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The Cars That *Don't* Go Boom, Pt. 1
May. 15th, 2023 12:38 pmUsed the phrase "rhythm comes down from the top" in my previous post, meaning that the top not the bottom was directing the rhythm. This is part one in an attempt to elaborate.
I first heard Brazilian funk – funk carioca – because M.I.A. and Diplo were getting excited by it and I was getting excited about their Piracy Funds Terrorism bootleg (2004); got (or Chuck Eddy sent me) the Favela Booty Beats compilation (also 2004). Waited 15 years to venture beyond that, but in the meantime I took in that the music was doing something viscerally different. I didn't (and don't) have the words for what I was hearing. It seemed more shouty than most of what I listened to, and more percussive – and the percussion seemed higher-pitched: wood-like cracking and clacking sounds more than deep resonance. I was both excited and a little put off, though I didn't turn away specifically because of that, just had other music to pursue.
I tend to think of bass as the heart-beating body of music – "bass" not only meaning bass guitar but sometimes tuba or cello or stand-up bass or a baritone voice or hollow cheeks or a deep drum or an electronic drum like an 808, etc., whatever is acting the part. But there's a bounce to it, a roll, not just the thud or the bomb of a big drum or the whack of a snare. Obv. you can have good rhythm without it, even with just a voice and two spoons, but for me bass is the liquid in the soup. It's the broth, the flow.
But a good deal of funk carioca (or whatever one should call it; I'm ignorant and really don't know the best overall term*) is giving us a turnaround, the high pitch directing the rhythm rather than riding it – this is viscerally effective, while flipping the emotional sense: like snapping the towel in your eyes rather than tickling your feet. Dancing that feels like fighting. Maybe it's fists rather than hips (though the videos these days sure seem booty heavy).
—What I'm saying is too simplistic, of course, in setting up a high pitch/low pitch opposition. For instance, in American rock and soul and funk and hip-hop the top doesn't just ride the bottom either; American funk especially is all about interplay, where it's not settled what's foreground and what's background, who's riding and what's being ridden. Same for jazz and Latin jazz** and various electronic dance genres. Etc. There's often no single answer to "what is directing the rhythm?" And as you can tell, I'm hardly set on what I'm calling "bass." So this is about a feeling as much as it's about a definite easy-to-identify-and-agree-on difference. It does pertain to about ⅓ of the Brazilian funk I'm listening to these days.
These three are the tracks that grabbed me most on Favela Booty Beats:
First, "O Baile Todo," nice 'n' shouty but there is an instrument acting bass-like and it's one of the track's pivots, just as it'd be on a James Brown record.
Bonde do Tigrão - O Baile Todo
Second, "Chapa Quente," the drums have a flow but for lots of this they're following the voice around like a puppy.
Os Tchutchucos - Chapa Quente
Third, "Bate La Palma de Mao," none of the drums are being a bass, though a tom sound is taking care of the clave when the horns are on. The chorus could be today, the shouty voices and high percussion dominating the beat.
MC Mascote - Bate La Palma de Mao
Finally, "Injeção," a track I didn't hear at the time, though obviously M.I.A. and Diplo did because they used a treated version of the Rocky sample in a similar way in "Bucky Done Gun." There are sections with drums pounding out the clave rhythm, but good bits of this are simply voice and percussion. The balance is shifted.
Deize Tigrona - Injeção
*I assume (and Wikip tells me, but I actually have no idea) that in Brazil the simple word "funk" is the usual term, if you're waving your hand in the direction of that broad area in Brazilian music. But "funk" would confuse readers for whom the term means the American funk of e.g. James Brown, Kool & The Gang, etc., and stuff that sounds like it. Am going with funk carioca because that's the other phrase that seems most common as an umbrella term for the Brazilian funk. ("Baile funk" shows up as well, but Wikip insists that in Brazil that's the term for the parties, not the genre.) Problem is that the word "carioca" references Rio de Janeiro, and most of what I'm hearing these days is coming out of São Paulo and Belo Horizonte and Recife. But again I don't know Portuguese and I don't know Brazil. I'm hoping that "carioca" is like the "Italo" in Italo disco, where it's understood that not all of it comes from Italy.
**The claves themselves, the pair of percussive instruments that the clave rhythm is named for, are a higher-pitched percussion, not a deep resonator.
I first heard Brazilian funk – funk carioca – because M.I.A. and Diplo were getting excited by it and I was getting excited about their Piracy Funds Terrorism bootleg (2004); got (or Chuck Eddy sent me) the Favela Booty Beats compilation (also 2004). Waited 15 years to venture beyond that, but in the meantime I took in that the music was doing something viscerally different. I didn't (and don't) have the words for what I was hearing. It seemed more shouty than most of what I listened to, and more percussive – and the percussion seemed higher-pitched: wood-like cracking and clacking sounds more than deep resonance. I was both excited and a little put off, though I didn't turn away specifically because of that, just had other music to pursue.
I tend to think of bass as the heart-beating body of music – "bass" not only meaning bass guitar but sometimes tuba or cello or stand-up bass or a baritone voice or hollow cheeks or a deep drum or an electronic drum like an 808, etc., whatever is acting the part. But there's a bounce to it, a roll, not just the thud or the bomb of a big drum or the whack of a snare. Obv. you can have good rhythm without it, even with just a voice and two spoons, but for me bass is the liquid in the soup. It's the broth, the flow.
But a good deal of funk carioca (or whatever one should call it; I'm ignorant and really don't know the best overall term*) is giving us a turnaround, the high pitch directing the rhythm rather than riding it – this is viscerally effective, while flipping the emotional sense: like snapping the towel in your eyes rather than tickling your feet. Dancing that feels like fighting. Maybe it's fists rather than hips (though the videos these days sure seem booty heavy).
—What I'm saying is too simplistic, of course, in setting up a high pitch/low pitch opposition. For instance, in American rock and soul and funk and hip-hop the top doesn't just ride the bottom either; American funk especially is all about interplay, where it's not settled what's foreground and what's background, who's riding and what's being ridden. Same for jazz and Latin jazz** and various electronic dance genres. Etc. There's often no single answer to "what is directing the rhythm?" And as you can tell, I'm hardly set on what I'm calling "bass." So this is about a feeling as much as it's about a definite easy-to-identify-and-agree-on difference. It does pertain to about ⅓ of the Brazilian funk I'm listening to these days.
These three are the tracks that grabbed me most on Favela Booty Beats:
First, "O Baile Todo," nice 'n' shouty but there is an instrument acting bass-like and it's one of the track's pivots, just as it'd be on a James Brown record.
Bonde do Tigrão - O Baile Todo
Second, "Chapa Quente," the drums have a flow but for lots of this they're following the voice around like a puppy.
Os Tchutchucos - Chapa Quente
Third, "Bate La Palma de Mao," none of the drums are being a bass, though a tom sound is taking care of the clave when the horns are on. The chorus could be today, the shouty voices and high percussion dominating the beat.
MC Mascote - Bate La Palma de Mao
Finally, "Injeção," a track I didn't hear at the time, though obviously M.I.A. and Diplo did because they used a treated version of the Rocky sample in a similar way in "Bucky Done Gun." There are sections with drums pounding out the clave rhythm, but good bits of this are simply voice and percussion. The balance is shifted.
Deize Tigrona - Injeção
*I assume (and Wikip tells me, but I actually have no idea) that in Brazil the simple word "funk" is the usual term, if you're waving your hand in the direction of that broad area in Brazilian music. But "funk" would confuse readers for whom the term means the American funk of e.g. James Brown, Kool & The Gang, etc., and stuff that sounds like it. Am going with funk carioca because that's the other phrase that seems most common as an umbrella term for the Brazilian funk. ("Baile funk" shows up as well, but Wikip insists that in Brazil that's the term for the parties, not the genre.) Problem is that the word "carioca" references Rio de Janeiro, and most of what I'm hearing these days is coming out of São Paulo and Belo Horizonte and Recife. But again I don't know Portuguese and I don't know Brazil. I'm hoping that "carioca" is like the "Italo" in Italo disco, where it's understood that not all of it comes from Italy.
**The claves themselves, the pair of percussive instruments that the clave rhythm is named for, are a higher-pitched percussion, not a deep resonator.
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