Brazil’s indigenous hip-hop form, known as baile,carioca, or just “funk” has received a bit of attention stateside thanks in good part to the efforts of Florida DJ Diplo. Appropriately enough, the first release on his Mad Decent label is a four-tracker from Bonde Do Role, two guys and a girl who make a slightly more accessible and pop-tastic version of Rio funk. The usual genre touchstones (Miami bass, 80’s hip-hop, American pop samples, Portugese rapping) apply, but so too does a willingness to expand the usual booty-fixated sound to something more universal—the title track samples Alice in Chains(!) and “Jabuticaba” is based on “Doo Wah Diddy,” for starters. Like feijoada, the communal festival dish of black beans cooked in various vegetables and “fifth quarter” meats, Bonde Do Role serve up something uniquely spicy and Brazilian from the discarded pieces of American pop music. Diplo’s remix, though a laudable attempt to pick up more of those pieces and refashion the original, feels sadly out of place. His channel-switching mix of Fruity Loops-gone mad and FM radio-clutter sweeping across distorted snatches of “Bonde Do Role” is pleasing in its component parts, but ends up a little too willfully experimental to challenge the raw joy of the original.

Mad Decent / 001
[Mallory O’Donnell]