At around 2:30 a.m. on May 17, Vita Pereira and Isma Almeida took the stage at the underground electronic music festival Mamba Negra in São Paulo, Brazil, introducing themselves by saying, “Chegou Irmãs de Pau; ela tem pau, e a outra também tem pau,” (“We are here, the sisters with dicks; she has a dick, and the other one also has a dick”). It’s not as if they needed an introduction for their fan-packed audience, but the punchline has become the duo’s trademark since the release of their breakout single “Shambaralai” in 2022. The show happened just a few days ahead of the release of their third studio album, Gambiarra Chic, pt. 2. With the LP, the duo is establishing their place as one of the most unique acts from the underground baile funk, electronic, and pop music scenes in São Paulo in the last few years.
Irmãs de Pau sing very openly about sexual experiences and their bodies, and the audience at Mamba Negra, mainly LGBTQ+ clubbers, knew every curse word and suggestive phrase in their hits by heart. “It was so nice to see so many people that we know. We do a lot of shows in São Paulo, so we know every little face who is always at the front of our gigs,” Pereira says during a video interview with the duo.
Since the beginning of their career, the sound of Irmãs de Pau has been eclectic. Though they make baile funk are greatly influenced by underground experimental electronic music, their sound is very pop-inclined. Their vocal style is aggressive and rhythmic, with their cadences sometimes approaching that of a rapper’s. Despite the amalgamation of influences, they take pride in calling themselves baile funk artists. “We want to be known as ‘funkeiras.’ It’s a reference to where we came from and it’s a language that can be explored in many ways,” says Pereira.
Not actually sisters, Pereira and Almeida met in school in 2015 during a series of protests and occupations held by high school students in São Paulo. These were in response to the reorganization of the public education system in the state, proposed by Geraldo Alckmin, then-Governor, now Vice President. The girls have been close since then, but only started making music together during the pandemic.
In 2021, they released their debut album Dotadas, and in the following year, “Shambaralai” made waves in the underground. But they still needed a spark to increase their popularity beyond São Paulo, which came as an opportunity to be featured on Pabllo Vittar’s remix album After in 2023 on “Derretida.” “She came to us and it was a very enjoyable process,” says Almeida. “She let us be free to talk about anything we wanted, even if it was really sexually explicit, despite her being a very popular artist.” “Derretida” became the biggest track from that project and catapulted Irmãs de Pau to a bigger, nationwide success. “It made me very happy, because Pabllo is reaching spaces that few of us, queer people, have reached before,” says Pereira.
Irmãs de Pau are thorough curators when it comes to feats and collaborations. On Gambiarra Chic, pt. 2 (“fancy makeshift”), they made sure the invited artists fit the bill: independent and underground performers and producers courageous enough to live off their music and art, like female rappers like Ebony and Duquesa, trans art pop singer Ventura Profana, and the producer hyperpop duo CyberKills. “Living in Brazil as Black trans women, we have to make do. But that doesn’t mean we’re not fancy,” says Pereira. “So we needed to tell this story with people who get this concept.”
“Living in Brazil as Black trans women, we have to make do. But that doesn’t mean we’re not fancy.”
Their themes mainly revolve around sex, party, and fun, which, as usually happens to explicit baile funk, their music gets looked down upon. Irmãs de Pau’s project add an extra act of defiance by being sung by non-conforming bodies. But the blunt lyrics also offer deeper meanings and references. In “Passaporte Y Copão,” they talk about coming from the favelas and getting to travel around the world; in “Queens of Cunty,” they pose as models for a new idea of femininity.
But given their explicit themes and lyrics, singing about topics often unacceptable to the music industry’s standards, comes with financial drawbacks, especially as independent artists. “We have no contracts with brands or record labels. We depend on our shows to make a living, and it’s exhausting. One weekend we’re playing at Afropunk, and the next we’re in a tiny club in downtown São Paulo, because we can’t afford to stop doing these little shows,” says Almeida.
“I think we need to start thinking of new means of survival because the system, the power, is always updating itself. We need a financial market that’s fit for our population; for women, for Black people, for trans people, for people from underprivileged backgrounds,” Pereira adds. “Once we have access to the money, then we can start to build this new world for us.”
But the duo refuses, as Pereira says, to “be recognized only in poverty and violence.” “We’re also creating new experiences for trans people,” she states. “So I think it’s very important for us to have music to have sex to, music that makes us sweat, music to think about life or just, mainly, music to dance to.”
