vocals and hybrid rhythms of Afrobeat, the first boasts of gangster rap and seminal tracks like ‘Planet Rock’ and ‘Nunk’ which created the short-lived template for boogified electro. Where Afrika Bambaataa and Arthur Baker bonded over their love of the Kraftwerk songs ‘Trans-Europe Express’ and ‘Numbers’, the first breakthrough funk carioca hit interpolated ‘Boing Boom Tschak’, which was known locally as ‘Melô do Porco’ as funk carioca began to emerge from Rio de Janeiro’s teeming favelas.
As the scene shifted to São Paulo in the 2010s, economic turmoil saw the aspirational sub-genre of funk ostentação with its pop hooks and odes to glitzy consumption gradually usurped by funk mandelão, a more sinister and nocturnal form steeped in horror tropes, minimalist beats, booming synths and dizzying repetitions. Today bruxaria which translates to ‘witchcraft’ or ‘sorcery’ is harsher still, full of eerie tones and rippling distortions. Skewing more towards contemporary trends in electronic music, where funk mandelão sought to blow the speakers, bruxaria seeks to ruin headphones or make the eardrums bleed. And one of its foremost practitioners is DJ K, who this week unveils his debut release for the Kampala outsider bastion Nyege Nyege Tapes.
Breaking out after a year of meticulous study via online tutorials for the digital audio workstation FL Studio, the electronic producer now helms the musical collective Bruxaria Sound and is firmly entrenched within the Baile do Helipa, the street party of Heliópolis which retains its title as São Paulo’s biggest favela. Through Arabic chants, blistering kicks and trilling birdsong, DJ K hones his ultra high-pitched tuin, a shrill siren call which baile funk enthusiasts associate with the auditory hallucinations caused by lança perfume, a cheap drug which mixes chloroethane with an essence or flavouring and provides short spurts of euphoria alongside sensitivity to high volumes. The sound of tuin then stretches towards the limits of consciousness, even as DJ K introduces PANICO NO SUBMUNDO with a nod to the ‘Erva Venenosa’ of the national rock icon Rita Lee.
