Weird Baile Collected Rips: Baile Funk Meets UK Bass — SkimNews
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- Weird Baile — producers JLZ, VHOOR, Mu540, and DJ RaMeMes — began releasing baile funk productions together in 2017 after sharing edits on SoundCloud, and now gathers two decades of work on 'Collected Rips 2004-2024.'
- The compilation strips baile funk to its essentials of vocals, bass, and rhythm, with opener 'Aquecimento Do Ih Caraca' delivering 'two minutes of menacing intensity' built on industrial sub-bass, chopped shouted vocals, and percussive beatboxing.
- 'Grime Do Weird Baile' layers Portuguese lyrics and clattering electronic percussion over the beat from Skepta and JME's 2006 'Rhythm & Gash Freestyle,' flipping the track's 'front-footed aggression into a bouncing dancefloor number.'
- The album's UK bass lineage runs deeper than grime: 'PPRT' features skittering drill bass, 'CaFaGesTeh' draws on cavernous dubstep influences, and 'Pique da Oakley' opens with ambient textures that echo Mala's 2007 track 'Changes.'
- Weird Baile's defining move is disruption rather than replication — 'Beat Derruba Gringo' slows and unsettles a trance synth melody into an 'ominous assault,' a process the review describes as sending baile funk 'into a hallucinatory zone.'
- Baile funk originated in 1980s Brazil as bass-heavy syncopated folk rhythms with hip-hop-influenced sampling and has since fractured into regional styles including D.Silvestre's hyperpop, DJ K's bruxaria, and MC Lan's house-sampling sound.
Why it matters: The album documents four Brazilian producers — JLZ, VHOOR, Mu540, and DJ RaMeMes — who built a transatlantic cross-genre project by folding grime, drill, and dubstep DNA into stripped-down baile funk. By referencing Skepta, JME, and dubstep producer Mala explicitly, the group formalizes a Brazilian-UK underground dialogue that until now circulated only as informal SoundCloud edits.
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