DJ: Neki Stranac
MIXTAPE: Neo Baile Funk
For many years, Brazilian baile funk developed in a bubble with very little contact with the world outside the favelas. People used and re-used the same instrumentals (borrowed from Afrika Bambaataa and Miami bass early hits) adding their Portuguese language verses on them and that was pretty much it. Nobody outside of Rio de Janeiro really cared about it. But then European DJs heard about it and it exploded worldwide.
Now baile funk is developing in all sorts of new directions, both locally (because the new generation of Brazilian producers are influenced by the latest international trends of global bass) and internationally (with producers from all over the world who made baile funk’s characteristic syncopated beat their own and mixed it with their own sensibilities).
Neki Stranac is a Serbian musician, producer, and DJ who specializes in global bass and moombahton and has contributed to the baile funk evolution by mashing it up with Balkan beats. Here we have a half-hour set he put together including many of his own remixes and original productions. He calls it Neo Baile Funk, an obvious reference to the newest production trends that are affecting the genre worldwide.
Don’t worry booty shakers, the beats might change (there’s a lot of moombahton here) but there’s one thing that never changes in baile funk: the bunda-obsessed lyrics.