Last night was one of those “Is it just me?” nights, well technically I guess that should be “Is it just us?” as I was out with Wendy and Emma – but you get the drift, we were definitely in the minority.

Well, the night started off well enough, I’d spotted a Baile Funk gig (or Favela Funk or Carioca Funk or whatever name they’re calling it this week) on at Zed De Bois, and the band ‘Bonde de Role’ seemed to be highly thought off and signed to Diplo’s label, so we decided to give it a try.

Hang on a sec, I’ll just back up a bit for those unfamiliar with it, but Baile means Dance/ Dancehall, Favelas are the ghetto areas around Rio in Brasil (as featured in City of God, if you’ve not seen it – what are you playing at? Stop reading right now and go buy, beg, borrow or steal a copy), and a Carioca is a girl from Rio, which are good starting points for the history. The music evolved from Black/ Soul parties, popular in the 70’s in Rio, growing out of control and prohibitively expensive and spreading to the suburbs and favelas, with records being imported from the US. Due to the proximity the imports included a lot of Miami Bass sounds that have heavily influenced the music, typified by the fast hard beats, and aggressive lyrics. The lyrical content would usually reflect on life in the favelas in a similar fashion to US Gangsta Rap, so violence, guns, sex and drugs were firmly on the agenda. And in a bit of a Art imitating Life, chicken and egg cycle - controversy, violence and death have been a feature of the scene. Ok, enough of the history lesson, see Wikipedia if you want to know more (although I’m not so sure on some of their Portuguese translations).Also, Zed de Bois is a bar/ concert venue/ art space in Lisbon, with a reputation for putting on cutting edge, fresh and edgy stuff just so you know. Ok, context (trust me it’s relevant) out of the way, let’s get back to our hero’s adventures.

So we arrived at ZDB, it looked empty from the outside, so we were gonna go for a beer elsewhere and come back, but popped our heads in to see when it was due to start. Fortunately(?), we decided we might as well get tickets while we there, and just managed to get the last three tickets. Relieved and quite excited about the prospect that it was sold out, we went for a quick beer and headed back to catch the documentary on Baile Funk they were showing before the performance, which featured Deize Tigrona, who we’d seen play in Mini Mercado the week before – the style and slang had made understanding the lyrics a bit tricky, but the bits I did hear would probably make Snoop Dogg blush- she wasn’t a shy girl? So the documentary set the scene and we were ready for the gig – just time for Wendy to arrive, grab a beer, and a few tracks from the dj (Is that Dizzee Rascal I hear?) and we were all set.

The group appeared, a dj and 2 mc’s (male and female), and were soon banging out their opening number, couldn’t pick out the source material but it sounded a bit like late 80’s, early 90’s metal. I could be wrong but I’m proud to say I know little about this scene or the ‘Rock’ hand signals that are generally thrust in the air along to it (like pointing, but with the little finger also extended – think it’s supposed to represent the Devil, no?) And sure enough hands appeared throughout the crowd with the male mc leading the salute. They won back a bit of credibility in my eyes with the next track which was based around the riffs and bass of ‘Funky Cold Medina’, before they plunged to new depths. Me and Emma* looked at each other in horror, as the strains of Europe’s “Final Countdown” kicked in. You couldn’t help but laugh, but looking around us, no one was – far from it they were lapping it up, their pseudo-horns continuing on their quest to the roof. Maybe we should have left here, but like an episode of Worlds Worst Police Chase Smashes 32 'Juggernauts meet Mobility Carts series', I felt compelled to stay and watch despite the horrors that I was witnessing. Being told that the lyrics were describing a gay James Bond, slightly appeased me for a while- ahh maybe its tongue in cheek after all. The sudden appearance of ‘Summer Nights’ from Grease quickly put a stop to those thoughts though, but not to the crowd who couldn’t get enough. Do these people have no concept of ‘cheese’? Where’s their pride?

It all ended pretty strangely with them going off stage, everyone expecting (and almost everyone wanting) an encore, some mumbled message about 15 minutes, male band members re-appear, call for female mc to reappear, she doesn’t, they do a track without her and walk off. An odd end to a very odd night that left me thinking the whole world had gone mad and here’s where the context becomes relevant, because like I said this place has a reputation for being on the cutting edge, and if I wasn’t reeling already, the final straw came when I reflected on the documentary we had seen beforehand and roots of the music – so let me get this straight, we’ve got some mean hard-ass drug dealing gangsters crowded in a dancehall with gyrating girls and they are all getting’ down to a bit of Travolta and Newton John, followed up with a ripe smorgasbord of ‘Europe’s finest’. Now is it just me, or does that strike anyone as a bit surreal?

Allow me to expand on why this troubled me so. I love music, particularly new and forward thinking music, pushing new ideas and new styles, and there is so much good new music out there. I often feel there just aren’t enough hours in the day to take it all in. So I’ve never been a fan of artists replicating styles from the past, to me it’s lazy and tired, yeah take elements but do something new with it. Fortunately, most of this phenomenon seems to have flooded the pop market with the recent 80’s revival in mind. It grates me, but so long as it stays there, we can stay out of each others way and leave each other to our own thing and get on with our lives in mutual isolation. And bar the odd notable betrayal (Goldfrapp – how could you? After an album as beautiful as Felt Mountain – tut tut tut, it still smarts). But this is not pop, Baile Funk is big at the minute and growing fast, and its presence was noticeable back in England when I returned, on the lips of all credible music lovers chasing the latest sounds. It must be fresh, even my friend Joe’s putting it on at C90 (www.c90.org) back in Sheffield. Now maybe I’m overreacting and maybe ‘Bonde de Role’ are the sell out pop-hybrids of a genuinely new style that has something fresh to say – but the label they’re on and the hype they seem to be getting suggests otherwise, combined with the crowds reaction it just makes me worried.

I guess I could have dismissed it easier and forgotten about it but when we moved onto a new bar in Santos, looked very classy, red carpet treatment, chandeliers and drink prices and appropriately attired clientele to match (with a few notable exceptions- you see a theme here). It transpired that the dj had some criminal records (Help Emma, can you remember any of the notable crimes) and was only too eager to violate our ears with them – I looked around hoping to find expressions sharing my pain across the dance-floor, but instead all I could see were smiles and shuffling suites. I had to vent my frustration in some way, it’d been a testing night, so I just pretended to lynch myself in full sight of the dj – not sure if it registered but made me feel slightly better. I’d seen enough of this apparent epidemic of style but no substance which seems to have gripped Lisbon. So we drunk up and retreated to safe ground – Mini Mercado, where you can pretty much count on good music. And good music there was, but people there was not. We were the only ones in there (hmmm - negative correlation).   

This kinda relates to a piece I was planning to write about isolation, it’s in my head it just hasn’t leaked out through my fingers and onto my laptop yet (unlike the apple juice eh? – yeah funny!!), but expect some references to the matrix. I’ll leave you with a recollection of one of my favourite scenes from Annie Hall, which I was reminded of when I thought about the smiling suits dancing to bad music. Woodie is walking towards the cinema, pondering the complexities of adult relationships (surprise), when he walks past a blissfully happy couple arm in arm, walking towards him. He stops and asks them how they maintain such a happy relationship. The woman replies “Uh, I'm very shallow and empty and I have no ideas and nothing interesting to say.” Cue the man “And I'm exactly the same way.”

*(I know it should be Emma and I – but that just sounds rubbish – said the English teacher – yeah, keep it real huh?)