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By<\/span> Oisakhose Aghomo<\/p>\n Photography By<\/span> Oisakhose Aghomo<\/p>\n Reporting Texas<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Partygoers at Lowdown Lounge. Oisakhose Aghomo\/Reporting Texas<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Sometime close to midnight, as the bass to MC Joao\u2019s \u201cBaile de Favela\u201d dropped, a group of people in business casual hurried across the Coconut Club\u2019s dance floor, drinks in hand, to dance \u2014 hooked by the electric beat of Brazilian funk.<\/p>\n Brazilian funk is the latest Latin genre breaking out from TikToks and into the clubs \u2013 a testament to Americans\u2019 growing interest<\/a> in global music.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been DJ\u2019ing for maybe 12 plus years here on Sixth Street, and man, like 10 years ago, it was nothing but hip-hop and like pop, Top 40,\u201d said Austin DJ Ray \u201cAll Day Ray\u201d\u00a0 Rivera. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t play much Latin. You couldn\u2019t do anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Rivera is a longtime Brazilian funk fan. He first heard of the genre through\u00a0 \u201cPiracy Funds Terrorism,\u201d a mixtape by M.I.A.<\/p>\n \u201cGrowing up in Texas\u2026 even Latinos didn\u2019t know what that was,\u201d he said. \u201cIt took Austin a long time to catch up. My escape was going to Houston\u201d to play funk sets.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, in Austin\u2019s party epicenter from Fourth Street to Sixth Street, nightclubs like Coconut Club, Mala Fama and Mala Vida are giving Austinites access to international sounds like Brazilian funk, reggaeton and afrobeats.<\/p>\n \u201cListening to funk or dancing outside my country is weird to me,\u201d said Denise Braz, a Brazilian doctoral student in Latin American Studies at the University of Texas. \u201cI feel like people who are not Brazilian or not Latin people \u2026 can\u2019t understand the lyrics, but they can understand the energy of the funk.\u201d<\/p>\n Brazilian funk was created by Afro-Bbrazilian communities in the favelas, or working class neighborhoods, of Rio de Janeiro around the 1980s. DJs started to experiment with the sounds of American soul, funk and freestyle<\/a>, also known as Black music<\/a>. In its beginning, Brazilian funk was characterized by lyrics depicting life in a post-racial democracy that still had race and class issues.\u200b<\/p>\n \u201cI like the funk of the 2000s \u2026 with beats from Miami bass, because that\u2019s how it originated,\u201d said Austin DJ\u00a0 Anderson Pereira Goes, whose moniker is DJ Sampha.<\/p>\n Pereira Goes is Brazilian and has lived in the United States for 11 years. He said funk has traveled from a niche genre to popular party music that has crossed race, class and geographic bounds.<\/p>\n In 2024, \u201cS\u00e3o Paulo<\/a>,\u201d a song by\u00a0 funk artist Anitta and The Weeknd, charted at 43 on the U.S.\u00a0 Billboard chart, the highest for a funk artist. This year, funk artist Ludmilla<\/a> made history as the first Afro-Latina musician to perform at Coachella. Influential American artists like Beyonc\u00e9 and Kanye West<\/a> have usedhad funk samples in their most recent albums.<\/p>\n DJs streaming funk sets during the COVID-19 lockdown helped the genre gain a large global digital audience<\/a>. Social media apps continue to be a space for funk dance trends and sounds to gain popularity.<\/p>\n \u200b\u201cI put myself playing a set (on TikTok) and it was a clip of me playing baile funk edits also and I just said, \u2018Where are all my Brazilians in Austin?\u2019 It took off and wound up getting like 14,000 or 15,000 views,\u201d said Diego \u201cDJ Diego the Fuego\u201d Rosales.<\/p>\n Social media has also propelled social venues focused on international music into hot spots.<\/p>\n