Assist With Music

Funk Bruxaria

tagStarted c. 2021Peak 2022–2025Last big hit DJ K's Rádio Libertadora! (2025) on Nyege Nyege TapesFrom São Paulo, BrazilSung in Portuguese

Located in 1 route

Latin / Música Latina → Baile Funk / Brazilian Funk

Mandelão rebuilt as a horror film — the defining element is the "tuin," a hyper-shrill piercing squeal named after the tinnitus-like ringing of a drug hallucination, laid over kicks distorted until they clip and sub-bass pushed past the point where speakers can reproduce it cleanly; around that sit chainsaw and blowtorch (serra) textures, air horns, banshee wails, cackling-witch samples, Arabic chant loops and slasher-movie stabs, cut into abrupt silences and sudden noise bursts so the track keeps ambushing the listener; MCs deliver short, menacing, heavily chopped and pitch-shifted hooks rather than verses, tempos stay in mandelão's stomping ~130 BPM range with sprinting 150-plus passages spliced in, and the results are assembled as DJ-credited montagens designed to feel less like a groove than an assault.

History

Bruxaria — "witchcraft" — emerged in the early 2020s out of the fluxos of São Paulo's east and south zones as the most extreme wing of funk mandelão, developing alongside the automotivo strand and often fused with it; its central figure is DJ K (Kaique Alves Vieira, born in Diadema around 2000), who calls the style "the punk of funk" and leads Bruxaria Sound, a collective of some seventeen MCs, DJs and producers who share the aesthetic and cross-credit each other's releases; the international breakthrough came when Uganda's Nyege Nyege Tapes issued DJ K's Pânico no Submundo on 14 July 2023, drawing reviews from Pitchfork, The Guardian, The FADER, Dazed, Mixmag and Fact and positioning the record as a transmission from the favela rather than a curated outsider's tour of baile funk; the same year DJ RaMeMes, self-styled "destruidor do funk," released Sem Limites, and DJ Arana — whose horror-textured productions carried MC Lan's "ABCDário Da Guerra" — crossed into the Brazilian mainstream charts, while NTS Radio's funk.BR – São Paulo (2024) placed bruxaria tracks beside ritmado and automotivo for a global audience and DJ K followed with O Fim! (2024) and Rádio Libertadora! (2025).

Defining artists

Show 1 more

Essential listening

  • Ritmo Terrorista(2023) — DJ K ft. MC Poke & MC Kaique da SulSpotifyYouTube
  • Erva Venenosa(2023) — DJ K ft. MC Zudo Boladão & MC Menor DouglinhasSpotifyYouTube
  • Flauta do Novo Mundo(2023) — DJ K ft. MC Menor Adr, MC Daneve & MC Kaique da SulSpotifyYouTube
  • Rabiscando no Pontin(2023) — DJ RaMeMesSpotifyYouTube
  • Sentando na Glock Rajada(2023) — DJ RaMeMesSpotifyYouTube
  • ABCDário Da Guerra(2023) — MC Lan ft. DJ AranaSpotifyYouTube
Show 2 more
  • Montagem Phonk Brasileiro(2024) — DJ AranaSpotifyYouTube
  • Bruxaria de Extrema Periculosidade(2024) — DJ Léo da 17 ft. DJ BIG ORIGINAL, MC BN & MC MaiquinSpotifyYouTube
← Explore Latin / Música Latina

Sources

  • Günseli Yalcinkaya, "Dazed Mix: DJ K" (Dazed, 2023), https://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/60894/1/dazed-mix-dj-k-bruxaria-sound-sao-paulo-bruxaria
  • Nadine Smith, "An introduction to baile funk's abrasive, addictive new wave" (The FADER, 2023), https://www.thefader.com/2023/08/31/baile-funk-introduction-primer-dj-k-badsista-d-silvestre-dj-k-dj-ramemes-mc-lan
  • DJ K, "PANICO NO SUBMUNDO" release notes and tracklist (Nyege Nyege Tapes, 2023), https://nyegenyegetapes.bandcamp.com/album/panico-no-submundo
  • "The Mix 073: DJ K" (Mixmag, 2023), https://mixmag.net/feature/the-mix-073-dj-k-brazil-bruxaria-funk-mandelao-interview