In March of 2004, with rather little fanfare, Diplo (half of the production team of Hollertronix) released Favela on Blast, a collection of baile funk tracks from Rio. Diplo got into baile funk after a few trips to Brazil in ’04; as he puts it, “punk rock + new wave samples + little kids screaming + miami bass + outsider music industry = most exciting thing going on right now.” And he’s got a point: the music represented on Favela on Blast, which was released after Diplo’s first trip to Rio, is the sort of logical, ass-shaking outcome of decades of hip-hop getting sexier and running full-tilt into the afro-latin rhythms of Latin America. In many ways it’s a mixture that makes perfect sense, and yet the potential of the whole exceeds that of the parts.

As a mix, Favela on Blast is rather daunting: it clocks in at just over 31 minutes of solid music, moving from the pimped out horn section and chanting of the first few minutes into more recognizable pop territory by the middle section. Technically the mix is stellar: though there are one or two jolting transitions, Diplo generally fuses tracks perfectly.

01. Favela on Blast

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