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The 7 best Baile Funk tracks of all time

Baile Funk

Rio's favela dance parties from the late eighties, built on two Miami bass breaks looped almost without variation, with shouted Portuguese over the top and a police relationship that has never been anything but hostile.

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  1. Cidinho e Doca / Rap da Felicidade

    1995

    "I only want to be happy, to walk freely in the favela where I was born." The genre's most quoted line, over the most basic possible beat.

  2. Bob Rum / Rap do Silva

    1995

    A narrative about a boy killed by the police, and one of the first funk records to reach national radio. It was banned from some stations for exactly that.

  3. DJ Marlboro / Melô do Tabaco

    1989

    Marlboro is the producer who turned the bailes into a recorded genre, and this is close to the beginning. Everything is the drum machine and the shouting.

    No verified video yet · not in the queue

  4. Tati Quebra Barraco / Sou Feia Mas Tô na Moda

    2004

    "I'm ugly but I'm in fashion." The funk carioca of the 2000s was full of women being ruder than the men, and Tati was the sharpest of them.

  5. MC Bola / Bota o Cabelo pra Trás

    2009

    Montagem style — the beat cut into stutters and hard edits. Rio producers pushed the loop into something increasingly abstract while keeping it completely functional.

    No verified video yet · not in the queue

  6. MC João / Baile de Favela

    2015

    São Paulo's version, and a hundred million views. Funk stopped being a Rio secret and became the dominant popular music of the country.

  7. MC Serginho / Um Tapinha Não Dói

    2001

    An enormous, disreputable hit that got funk onto television and into an argument about its lyrics that has never really ended.