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2015 is coming up in a couple of months in the Poll, so I scrolled back to eight years ago on KondZilla and GR6 Explode, the two Brazilian funk channels whose archives go back that far.* A couple years ago I'd listened to some bare-bones Bum Bum tracks from 2017, so was already expecting, heading backwards, that I'd find settings that were more spare than those of current funk carioca. And of course the thesis – or at least the hook – of this series of posts is how, for a while, the bass – the bottom – lost its status as the core of the Brazilian funk rhythm. But still, I had a huge shock – jawdroppingly huge – at just how spare 2015 was. And I was also surprised at how young a lot of these performers were. That is, not shocked that, e.g., MC Hariel was once younger than he is now – duh – and not shocked (though somewhat surprised) that so many current performers were making music back then (when some were as young as 17, 16, 12); but was very surprised that those kids were such a big focus of the channels. Of course, this might just be the peculiarities of these two channels in 2015, the spare music and the youth of the performers, the channels happening to pick up on a bunch of kids and the bet paying off prosperously to the present. Nonetheless, here is a treasure trove, early work, voices without much accompanying sounds to cushion them.
That the accompaniments are so unadorned has the positive effect of making the singing feel really openhearted – a contrast to the raspers and bellowers I've been into in 2023. My friend Dave Moore writes via email, "Some of the spareness you identify I don't associate with the bracing spareness in 2020s funk, but with a kind of improvisatory or informal spareness of making music with your friends and a couple of cups or spoons. There's a warmth to the spareness." Exactly.
MC Hariel - Passa Devagar (2015)
I will say, though – to reveal my prejudices and maybe try to sidestep them – that if you'd teleported 12-year-old me from my 1966 world of male early adolescence to this 2015 world of kids singing songs with sexual lyrics, that I REALLY doubt that "warm" and "openhearted" would be words I'd use for either world's social life, Connecticut 1966 or São Paulo 2015. But I'll also say – trying not to derail us too drastically from the subject at hand – that what felt to me in 1966 like a constricted world of teasing and bullying might well have been more of an opening-up and adventure for some of my peers. To me dirty words felt like hate words, and for me that spilled over to any sexual content, and honestly that still colors how I hear lots of stuff.** But I don't know this São Paulo world, and 12-year-old me isn't writing this post anyway, and good for the music for sounding like it could be an opening-up and adventure. Even if it isn't.
Anyhow, in 2014, six months to a year before the songs I'm embedding, MC Pedrinho, at age 12, hit with the song "Dom Dom Dom" including the lyrics, "Kneel down, get ready, and give a good blowjob," getting the attention (says Wikip) of the local state prosecutor because of Pedrinho's age and the sex content – of course these lyrics (especially the imperative to kneel down) jump out at me as more mean than sexy (and strike me as very 12-year-old); but again the meanness (or whatever) is not the only thing going on.*** The adolescent posturing is a container or accompaniment for audacity and energy and experiment. The very earliest video on GR6 Explode is a live clip from several months later ("Se Louco Cachorrera") of Pedrinho and another four of these kids sitting behind him on a step or a stoop, no instruments except mouths and cheeks and hand claps, and the five of them are creating full rhythm and melody, the first sounds being the kid on the far right using his voice as a beatbox. Then Pedrinho grabs another boy's hand in solidarity, runs behind the other four, makes funny motions with his arms and legs as if he's diving forward, goes front again, dances a bit while MC Kevin tickles him and MC Don Juan raps; Pedrinho pulls Kevin's hand back, fooling around, then he sings in a penetrating voice, the guys clapping the clave rhythm behind him.
So anyway, this is where we are. Acks and mouthfarts and dat-dat. Vocalists in place of some of the percussion instruments and rhythm instruments, and voices that sing without the protection and accompaniment of such instruments. (Btw, I think the settings work similarly well for the singers in their twenties.)
MC Neném, MC Magrão, DJ R7 – Parafuso (2015)
On this one a drum is in there with a couple of useful thuds, and a foghorn is blowing smoke, but mostly there's a riot of mouthbeats – it starts with an "ah" repeating on the offbeat, then various clustered staccato yelps and "doo-bitta-doo doo-doo" running with and counter to each other. Of course the words too have their rhythms, even when they're struggling to be heard amidst voicebeats high and low. It's as if you took doo-wop's bouncing balls and pirouettes and changed them to cries and grunts. [Couldn't find lyrics online.]
MC Pedrinho, MC Juninho JR, DJ R7 – Manda Pras Novinhas (2015)
The rhythm is set by a voice that cries "ah" on every offbeat. Percussion and occasional instruments circle around it; but long sections of this are just the singing voice and a few bumps of percussion. [Couldn't find the lyrics, but the kids are saying "putaria" a lot.]
(A couple more tracks with a constant voice on the offbeat are "Assunto Profissional" and "Vai Ficar Ardendo." Like "Manda Pras Novinhas," they're produced by DJ R7. Btw, I assume that on a lot of these, the vocal cry is recorded and then put on the offbeat by the producer, rather than being constantly voiced by someone. But I don't know this.)
( MC Robs, MC Hariel, MC Menor da VG, MC Lais )
( Footnotes )
( EDIT: Meta para pasted in from my Substack )
That the accompaniments are so unadorned has the positive effect of making the singing feel really openhearted – a contrast to the raspers and bellowers I've been into in 2023. My friend Dave Moore writes via email, "Some of the spareness you identify I don't associate with the bracing spareness in 2020s funk, but with a kind of improvisatory or informal spareness of making music with your friends and a couple of cups or spoons. There's a warmth to the spareness." Exactly.
MC Hariel - Passa Devagar (2015)
I will say, though – to reveal my prejudices and maybe try to sidestep them – that if you'd teleported 12-year-old me from my 1966 world of male early adolescence to this 2015 world of kids singing songs with sexual lyrics, that I REALLY doubt that "warm" and "openhearted" would be words I'd use for either world's social life, Connecticut 1966 or São Paulo 2015. But I'll also say – trying not to derail us too drastically from the subject at hand – that what felt to me in 1966 like a constricted world of teasing and bullying might well have been more of an opening-up and adventure for some of my peers. To me dirty words felt like hate words, and for me that spilled over to any sexual content, and honestly that still colors how I hear lots of stuff.** But I don't know this São Paulo world, and 12-year-old me isn't writing this post anyway, and good for the music for sounding like it could be an opening-up and adventure. Even if it isn't.
Anyhow, in 2014, six months to a year before the songs I'm embedding, MC Pedrinho, at age 12, hit with the song "Dom Dom Dom" including the lyrics, "Kneel down, get ready, and give a good blowjob," getting the attention (says Wikip) of the local state prosecutor because of Pedrinho's age and the sex content – of course these lyrics (especially the imperative to kneel down) jump out at me as more mean than sexy (and strike me as very 12-year-old); but again the meanness (or whatever) is not the only thing going on.*** The adolescent posturing is a container or accompaniment for audacity and energy and experiment. The very earliest video on GR6 Explode is a live clip from several months later ("Se Louco Cachorrera") of Pedrinho and another four of these kids sitting behind him on a step or a stoop, no instruments except mouths and cheeks and hand claps, and the five of them are creating full rhythm and melody, the first sounds being the kid on the far right using his voice as a beatbox. Then Pedrinho grabs another boy's hand in solidarity, runs behind the other four, makes funny motions with his arms and legs as if he's diving forward, goes front again, dances a bit while MC Kevin tickles him and MC Don Juan raps; Pedrinho pulls Kevin's hand back, fooling around, then he sings in a penetrating voice, the guys clapping the clave rhythm behind him.
So anyway, this is where we are. Acks and mouthfarts and dat-dat. Vocalists in place of some of the percussion instruments and rhythm instruments, and voices that sing without the protection and accompaniment of such instruments. (Btw, I think the settings work similarly well for the singers in their twenties.)
MC Neném, MC Magrão, DJ R7 – Parafuso (2015)
On this one a drum is in there with a couple of useful thuds, and a foghorn is blowing smoke, but mostly there's a riot of mouthbeats – it starts with an "ah" repeating on the offbeat, then various clustered staccato yelps and "doo-bitta-doo doo-doo" running with and counter to each other. Of course the words too have their rhythms, even when they're struggling to be heard amidst voicebeats high and low. It's as if you took doo-wop's bouncing balls and pirouettes and changed them to cries and grunts. [Couldn't find lyrics online.]
MC Pedrinho, MC Juninho JR, DJ R7 – Manda Pras Novinhas (2015)
The rhythm is set by a voice that cries "ah" on every offbeat. Percussion and occasional instruments circle around it; but long sections of this are just the singing voice and a few bumps of percussion. [Couldn't find the lyrics, but the kids are saying "putaria" a lot.]
(A couple more tracks with a constant voice on the offbeat are "Assunto Profissional" and "Vai Ficar Ardendo." Like "Manda Pras Novinhas," they're produced by DJ R7. Btw, I assume that on a lot of these, the vocal cry is recorded and then put on the offbeat by the producer, rather than being constantly voiced by someone. But I don't know this.)
( MC Robs, MC Hariel, MC Menor da VG, MC Lais )
( Footnotes )
( EDIT: Meta para pasted in from my Substack )
CROSSPOST: HTTPS://KOGANBOT.LIVEJOURNAL.COM/390240.HTML
CROSSPOST: https://koganbot.substack.com/p/mouthbeats-and-the-openhearted-the
