Favela Strikes Back
Listening to Diplo’s second selection of Baile funk tracks, Favela Strikes Back, isn’t dissimilar to being woken up by your mum screaming through a megaphone straight into your hungover head. But once you get over the combination of Miami bass and frantic, shouted Portuguese vocals, it’s also as refreshing as a bowl of fruit loops. Enough sugar to jolt you into the day – but comforting, and marginally fibrous.
This stuff is straight outta Rio’s favelas – the city’s shantytowns or slums – sourced by the man known primarily as MIA’s DJ. With his latest offering, Diplo has produced a solid follow up to his first volume of Baile funk, Favela On Blast, which sold out of print twice and cemented him as the driving force behind our obsession with Rio Baile. Diplo himself has copped some criticism for plundering a genre that’s existed for years and repackaging it to suit a Western audience. But if that’s what it takes for the sounds of Baile funk to spread to dancefloors beyond Rio’s favelas, that can only be a good thing – for us, and for the artists.
Diplo is playing this weekend. See OUT for details.
Release: Live
To Cure: A quiet weekend
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