Popular Music and Society

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Favela Chic: Diplo, Funk Carioca, and the Ethics

and Aesthetics of the Global Remix

James McNally

To cite this article: James McNally (2017) Favela Chic: Diplo, Funk Carioca, and the
Ethics and Aesthetics of the Global Remix, Popular Music and Society, 40:4, 434-452, DOI:
10.1080/03007766.2015.1126100

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2015.1126100

Published online: 01 Feb 2016.

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 Popular Music and Society, 2017
VOL. 40, NO. 4, 434–452
https://doi.org/10.1080/03007766.2015.1126100

Favela Chic: Diplo, Funk Carioca, and the Ethics and Aesthetics
of the Global Remix
James McNally

ABSTRACT
Using the work of the US DJ and producer Diplo as a case study,
this article examines the development, internationalization, and
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sensationalization of Brazilian funk carioca. It argues that this trend

has contributed to glamorized global perceptions of impoverished
Latin American communities and perpetuated a troublesome history
of Western producers using source material from the Other for novelty
and financial gain. It concludes with a discussion of the emerging
ideals and aesthetics of the “global remix,” as well as an examination
of contemporary attitudes towards hybridity, authenticity, and
ownership in the global popular music sphere.

Popular dance music has never been more overtly global in scope and influence than it is
today. From Jay-Z’s 2003 remix of Panjabi MC’s bhangra hit “Mundian to Bach Ke” to Jamie
XX’s 2015 dancehall-inflected single “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times),” sonic ele-
ments sampled or openly derived from lesser-known non-Western styles have permeated
genres such as hip hop, house, and EDM to an unprecedented degree. Over the course of
the past 15 years, few artists have done more to introduce these kinds of musical qualities
to Western listeners than the US DJ and producer Diplo (aka Thomas Wesley Pentz). Diplo
rose to prominence in 2004 when he collaborated with British-Sri Lankan recording artist
M.I.A. on her hit single “Bucky Done Gun,” which featured a distinctive mix of house, hip
hop, and Brazilian funk carioca.1 The single’s worldwide popularity raised both artists to
international prominence; Diplo went on to produce two compilation albums of funk car-
ioca, as well as a feature-length 2008 documentary about the genre, Favela on Blast. Since
then he has played a central role in bringing elements from other lesser-known genres into
the mainstream Western popular music sphere, including Jamaican dancehall, New Orleans
bounce, and Angolan kuduro. Today, he is best known for producing hits such as Beyoncé’s
2011 single “Run the World (Girls)” with his label Mad Decent and his successful dancehall
project, Major Lazer. A wide range of publications, including Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone,
and The New Yorker, have hailed Diplo’s music for its diverse stylistic range; The Guardian’s
Lauren Cochrane likened him to a “globetrotting Alan Lomax” (par. 3) and proclaimed him
the “king of the global remix” (par. 1).

CONTACT  James McNally  jemcnal@umich.edu

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 Popular Music and Society   435

Diplo has embraced these monikers. He has framed his musical and entrepreneurial
ventures as postmodern, and presented himself as embodying the collaborative essence and
ethos of hip-hop music and culture. His label’s website characterizes him as “a dynamic and
self-driven spirit with interests that span far beyond any singular culture or musical realm,”
and declares that “he is truly the 21st century artist” (“Diplo” par. 5). As a renowned DJ,
producer, record-label head, and self-styled expert on the music he produces, he is one of
the most powerful tastemakers and gatekeepers for Western musical consumption today.
Compared to the stylistic homogeneity of much contemporary popular dance music, the
novel musical elements Diplo has incorporated into his characteristic mix of hip hop and
house are indeed refreshing. At the same time, his generally exploitative methods of incor-
porating these elements exemplify and perpetuate several issues that I will address in this
article. Using Diplo’s work with funk carioca as a case study, I argue that his central role in
the internationalization of funk carioca must be examined within the context of exoticized,
touristic consumption of Brazilian poverty and sexuality. I further assert that the increasing
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global popularity of funk carioca both contributed to and drew much of its appeal from
sensationalized stereotypes of impoverished urban populations of color—stereotypes that
the broader phenomenon of the “global remix” often draws from as well. Diplo has played a
key role in furthering these images and has, in several instances, appropriated artists’ work
outright without giving due credit.
Diplo’s actions and public statements ultimately contribute to a glamorization of the
favela in US and European culture, as well as a more general fetishization of impoverished
subaltern communities of color. His actions perpetuate a troublesome history of Western
producers and musicians using source material from the Other for novelty and financial
gain. Examining the actions of artists such as Diplo provides a useful means for investi-
gating the ramifications of the emerging ideals and aesthetics of the “global remix,” as well
as contemporary attitudes towards hybridity, authenticity, and ownership in the global
popular music sphere.

The Favela as Entertainment

Many scholars have noted the voyeuristic attitudes Western media and art frequently adopt
toward impoverished Latin American communities of color, though few have discussed
how contemporary music constructs and sustains these perceptions. Of these communities,
the often-romanticized image of the Brazilian favela carries particular weight within the
contemporary Western imaginary. Usually translated in English as “slum” or “shanty town,”
favelas trace their roots to communities of war veterans and migrant ex-slaves from Brazil’s
north-east, who at the turn of the 20th century began to settle the hilly and mountainous
areas of Rio de Janeiro, often right next to high-income areas.2
Favelas have occupied a conflicted place in Brazilian national narratives since their estab-
lishment. Throughout the 20th century, it was not uncommon for white Brazilians to visit
Rio’s favelas in search of their purported “musical, religious, and sexual vitality” (Amar
166). A variety of scholars and artists have lauded favela residents for acting as valuable
founts of culture, particularly music.3 In the 1920s, white Brazilian elites often considered
lower-income neighborhoods such as the favela of Mangueira, where groundbreaking samba
figures such as Donga and Sinhô lived, to be “genuine” sections of Rio where one could
find “authentic” samba (Vianna 85). One famous early variant of samba, samba do morro,
 436    J. McNally

was even named after the hills (morros) on which favelas resided. Non-Brazilian artists and
writers have also contributed to this romanticized view of favela life. In his 1942 publication
Brazil: Land of the Future, for instance, Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig characterized Rio’s
favelas as “a specially bright spot of colour in the midst of this kaleidoscopic picture” (195)
and declared that:
one has witnessed the last word in primitiveness, the lowest form of dwelling and life, a form
which in Europe or North America is quickly vanishing. But oddly enough, there is nothing
depressing about this sight, nothing provocative, repulsive, or shameful—because these Negroes
consider themselves a thousand times better off than does our proletariat in its tenement
houses. Countless times I have climbed up those slippery clay steps…and never once have I
encountered an unfriendly or unhappy person. (Zweig 196–97)
By the end of the 20th century, however, rampant violence between police and drug traffick-
ers helped change the image of favela communities from idyllic to “terrifying and impen-
etrable” (Amar 166). Today, many consider favelas threatening and uncivilized—a “fearful
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stain” on the landscape of aspiring Brazilian modernity (Jaguaribe 327). Popular culture
presents the contemporary favela and its inhabitants as alternately tragic, dangerous, exotic,
and exhilarating. Tourists can pay 20 dollars to go on a guided tour of Rio de Janeiro’s most
famous favelas; more adventurous visitors can even pay to stay overnight in “favela hotels”
and “favela hostels.” These practices, commonly referred to in scholarship as “slum tours”
or “poverty tours,” exist throughout the developing world.4 They are often marketed to
consumers as “reality tours,” because the neighborhoods in question act as “places of authen-
ticity” or “places of reality” that symbolize “the true life of the visited city or country” in the
tourist’s mind (Meschkank 48). They attract significant numbers of international clients:
approximately 40,000 people annually visit Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, while the townships of
Cape Town attract up to 300,000 foreign tourists per year (Rolfes 421). The phenomenon
dates back to late 19th-century urban “slumming” practices in New York and London, when
middle- and upper-class class citizens toured impoverished neighborhoods such as Harlem,
Chinatown, and East London (Dürr 710; Rolfes 422).
Claire Williams uses the term “ghettourism” to characterize a common criticism of these
pursuits. She argues that common to all visits to favelas is “the importance of the gaze and
the way it constitutes relationships of power, distancing and knowledge between viewing self
and viewed exotic Other” (486) and notes that visitors often have the impression that they
are “discovering the roots of samba, hip hop and funk and exploring an exotic, dangerous,
primitive location that does not exist in the developed world” (487). The glamorization of
the favela has even spread outside Brazil: as Tom Phillips observes, “favela” has become a
“tropical prefix used to spice up western places and products” such as restaurants, furniture,
and dance clubs (par. 1). The conception of impoverished non-Western communities as
primitive, traditional, and authentic objects of touristic consumption occurs throughout
the developing world (Crossley).
Critics have especially highlighted the central role of film in fostering these perceptions
and the recent rise in global “ghettourism.” Such productions often juxtapose romanticized
imagery of the poor with grotesque depictions of violence, often producing what Paul Amar
characterizes as “spectacular forms of erotic, criminogenic blackness” (166). The earliest
large-scale cinematic presentation of the favela to reach a global audience was French direc-
tor Marcel Camus’s 1959 film Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro), which adapted the Brazilian
play Orfeu da Conceição (itself an adaptation of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice)
 Popular Music and Society   437

in a Rio de Janeiro favela during Carnival. The film became particularly well-known for its
acclaimed soundtrack composed by bossa nova legends Luiz Bonfá and Antônio Carlos
Jobim. It played a large role in solidifying the perception of the music and inhabitants of
the favela, most of whom were dark-skinned, as seductive, romantic, and exotic (Nagib 4).
Although it was generally well received, Black Orpheus also gained a reputation as a
prime example of white producers taking advantage of romanticized, primitivist portrayals
of the exotic Other for the purposes of avant-garde cultural production. Critics drew par-
ticular attention to the film’s overly idealized portrayal of favela life, as well as the racially
paternalistic view the film’s white creators brought to its black subjects (Nagib 94; Grasse
300). Echoing a common perception of the film, US scholar Robert Levine criticized it as
a “cloying version of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth played out by childlike blacks in a
fairy-tale morro (favela hill) atop glittering Rio de Janeiro” (13–14). Jonathon Grasse, in turn,
drew attention to the film’s role in providing a source of “‘primitive’ aesthetic imagery” for
European avant-garde circles, as well as its part in supporting the Brazilian government’s
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project of Negrismo, in which figures of power nationalized black culture to the benefit of
“centralized, white urban elites who had no intention whatsoever of inclusive racial poli-
cies” (301).5
A variety of cinematic representations of Brazilian favelas followed in Black Orpheus’s
wake, including documentaries such as Babilônia 2000 (1999) and feature films such as
Como Nascem os Anjos (1996). These met with varying levels of success, though none became
large-scale international hits. This changed with the release of Fernando Meirelles’s globally
acclaimed 2003 film City of God (Cidade de Deus), which portrayed the often sordid and
violent realities of life in the eponymous low-income Rio de Janeiro neighborhood over the
course of three decades. It presents a characteristic example of the contemporary debate
surrounding cultural productions that draw from or signify favela inhabitants. Brazilian
critic Ivana Bentes condemned the picture for replacing revolutionary, socially conscious
film with an aesthetic that presented the “tragedies of Brazilian daily life” as cosmetic and
overly appealing (McClennen 95–96). To this end, many scholars have noted the singular
impact the film had on how favelas are viewed and consumed as tourist attractions (e.g.
Freire-Medeiros; Williams; Frisch). Conversely, Meirelles argued that the film successfully
fused entertainment and social critique, claiming that Latin American film critics were
“unable to conceive of entertainment, emotion, and reflection in the same package. They
always think in an exclusive or an antagonistic way: it’s either art or entertainment. It’s sad”
(Johnson 13–14).
Meirelles’s defense of City of God implicitly refutes not only much of the Latin American
academy, but also critics such as Pierre Bourdieu who have traditionally drawn a strict line
between the realms of art and entertainment (114–20). It confronts a broader issue faced
by artists of all stripes who incorporate imagery and symbols of the favela prominently in
their own work: is it possible to draw from and signify favela residents and other victims
of global poverty without inevitably exploiting them for novelty and financial gain? Is it
possible to entertain while still making socially responsible art? As I will discuss, musicians
such as Diplo demonstrate a prevalent and significant phenomenon: the blurring of the
lines between enlightenment and entertainment, artists and producers, and empowerment
and exploitation.
 438    J. McNally

Developing, Internationalizing, and Sensationalizing Funk Carioca

Although today Diplo is known for adapting sonic elements from a variety of non-Western
styles of music into his productions, he originally became known for his distinctive incor-
porations of funk carioca. In addition to establishing Diplo’s reputation as an innovative DJ
willing to throw aside existing conventions of genre in popular dance music, the resulting
hybrids’ musical qualities set a template for the ensuing phenomenon of the global remix,
in which DJs mix sonic elements from non-Western dance genres into contemporary hip
hop and house. The popularization of funk carioca disproportionately benefitted Western
cultural producers such as Diplo, and ultimately played a key role in glamorizing favela
life and associating Western conceptions of Brazil with stereotypical notions of the favela.
Throughout most of the 20th century, Brazilian popular culture presented samba as the
quintessential musical product associated with the favela; today, that has changed in favor of
funk carioca.6 Funk carioca traces its roots to mid-1980s Rio de Janeiro, when Brazilian DJs
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brought hip-hop and funk records back from the United States and played them at dance
parties known as bailes funk, in Rio’s hillside favelas. These parties generally featured impos-
ing walls of speakers, stages where MCs would perform, and open dance floors stereotyped
as spaces for spirited, often highly sexual dancing. The association of bailes funk with the
specific musical genre that arose within them is strong enough that the term baile funk has
often been used interchangeably with funk carioca to characterize the musical style itself.
While DJs at early bailes funk played records from a variety of musical styles, they devoted
particular attention to Miami Bass, a subgenre of hip hop known for its raunchy lyrics
(qualities that would lend it the nickname “booty bass”), forceful bass, sparse percussion,
and rhythmically straightforward raps in the vein of artists such as Afrika Bambaataa. Often
it would feature “dirty” tones and timbres derived from Casio keyboards and inexpensive
8-bit recording technology as well (see Chapman; Reynolds). Although early funk cari-
oca drew heavily from Miami Bass, it incorporated a variety of local musical elements as
well, including Afro-Brazilian beats and instruments such as the berimbau and the cuica.
Sampling also played a major role: DJs regularly mixed such disparate sonic elements as
prerecorded low-fidelity beats, US funk records, and extra-musical noise such as machine-
gun fire into their mixes.7 Few stylistic elements remain truly off limits; Paul Sneed asserts
that the style is “as unashamedly eclectic as the favela culture in which it has arisen and
is a paradigmatic expression of the Brazilian anthropophagic spirit.”8 He notes that today
it is not uncommon to find elements of national genres such as axé, capoeira, forró, and
samba, as well as international styles such as R&B and techno in contemporary releases
(“Favela Utopias” 60–61).
Although the specific stylistic elements of funk carioca vary, certain qualities stand out
as particularly emblematic of the genre. Funk carioca vocal delivery generally consists of a
mix of singing and rapping. MCs, including major figures such as MC Topete, MC Katia,
and David Bolado, tend to use a semi-pitched, hoarse vocal delivery for their raps, and
incorporate a variety of both simple and complex rhyme and rhythmic structures (Sneed,
“Favela Utopias” 61). For the most part, the sparse electronic aesthetic derived from instru-
ments such as Casio keyboards and 808 drum machines remains a common quality as well.
At the same time, despite its frequently stripped-down timbre, funk carioca percussion is
generally quite heavy, with particular emphasis on syncopated alternations between the
bass and snare drums, often complemented by percussive vocal intonations and hand claps.
 Popular Music and Society   439

Figure 1. Sample Miami Bass Beat, from 2 Live Crew’s “Hoochie Mama.” Transcribed by the Author. Note:
As in all the following transcriptions of musical beats, the lower pitched note represents the bass drum
and the upper pitched note represents the snare/kick.

Figure 2. Sample Funk Carioca Rhythm. Transcribed by the Author. Note: In addition to being commonly
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found in many funk carioca tracks, this beat in particular occurs in a variety of different styles in
contemporary Brazil, most frequently as a vocal beat box. Upon hearing a group of adolescents freestyle
rapping over it in São Paulo, I asked one participant whether the beat had a name; he simply referred to
it as the pancadão, which roughly translates as “great big blow.”

Variations on certain beats commonly recur and are particularly representative of the genre.
These beats draw from Miami Bass, particularly in their use of the strong bass drum on the
downbeat, the alternation between bass and snare tones, and the accented snare drum on
the second beat of each two-measure cycle (see Figure 1). At the same time, they also often
incorporate more syncopated rhythms similar to those found in Brazilian styles such as
samba (see Figure 2). The resulting hybrid creations evoke both US “old-school” hip hop
and a variety of Brazilian genres.
The lyrical content of funk carioca is contested and controversial. Since the inception of
the genre in the 1980s, the Brazilian establishment has generally characterized funk carioca
lyrics as alternately violent or sexual to the point of being pornographic. By the late 1990s,
the negative perception of the genre had grown to the point that the legislative assembly
of the state of Rio de Janeiro launched an official parliamentary inquiry into the music and
its gatherings (Araújo and Cambria 36). To be sure, provocative themes are common in
popular funk carioca songs; for instance, popular contemporary subgenre proibidão (highly
prohibited) valorizes gang warfare and drug trafficking, and funk putaria (whoredom funk)
features particularly sexually explicit lyrics. Moreover, many contemporary funk carioca
artists and bailes funk are sponsored by local drug lords.9 On the whole it is not uncommon
to find sexually charged lyrics, including references to popozudas (women with large rear
ends) and novinhas (young, often underage women), throughout most subgenres.
At the same time, while it would be remiss of one to ignore the more controversial
elements of funk carioca, the stereotype of its thematic content as exclusively violent, drug-
related, or sexual grossly oversimplifies the genre. It is common for MCs to address everyday
issues of social injustice faced by favela inhabitants and provide critical sources of local
neighborhood pride. One widely circulated vocal hook, from Rio-based MC duo Cidinho
e Doca’s 1995 single “Rap da Felicidade,” for instance, declared “I just want to be happy/
To walk peacefully in the favela where I was born/And to be proud of myself and aware/
That the poor have their place.”10 Furthermore, many of the negative reactions against funk
 440    J. McNally

carioca stem from existing biases against favela residents endemic throughout Brazilian
society. As Ben Penglase notes,
Favela residents are…increasingly excluded from both effective legal citizenship and larger
senses of “Brazilianness.” Highly discriminatory and abusive forms of policing in favelas ensure
that the provision of basic services such as public safety and the right to life and freedom from
torture, are rare [sic]. At a symbolic level, the cultural identity of Cariocas, and of Brazilians
more broadly, has often relied upon the cultural products of residents of Rio’s favelas, such as
samba and carnival. Brazil’s hegemonic national discourse has famously used these symbols
to proclaim the uniqueness of a national identity which positively values hybridity and the
crossing of racial and class lines. (Penglase 140)
Today, however, historical narratives of favelas as “authentic” symbols of Brazil’s Afro-
Brazilian national heritage have increasingly become replaced by images of favelas as bat-
tlefields that menace the rest of Brazilian society (Penglase 140). As I will demonstrate,
although funk carioca’s place in the Brazilian consciousness has changed over the past
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two decades, the association of the genre with the sexualized and threatening realm of the
favela endures.
For two decades after its inception in the 1980s, funk carioca remained on the periphery
of Brazilian academic and journalistic discourse. Occasionally, major figures such as DJ
Marlboro released compilation CDs to limited success, but for the most part the mainstream
Brazilian public treated it as a marginal music of dubious moral and aesthetic quality. Its
international exposure was almost nonexistent. This changed with the release of the mixtape
Piracy Funds Terrorism (2004) by Diplo and the British-Sri Lankan recording artist M.I.A.
(aka Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam), and M.I.A.’s follow-up album Arular (2005).
Born in Mississippi and raised in Florida, Diplo studied film and music at Temple
University in Philadelphia, which led to a short stint working as a social worker and DJ
(Cordor pars. 2–3). Although he had received a limited amount of attention for his 2004
debut album, Florida, his adaptations of funk carioca on Piracy Funds Terrorism would
ultimately play the largest role in forming his reputation as a musician willing to blend
widely different styles of dance music in new and daring ways.
Despite not being released by a major label, Piracy Funds Terrorism nevertheless received
wide acclaim as both an appealing lead-in to Arular and an innovative production in its
own right. A variety of publications named it as one of the best releases of the year, despite
the fact that it was not published as an official LP. Pitchfork’s Nick Sylvester, for instance,
declared it a “mixtape masterpiece,” and proclaimed that “Diplo has actualized our hopes
for M.I.A. qua world pop star” (“Diplo/M.I.A.” par. 6). Co-produced by Diplo and M.I.A.,
mixed by Diplo, and featuring lyrics written by M.I.A., Piracy Funds Terrorism featured four
tracks that prominently incorporated funk carioca: three mixes of existing recordings from
Brazil, entitled “Baile Funk One,” “Baile Funk Two,” and “Baile Funk Three,” and the world-
wide hit single “Bucky Done Gun,” the latter of which would later be re-released on Arular.
The version of “Bucky Done Gun” on Piracy Funds Terrorism provides a characteristic
example of the kind of funk carioca-inflected music on which Diplo built much of his
early reputation as a musical master of the genre. As in many funk carioca tracks, “Bucky
Done Gun” samples existing sonic material: in this case, Brazilian funk carioca artist Deise
Tigrona’s “Injeçao” and Bill Conti’s “Gonna Fly Now,” from Rocky III (Frere-Jones, par. 5).
The song uses predominantly tones with stripped-down, bare timbres that could have been
produced using MIDI files, Casio keyboards, and 808 drum machines (Figure 3). This less
 Popular Music and Society   441

Figure 3. Introductory Beat of the Piracy Funds Terrorism Version of “Bucky Done Gun.” Transcribed by
the Author.

Figure 4. Underlying Verse Beat of the Piracy Funds Terrorism Version of “Bucky Done Gun.” Transcribed
by the Author.
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polished aesthetic resembles many funk carioca tracks produced using basic recording and
mixing equipment.11 Furthermore, the song’s opening vocal hook evokes the kind of sing-
song, chant-like vamp common in funk carioca choruses. M.I.A.’s rap during the verses
also uses a semi-pitched delivery similar to those made by funk carioca MCs. The song’s
underlying percussion features a series of alternating bass-and-kick rhythms reminiscent of
the Miami Bass-derived beats found throughout funk carioca songs (Figure 4). Two beats in
particular dominate the song’s rhythmic motives and provide some of its most distinctive
musical qualities. They feature a mixture of syncopated and straightforward rhythmic ele-
ments and evoke both Brazilian genres and the kind of traditional hip-hop rhythms found
in styles such as Miami Bass.
The song also features an idiosyncratic trumpet hook set to a march beat, a rhythmic
idiom common in a variety of styles including Brazilian frevo and marcha, that Diplo would
incorporate into many of his later releases, including Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls).” The
trumpet hook itself, which is derived from Bill Conti’s “Gonna Fly Now,” highly resembles
similar trumpet motives found in other existing funk carioca tracks, such as Tati Quebra
Barraco’s “Sou Feia Mas Tô na Moda” (I’m Ugly But I’m in Style) and MC Katia’s “Do Meu
Cú de Cabeça pra Baixo” (My Ass Upside-Down).
The lyrics of “Bucky Done Gun” proclaim M.I.A.’s virtuosity as an MC, assert her inde-
pendence, and make repeated reference to London, New York, Kingston, and Brazil. Its
music video juxtaposes footage of M.I.A. rapping in concert with shots of children and
young adults of color playing instruments and dancing. As the video progresses, the con-
tent becomes increasingly militant: its subjects throw tear gas canisters and wave flags with
prints of bombs to the tune of the march-based trumpet hook. By the end, M.I.A. dances
and joins the crowd, while flags wave in the background. This narrative reframes the song’s
original lyrical content, which was somewhat ideologically ambiguous, as a radical call for
counter-hegemonic solidarity among people of color throughout the world. In this context,
funk carioca acts not as a musical vehicle for glorifying objectification and violence, but as
the dance music of the world’s oppressed people of color. The video also reframes dance as
a vehicle for active social change, rather than disengaged escapism from oppression.
While it is possible to read M.I.A.’s video performance of “Bucky Done Gun” as a trans-
formation of funk carioca into a music of resistance, the rest of the funk carioca tracks on
 442    J. McNally

Sandy & As Travessas – “Aviãozinho” Corresponding sections in Diplo’s “Baile Funk

One”

0:00–0:28 Introduction: “Papa Don’t Preach” 0:00–0:14 Introduction: same as in

sample; syncopated conga rhythm with strong “Aviãozinho,” with three added sound effects:
kick on beat 2 light 90s style hip-hop bass-kick beat, ambient
background speech, brief exaggerated bass
effect (“wobble”) leading into verse

0:29–0:59 Verse 1: rap; spare, simple bass– 0:15–0:46 Verse 1: same as in “Aviãozinho”
kick beat and pared-down steel drum hook except for brief wobble effect leading into
chorus

1:00–1:14 Chorus: “decola” vocal hook, fuller 0:47–1:00 Chorus: same as in “Aviãozinho”
mix of funk carioca bass-kick rhythm and
syncopated conga rhythm.

1:15–1:29 Interlude: replay of the introductory 1:01–1:14 Interlude: same as in “Aviãozinho”

music
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1:30–1:59 Verse 2; same background as Verse 1:15–1:44 Verse 2, same as in “Aviãozinho”

1

2:00–2:14 Chorus 1:45–2:00 Chorus, same as in “Aviãozinho;”

except for brief wobble effect at the end

2:15–2:30 Conclusion: replay of introductory 2:00–2:15 Conclusion: same as in

music “Aviãozinho,” with “we want Bucky Done
Gun” vocal hook at the very end

Figure 5. Comparison of Musical Elements of Sandy & As Travessas’ “Aviãozinho” and Diplo’s “Baile Funk
One.”

Piracy Funds Terrorism, “Baile Funk One,” “Two,” and “Three,” lack ideological content and
function much more as apolitical dance tunes than calls to arms. All three songs consist
mostly of existing full-length clips made by Brazilian funk carioca groups, and feature vocals
sung and rapped entirely in Portuguese by funk carioca artists from Brazil.12 In this sense,
they come off much more as remixes than as samples. With the exception of certain sonic
effects added by Diplo, the tracks are largely indistinguishable from common examples
of funk carioca produced in Brazil. In contrast to Deise Tigrona and Bill Conti, who were
later credited as co-writers on the version of “Bucky Done Gun” featured on Arular, none
of the artists featured on “Baile Funk One,” “Two,” and “Three” are credited; the liner notes
simply note that the mixtape as a whole was “mixed by Diplo.”
A closer examination of the specific edits Diplo makes on the original funk carioca
songs on which the “Baile Funk” tracks are based sheds light on the limited nature of his
musical contributions. “Baile Funk One,” which incorporates Sandy & As Travessas’ song
“Aviãozinho” (Little Airplane), provides a characteristic example (Figure 5). On the whole,
Diplo’s edits are minimal: he preserves the original song in its entirety, and, other than
adding a few sound effects, the song is almost indistinguishable from “Aviãozinho.” As I
shall discuss, Diplo continued to follow this pattern of minimally editing Brazilian funk
carioca tracks and presenting the resulting songs as his own in several subsequent releases.
In the broader track sequence of the mixtape, “Baile Funk One” leads into “Bucky Done
Gun,” which is then followed immediately by “Baile Funk Two.” “Baile Funk Three” comes
two songs later. These songs’ locations serve an important purpose: by sandwiching the
 Popular Music and Society   443

more popular single between actual, minimally altered examples of funk carioca, Diplo
achieves a sort of sonic detour into the soundscape of an actual baile funk party in Brazil.
This lends “Bucky Done Gun” its own sort of authenticity and subtly evokes the space of
the imagined favela. Given that many of the musical elements in “Bucky Done Gun” also
appear in African-American genres such as step and early hip hop, the surrounding “Baile
Funk” tracks condition the reception of “Bucky Done Gun” and code it as solidly within
the stylistic realm of Brazilian funk carioca. At the same time, by declining even to cite
the original artists and labeling the three songs under the anonymous, generic moniker of
“Baile Funk,” Diplo is able to take credit for the sounds of funk carioca and present him-
self as the originator of the genuine sonic article in the West. He would later contrast the
approach on Piracy Funds Terrorism to the legal hurdles faced when making a standard
album, where “you’ve gotta clear your samples, and you’ve gotta have your managers and
lawyers and accountants” (Pentz, Interview by Pytlik par. 74). He characterized the making
of the mixtape as “no holds barred,” and noted that he could “fucking steal” the musical
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source material for its second track, as “there were no rules there” (ibid. par. 74).
The “Baile Funk” tracks on Piracy Funds Terrorism were not the first instance of Diplo
presenting examples of Brazilian funk carioca without crediting the original artists—a
practice referred to in electronic music culture as making a “bootleg mix,” which typically
characterizes a remix or mashup of existing samples or songs without the original artists’
permission or authorization (Howard-Spink). A few months before the December 2004
release of Piracy Funds Terrorism, Diplo released a bootleg mix of existing funk carioca
songs from Brazil entitled Favela on Blast: Rio Baile Funk 04. The mix does not mention the
name of a single artist or song title; instead, the back of the CD indicates simply that it was
“recorded, mixed, and photographed by Diplo.” The front and back covers, which feature
a series of green-, black-, and yellow-tinted photographs, seek to present a series of casual
vignettes of the favela and its residents (Figure 6). Diplo’s 2005 follow-up mixtape, Favela
Strikes Back, which came out in the wake of the worldwide success of “Bucky Done Gun,”
followed a similar script: none of the artists were credited, and all of the songs lacked titles.
Despite not acknowledging any of the artists on the mixtapes, Diplo still profited from their
production: at his 2004 shows, for instance, he sold copies of Favela on Blast in an effort to
“familiarize people with the music” (Dunlevy).
Diplo’s musical treatment and presentation of other artists’ funk carioca tracks raise
important questions regarding the ethics of international sampling and hip-hop production.
Given that Diplo’s modifications to the original funk carioca tracks are minimal, it would
seem obvious that by not crediting the original artist—instead of, say, labeling “Baile Funk
One” as a remix or edit of Sandy & As Travessas’ song “Aviãozinho”—he violates norms
of authorship to the point of appropriation or outright plagiarism. At the same time, one
might legitimately object that the rules of authorship and credit are different in a musical
arena in which sampling is common. How can one criticize Diplo for appropriating funk
carioca if the genre itself counts samples of existing songs as a core musical element? After
all, contemporary hip-hop producers rarely receive criticism for sampling artists without
crediting them; on the contrary, it is generally understood as a core element of a postmodern
approach to music making.
These are legitimate objections, and I do not intend to label sampling and mixing as
inherently derivative or exploitative. I do assert, however, that songs like “Baile Funk One”
and the contents of mixtapes such as Favela Strikes Back present a fundamentally different
 444    J. McNally
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Figure 6. Front and Back Cover of Favela on Blast and Front Cover of Favela Strikes Back.

and more troublesome scenario. First, Diplo’s minimal changes to the original songs, which
often amount to the addition of a sound effect or two on top of the original track, occupy
a far different creative place from that of most hip-hop DJs and MCs. Diplo does not add
markedly new elements such as lyrics, and rather than using elements of funk carioca songs
as building blocks of a separate sonic product, as he did in “Bucky Done Gun,” the entire
structure of the original songs remains present. This presents a scenario much more similar
to remixing or editing than sampling, and as such merits crediting the original songs and
compensating the original artists. Furthermore, Diplo built much of his core reputation
as an innovator who freely mixed elements of lesser-known non-Western styles of music,
and he profited from these early releases in terms of both finances and fame. If we are to
acclaim his originality in producing tracks such as “Bucky Done Gun,” which exists as a
standalone sonic product, it seems appropriate to criticize him for the times in which the
majority of his work consisted of going to Brazil, “discovering” funk carioca artists’ work,
applying a few cosmetic changes, and presenting it as his own.
It is not difficult to conclude that, in the majority of his early work with funk carioca,
Diplo took advantage of his comparative advantages in power, access, and privilege as a
middle-class white male US record producer in exploiting the work of those without the
power to challenge him. In this context, he is not without precedent: in many ways, his
career trajectory mirrors that of Paul Simon, whose advantageous position as a well-known
white US male recording star enabled him to extract unequal concessions from South
 Popular Music and Society   445

African artists who did not have access to the same resources as he did (Meintjes 50).
Simon, however, at least credited, and often toured with, the artists with whom he worked
on collaborative albums such as Graceland and The Rhythm of the Saints; Diplo, conversely,
did not even have the courtesy to include the names of the funk carioca artists whose music
he sold as his own.
Several critics noted the exploitative nature of these practices. Pitchfork’s Nick Sylvester,
for instance, argued that Diplo’s work on the Favela Strikes Back mixtape represented “some
honest-to-badness culture-vulture shit” (Sylvester, “Diplo: Favela Strikes Back” par. 5). Most
notably, M.I.A. herself drew attention to the disproportionate credit Diplo received for
producing Arular and Piracy Funds Terrorism, arguing that he received more attention
due to his race and gender: “I just find it a bit upsetting and kind of insulting that I can’t
have any ideas on my own because I’m a female or that people from undeveloped countries
can’t have ideas of their own unless it’s backed up by someone who’s blond-haired and
blue-eyed” (Thompson par. 25). For the most part, however, Diplo received widespread,
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generally positive attention for his role in “introducing” funk carioca to Western musical
culture. The New Yorker’s Sasha Frere-Jones characterized the sound of his emerging musical
hybrids, which had come to encompass other styles besides funk carioca, as “unexpectedly
fresh,” and noted that Diplo’s talents as a “bricoleur” of Western and non-Western sounds
had influenced countless DJs across the northeast United States (par. 2). By 2012, Rolling
Stone had named him #5 in their “25 DJs That Rule the Earth” list, hailed him for “helping
discover M.I.A.,” and described him as “the ultimate sonic curator, gathering cutting-edge
sounds from the farthest corners of the galaxy and bringing them straight to your radio”
(“The 25 DJs” par. 45).
These perceptions played a critical role in launching Diplo’s career and helping him to
become known as a daring DJ unafraid to mix musical styles from around the world. They
also established him as both a musical master of and global ambassador for favela-derived
funk carioca, thereby allowing him the freedom to characterize and portray the musical
style and the favelas in which it was born as he saw fit. The titles of the two mixtapes, Favela
on Blast and Favela Strikes Back, belie Diplo’s ability and desire to link the sonic elements
of funk carioca semiotically with the specific place of the favela in the listener’s mind. As
he presents it, listening to funk carioca is synonymous with listening to the favela itself.
The specific sonic elements of funk carioca helped to construct his Western listeners’
conception of the favela musically as well. In the Western popular music sphere, several of
these musical qualities index working-class African-American musical culture: stripped-
down timbres, heavy beats reminiscent of 1980s and ’90s US hip hop, and aggressive vocal
delivery. At the same time, the tracks’ subtler sonic differences and Portuguese lyrics firmly
set their point of origin outside the normal communities of color Western consumers are
familiar with and mark the music as something new and potentially exotic. The resulting
hybrid signifies a sort of working-class virility that is at once both novel and familiar. As I
shall discuss, the statements Diplo made regarding funk carioca reinforced these charac-
terizations and generally solidified the construction of the favela as raw, exotic, and dan-
gerous—qualities that fall well in line with the general semiotic associations of the music
itself in the West.
Diplo further solidified his credentials as the global face of funk carioca with the 2008
­feature-length documentary Favela on Blast, which he co-directed and produced with
Brazilian filmmaker Leandro HBL. Developed over the course of five years, the film
 446    J. McNally

incorporates a variety of footage, including shots of baile funk parties and interviews with
a variety of funk carioca musicians, designed to paint a picture of the funk carioca scene
in Rio de Janeiro. The documentary’s release allowed Diplo to present himself as a sort
of expert on the subject, despite acknowledging that he “didn’t really speak Portuguese”
(“Diplo on His Brazilian Baile Funk Doc” par. 4). After the documentary’s release, Diplo
could thus present himself as not only a musical master of and global ambassador for funk
carioca, but as a researcher of sorts as well; indeed, in 2011, he claimed that he had “spent
many years studying [the] music, and even made a film about it” (Pentz, “Diplo on Brazil’s”
slide 12). With both pop-cultural appeal and credibility as an expert, he was thus able to
set the tone in which funk carioca and the favela were consumed and conceived of outside
the strictly academic sphere.
On one hand, the Favela on Blast documentary does not overtly sensationalize its objects
of study, and seems to sympathetically portray a wide variety of funk carioca musical and
cultural expressions, from the overtly sexual to the socially conscious. On the whole the
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documentary, whose very title highlights its sense of place, presents itself as a humanized
and authentic portrait of one of Rio’s most iconic and well-known favelas as much as a
survey of the contemporary funk carioca musical scene. Although it does not provide the
kind of in-depth insight a long-term academic study would be able to give, casual viewers
could do far worse in getting their information about funk carioca and its place of origin.
On the other hand, Diplo’s public statements on the subject contradicted many of the
more restrained and balanced sentiments of the documentary and generally exaggerated
stereotypical notions of funk carioca and the favela. After the release of the film, Diplo
described the filming process in Brazil as ideal, because the country “makes everything
you shoot look 700 times better because it’s better looking, shadier, scarier, hotter, and
busier than anywhere else in the world” (Amorosi). His characterizations of the music
itself sensationalized it in a similar manner. In a 2011 Vanity Fair feature, he likened funk
carioca to “a hybrid of samba, Miami bass, sex, and I don’t know what—to me, it sounds
like heavy metal” (Pentz, “Diplo on Brazil’s” slide 12) and in an interview with Black Book,
he went even further:
It’s ghetto stuff, you know. It’s ghetto shit. There are some songs that are deep and meaningful,
but not a lot of them. Most of them are primal and dirty and disgusting and crazy. [Interviewer:
And controversial?] Really controversial. There’s gangster stuff in there. I’m talking about going
and selling drugs and people killing police officers and naming names and talking about real
gangster shit. This is a subculture that was built on its own demeanor. They didn’t have anyone
telling them what was cool to do or what was commercial. They were doing shit they liked to
do, and the people that were putting money into it were like the kingpins of the favela. It was
raw. It was instinctive music and it’s its own sound and its own attitude with nobody’s help.
(“Diplo on His Brazilian Baile Funk Doc” pars. 10–11)
Such characterizations condition even the casual, English-speaking listener to think of
the music as exotic, raw, and dangerous—not coincidentally, ideal qualities for moneyed
club-goers looking for something new to stimulate them.
These perceptions allow Diplo to harness the foreign, edgy, sexual associations of funk
carioca and feed the West’s voyeuristic curiosity for cultural products of the favela without
compensating its residents in any meaningful way. It is a part of a larger Western phe-
nomenon that glamorizes Third-World poverty and markets products branded with the
tropical stamp of the favela in order to attract novelty-seeking consumers. In Williamsburg,
Brooklyn, for instance, the restaurant Miss Favela promises “to bring an authentic Brazilian
 Popular Music and Society   447

experience to Brooklyn,” and markets its events online amid pictures of Carmen Miranda,
Pelé, and a pastel painting of a hillside favela in Rio. In Paris, one may visit the Franco-
Brazilian Favela Chic club and restaurant, which advertises its weekly DJ and dance offerings
under the tagline “cette semaine à la favela” (this week at the favela). The owners of Favela
Chic have also released four volumes of the internationally popular compilation album
series Favela Chic: Postonove, which advertises itself as the “French soundtrack to the coolest
restaurant in Paris.”14 The albums feature an eclectic mix of artists from a variety of styles,
including samba, forró, Brazilian big band jazz, and funk carioca, all labeled under the Favela
Chic brand name. The owners of Favela Chic reject charges of exploitation; member Rosane
Mazzer, for instance, defends their use of the term “favela” as realistic and empowering:
Around here favela means roots and reality; in a systemized and ultra-industrialized world it
has its glamour....The contradiction is part of life, and of the post-modern and chaotic Brazil of
which we are part. What is hip-hop, in its original form, but the voice of the people?...Many of
the artists from favelas with whom we work love the idea of “Favela Chic”, simply because it is
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a re-evaluation of their image, without any greater pretensions. It’s an opening, to discuss and
to understand a worldwide process—that of favelização (favelization). (Phillips pars. 11–14)
Establishments such as Miss Favela and Favela Chic and the music of figures such as Diplo
point to an increasing use of the term “favela” as shorthand for Brazil as a whole. When
discussing Brazilian figures and events, contemporary Western media and cultural produc-
tions generally discuss either its exotic sexuality or sensationalized violence and underde-
velopment—qualities not coincidentally associated with stereotypes of the favela (Botelho).
To be sure, exoticized visions of Brazil have existed in the United States for well over half
a century; see, for instance, Carmen Miranda’s performances and the discourse surround-
ing the bossa nova hit “The Girl from Ipanema.” These representations continue to inform
conceptions of Brazil today.
At the same time, current depictions of Brazil differ in crucial ways from earlier decades.
Previous stereotypes of Brazil were largely constructed around a vision of unthreatening
tropical sensuality. Even Black Orpheus mostly eschewed incorporating the kind of lurid,
hyper-violent plot devices common in contemporary films such as City of God in favor of
idealized, romantic depictions of favela life. Over the course of the past two decades, by
contrast, portrayals of the favela have come to emphasize images of wretchedness, hypersex-
uality, and unchecked violence to an unprecedented degree. This mirrors a general shift in
Western perceptions of the typical Brazilian, particularly in terms of race and class. Unlike
the upper-middle-class Antônio Jobim, whose sophisticated background was known to
bossa nova aficionados worldwide, the new favela-dwelling international representatives
of Brazil tend to be poorer, blacker, and more anonymous than their more respected (and
less fetishized) predecessors. And, while this new and powerful association of Brazil with
the favela does occasionally raise consciousness of socioeconomic injustice, it more often
simply puts money in the pockets of music producers and club owners and reduces a mas-
sive, ethnically and socioeconomically diverse country to a caricature of a shack on a hill.

Conclusions
Figures such as Diplo and the owners of Favela Chic perpetuate an increasingly common
phenomenon over the past decade and a half: the harnessing of the mysterious and exciting
connotations of the favela by white Western producers for novelty and financial gain. This
 448    J. McNally

does not confine itself simply to Brazilian funk carioca, however. The broader phenome-
non of the “global remix,” that is, the prominent incorporation of non-Western musical
elements into dance music, draws much of its appeal from similarly exoticized associations
with global communities of color. It is surely not a coincidence that Diplo has achieved
the most success with his incorporations of styles such as Brazilian funk carioca, Angolan
kuduro, Jamaican dancehall, and New Orleans bounce—genres from predominantly Afro-
descendent populations that his label Mad Decent characterizes as “the mongrel pop of
the global underclass” and that Diplo himself has referred to as “cheaper-rent sounds.”15
I do not mean to suggest that these styles of music do not draw much of their success
from specific musical elements that are appealing in their own right. Rather, I hope to draw
attention to the pervasive transformation of musical styles associated with impoverished
non-white communities into powerful objects of consumption for the voyeuristic Western
ear. When a figure such as Diplo presents a style such as funk carioca—or dancehall, kuduro,
and bounce, for that matter—he does not sell only their musical elements. He also sells
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the sensationalized, sexualized image of the broader global ghetto, in which poverty is not
something to be actively and seriously addressed, but is rather to be consumed as an intrigu-
ing tourist attraction. In this sense, Diplo helps to perpetuate a phenomenon remarkably
similar to what Brazilian cultural producers did in the early 20th century with samba: using
the favela as a nostalgic object of exotic cultural production.
For his part, Diplo has generally acknowledged much of this sort of criticism, and has
responded to these critiques by presenting himself as a modern counterpart to antiquated
attitudes about music and culture: “The old world music community is underpinned with
colonialist guilt—it’s a voyeur. With hip hop as a shared starting point, for us it’s all about
interaction” (Hodgson par. 3). He presents his songs as “the ultimate postmodern music;
taking samples from everywhere and fucking shit up,” declaring that “a hip hop diet has
exposed the roots of all music to this generation. People can see that there’s not much differ-
ence between all these styles” (Hodgson par 1). He has portrayed himself as daring enough
to reject dominant notions of ownership, style, and authenticity: “You just have to do, you
can’t live by the rules of what you’re supposed to do….Who cares about authenticity now? It
doesn’t matter. All that matters is people are enjoying themselves. Authenticity—that word
doesn’t exist in my vocabulary anymore” (Pentz, Interview by Sisson par. 49).
Although this sort of rhetorical strategy may appear naïve, it is far shrewder than it may
initially appear. Far from being an insensitive justification of colonialist appropriation,
Diplo’s self-presentation as a postmodern artist who rejects conventional conceptions of
value and legitimacy in musical culture allows him to reframe the discussion entirely and
present traditional academic critiques as hopelessly out of touch with how people actually
make music today. And, in some ways, he’s right. The idea of a communitarian ethos of
collaboration, in which no style is held sacred and strict conceptions of ownership have
become obsolete, surely rings true for the majority of contemporary consumers, who occupy
what Timothy Taylor characterizes as the “postmodern, global ethnoscape, where traditions,
styles, and practices circulate and juxtapose themselves as never before” (151). In any case,
given that funk carioca itself was born out of Brazilian DJs’ own appropriations of US musical
material, criticizing Diplo for incorporating Brazilian musical idioms may indeed exhibit
a double standard, especially given Brazil’s own valorization of musical anthropophagy.
Preserving styles of music in supposedly authentic forms and rejecting convention, how-
ever, are not the issues here. Although there is much in Diplo’s oeuvre to contest, I do not
 Popular Music and Society   449

seek to argue that there is anything inherently wrong with Western artists producing and
incorporating music from developing countries (provided they fairly share the artistic credit
and financial rewards) or that Western artists should somehow “stay away” from musical
idioms developed in non-Western communities. The rigid notion that certain musical ele-
ments “belong” exclusively to communities in which they originated ignores the realities
of how musicians have mixed, incorporated, and transformed musical styles throughout
human history.
Instead, I hope to highlight the inherently unequal power relationship between Diplo
and the favela residents he claims to celebrate, as well as his own complicity in their mar-
ginalization and anonymity. Without dismissing Diplo’s very real talent as a DJ and pro-
ducer, it is impossible to discuss his rise to prominence as a bold mixer of musical styles
without acknowledging the role that his advantages as a white middle-class US male with
connections in the Western recording industry played. Due to the variety of entrenched
disadvantages impoverished favela residents of color face, even the most talented Brazilian
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funk carioca figures could never have gotten the kind of exposure Diplo had. The opportunity
gap, far more often than not, is too wide for people from that background to overcome, no
matter how innovative their musical vision may be. As Diplo himself acknowledged, “No
one in Brazil outside of the favelas would listen to baile funk until I played it in the Euro
clubs; it’s like some kind of colonial attitude where they need an outsider to play it back
to them” (Cochrane par. 12). At the same time that he advanced this critique, however, he
did not publicly disavow the recognition and profit he had gained presenting the work of
Brazilian funk carioca artists under his name. Identifying one’s own privilege is generally a
far easier task than renouncing its rewards.

Notes
 1. The term “carioca” refers to a resident of Rio; “funk carioca” roughly translates as “Rio funk.”
 2. Due to the stigma “favela” has in Brazilian popular culture, residents themselves often prefer
the more neutral terms bairro (neighborhood), comunidade (community), or morro (hill), the
latter of which draws its name from the common placement of favelas on steep urban slopes
unsuitable for larger-scale residential development. See Williams (484).
 3. Composers such as Ary Barroso, for instance, considered the favela a prime source of authentic
samba. See Vianna (96).
 4. Common sites of international poverty tourism include the neighborhoods of Dhawari in
Mumbai and Rocinha in Rio de Janeiro, the township of Gugulethu in Cape Town, and the
city garbage dump in Mazatlán, Mexico. See Dürr; Freire-Medeiros; Meschkank; Rolfes.
 5. Brazilian Negrismo related to several global movements that sought to construct hybrid
national identities and foreground the cultural contributions of non-whites. Throughout Latin
America, mestizaje/mestiçagem ideologies valorized cultural hybridity and racial mixture.
In Cuba, 1920s and 1930s-era Afrocubanismo celebrated Afro-Cuban artistic traditions
and portrayed Afro-Cuban culture as an integral part of the Cuban nation. In France, West
Africa, and the French Caribbean, figures affiliated with Négritude, such as Aimé Césaire
and Leopold Sedar Senghor, sought to valorize the cultural contributions and subjectivity of
Francophone Afro-descendants. These empowered black artists to varying degrees: Negrismo
and Afrocubanismo were largely (though not entirely) shaped by white leaders who often
appropriated black cultural contributions, while Négritude was more centrally shaped by
black artists and writers. See Alberto; Arnedo-Gómez; Harvey; Moore.
 450    J. McNally

 6. For a discussion of the transformation of attitudes towards samba over the 20th century,
and the replacement of samba with funk carioca as the prototypical musical symbol of the
contemporary favela, see Araújo and Cambria.
 7. For commentary on general stylistic elements of funk carioca, see Essinger; Castro; Sneed,
“Favela Utopias.”
 8. Sneed (“Favela Utopias,” 60–61). In citing the “Brazilian anthropophagic spirit,” Sneed refers
to the notion of anthropophagy, or “cultural cannibalism,” an artistic philosophy advanced
by the Brazilian modernist poet Oswald de Andrade. See Dunn (15–20).
 9. For a discussion of subgenres such as proibidão and funk putaria, see Penglase; Araújo and
Cambria; Sneed, “Bandidos de Cristo.”
10. “Eu só quero é ser feliz/Andar tranquilamente na favela onde eu nasci/E poder me orgulhar
e ter a consciência/Que o pobre tem seu lugar.” Translated by the author.
11. Notably, the version of “Bucky Done Gun” on Arular, though similar in its core elements,
possesses significantly more polished and remastered tones and a bass line that was not present
in the original Piracy Funds Terrorism mix.
12. Specifically, “Baile Funk One” features Sandy & As Travessas’ song “Aviãozinho” (Little
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Airplane), “Baile Funk Two” features Os Magrinhos’ song “Lanchinho da Madrugada” (Little
Late Night Snack), and “Baile Funk Three” features As Divinas’ song “Carrinho de Mão”
(Wheelbarrow).
14. See <http://www.amazon.com/Favela-Chic-Restaurant-Various-Artists/dp/B00005KAIQ>,
for instance.
15. Cited in Cochrane (par. 3).

Disclosure Statement
No conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributor
James McNally is a doctoral candidate in ethnomusicology at the University of Michigan.
His research investigates popular music in Brazil and the United States, with focuses on
theories of race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, media, nationalism, and cultural politics.
He is currently conducting field work for his dissertation, which examines experimental
music practice in São Paulo, Brazil.

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