Funk 150 BPM
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Rio funk with the clock pushed from the traditional ~130 BPM up to 150 and beyond, so tamborzão-derived percussion loops run sped-up and pitch-shifted — vocals sit higher and thinner, the low end loses weight, and what remains is a dry, sprinting grid of clipped toms, rim hits and the signature "tambor Coca-Cola" bottle-strike sample; MCs ride it with short chanted hooks and call-and-response rather than sung verses, and the whole construction exists to serve the baile floor, where passinho dancers need the extra tempo for intricate footwork and the rebolada crowd wants the acceleration, with DJs at the sound system racing each other to play faster than the rig next door.
History
The acceleration began around 2016 at the Baile da Nova Holanda in Rio's Complexo da Maré, where roughly twenty sound systems competed on a single street and DJs sped existing 130 BPM bases up to beat their neighbours; DJ Polyvox (Diogo Lima Costa) built the first purpose-made 150 BPM base, the "tambor Coca-Cola," from a recording of his five-year-old son striking a Coca-Cola bottle against his studio door, and DJs Rennan da Penha and Iasmin Turbininha carried the tempo out of Maré — Rennan's Baile da Gaiola in the Complexo da Penha, running from 2017, became the movement's headquarters and made 150 BPM the dominant sound of Rio funk, launching MC Kevin o Chris to a national breakout with "Dentro do Carro" (2018) and "Vamos pra Gaiola" (2019); Rennan's imprisonment and subsequent release, followed by a Sony Music deal in December 2019, made the scene a national news story, Vice Brasil documented it on film in 2018, and anthropologist Dennis Novaes published the movement's first sustained academic account in Ponto Urbe in 2022, by which point 150 BPM had stopped being a novelty and become the default tempo of carioca funk, feeding into the São Paulo strands and the international baile funk wave that followed.
Defining artists
Essential listening
- Dentro do Carro(2018) — MC Kevin o ChrisSpotifyYouTube
- Vamos pra Gaiola(2019) — MC Kevin o ChrisSpotifyYouTube
- Hoje Eu Vou Parar na Gaiola(2018) — MC Livinho ft. Rennan da PenhaSpotifyYouTube
- Brota na Penha(2018) — MC Livinho ft. Rennan da Penha & DJ TavaresSpotifyYouTube
- Tô Voando Alto(2019) — MC Poze do RodoSpotifyYouTube
- Tamborzin To Aquecendo 150 Bpm — DJ PolyvoxSpotifyYouTube
Sources
- Yuri Eiras, "Como o 150 BPM se tornou o ritmo dominante do funk carioca" (Vice Brasil, 2018), https://www.vice.com/pt/article/como-o-150-bpm-se-tornou-o-ritmo-dominante-do-funk-carioca/
- Dennis Novaes, "O movimento 150 BPM: técnica, território e a aceleração do andamento no funk carioca" (Ponto Urbe 30, 2022), https://journals.openedition.org/pontourbe/11837
- "Cinco sons pra sacar o 150BPM carioca" (Portal KondZilla, 2018), https://kondzilla.com/cinco-sons-pra-sacar-o-150bpm-carioca/