Okay, you might already guessed it. Man Rec is a label about electronic beats and lots of rhymes. And there´s one tune that brings it all down: Run DMC´s “Sucker MCs”. When released, it set a new standard. With a bassdrum, some claps and a snare plus two MCs singing over it, “Sucker MCs” showed that it doesnt need much more than a DJ playing a minimalist beat and two guys on a mike to make a dope tune.

Oh, and of course in terms of fashion there´s only one name we have to highlight: Prince Vince (a.k.a. Vincent Gallo)

I have a special, world exclusive pre-announcement for y´all to make and it´s about an upcoming release of mine called BOSSA DO MORRO. “Morro” means “hill” in Portugese, in Rio particulary, the hills are the cite where many of the city´s favelas are located. Thus BOSSA DO MORRO is a Baile Funk remix compilation I comissioned to celebrate this year´s 50th anniversary of Bossa Nova, the great musical genre that was birthed in Rio in the late 50s. When I first heard about this anniversary I immediately thought that there should be a Baile Funk Bossa Nova remix release. But soon I skipped the thought as I knew that it was quite impossible to get any original Bossa tracks for official remix use. Then I met Cristina Ruiz-Kellersmann, the Brazilian wife of Universal Jazz Germany boss Christian Kellersmann, and I suggested to her the compilation idea. She was enthusiastic about it and presented the idea to her husband who greatly supported the idea, together with Universal Jazz A+R Matthias Kuennecke. Eventually I was able to get access to parts of the Bossa Nova catalogue of Universal. Unfortunately not all of their prime tracks could be used, but BOSSA DO MORRO now features remixes of classic songs by João Gilberto, Tom Jobim, Sergio Mendes and Klaus Doldinger amongst others. The remixes are by Rio´s finest DJs such as DJ Amazing Clay, DJ Edgar, DJ Nazz, DJ Marrentinho, DJ Fu, DJ Dinho and a few others. The results are simply amazing. Think of “Girl From Ipanema” with a Miami Bass Beat. Think of “Insensatez” with a Tamborzão. It´s crazy. And I can assure you that there was a never a similar project like this released in Brazil.

How come that todays hottest Rio Funk DJs and producers never touched the big music legacy from their very own city? Well, there´s various reasons. For Cariocas (=the people from Rio) Bossa is the music made by the 1950´s bobos – the bohemian bourgeoise which hung out in Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon. These are area that are culturally and socially far away from the grim reality in the favelas. But it´s not only this barrier that hardly produced any Bossa-Baile Funk tracks so far (except for DJ Sandrinho´s famous “Funk Bossanova”). For the Rio funk DJ culture, Bossa´s just been far from being cool or dope , it´s music to which you can´t really grind your teenage booty to. Thus hardly any funk DJ samples MPB (=Musica Popular Do Brasil) or 1950s, 1960s Brazilian music. To Funk DJs, music from the USA or Europe is cool to sample, but certainly not the music that their grandma´s or parents were listening to. So BOSSA DO MORRO is truly a debut piece. The compilation not only cultivates the first Bossa/Baile Funk pairing, it´s a compilation that probably will be considered blasphemic in Brazil, where the music from the favelas is largely still considered trash. But maybe – hopefully – this image will get a slight correction when people will finally hear that even the most crude MPC based arrangement with a chunky Tamborzão beat can pefectly support a subtle song by Tom Jobim.

Watch out for the full compilation, scheduled for an October 17th release on both vinyl and CD through Universal Jazz Germany. A 12″ vinyl pre-release with four tracks will be released mid September. Watch this space for some more news (sorry I cant give you any free downloads of this project).

Our dear friends at UNRULY- the #1 label for Baltimore Club sent us this cute pic today. Funk Mundial indeed!! Scottie B (pictured in the middle), next time we´ll sort you out with the gold print version….

Yeahhhhh! My debut EP is about to be released next week Friday (29th) both on vinyl as well as digital. It contains collabs with hot Rio MC´s SD Boys, MC Jennifer and MC Betta. On this EP there´s something there for everyone to play, it contains everything from fidgit, to ghetto to a todd terry-like old school house-track – all colored by the great music experience called baile funk.

Here´s an exclusive pre-release promo MP3 edit of “Who´s Afraid Of Rio?” for y´all to bang out.

DANIEL HAAKSMAN “WHO´S AFRAID OF RIO?” feat. MC JENNIFER

Cop the EP on ITunes and other platforms to hear the full length, super sound version.

You may have seen the new and fancy “FUNK MUNDIAL” T-Shirt´s on the current MySpace profile of Crookers. Well, you can cop them in our newly installed Spreadshirt-Shop from today.

Click on the T-Shirt below to get directed to the new Northern American shop:

Click on the T-Shirt below to get directed to the new Euroland shop:

They´re available in various colours, garments and sizes – even with gold metallic print that will make you go bling, yay!

Our favourite London Afro Funksters Radioclit will drop a special issue of their legendary Secousse night @ London´s Nottinghill Carnival next week Monday (Aug 25th). If you havent booked a ticket to London yet, do it now. The aftershow party will see Switch + Diplo presenting their Jamaican Lazer Project around the corner the same night. Fo´sure: No sleep guaranteed. Yeah bwoayyyyy!

Baile Funk lives and breathes in Rio de Janeiro. Hearing the music being blasted out of car stereos and on the streets, tuning into the Baile Funk mix on the radio, going to the bootleg market to pick up the latest hits, being at a baile in a favela…. all I can say is, if you love Baile Funk, you should try to go to Rio.

Here are some of the torch bearers of Baile Funk that I had the pleasure of meeting.

DJ Marlboro

One of the first to make Baile Funk accessible to the masses. I got to see his set at his monthly night at Zero Zero club. Dude played a great mix of Miami bass and classic Baile Funk – the ladies loved it.

Here is an old school classic from Dj Marlboro

Dj Marlboro – Melo da Mulher feia

Dj Sany Pitbull

This is a pic of Sany, Sany’s nephew and me at Circo Viador. I reckon Sany’s nephew is going to become a dj too. I mean, I would too if my uncle could freak the MPC like that!

Gaiola das Popozudas

- The first lady of Baile Funk posing with me and the lovely Joyce Muniz. We saw Gaiola’s show in a brothel in Rio, where Dj Edgar also holds a residency. Gaiola is siiiick! She and her two dancers definitely know how to put on a show.

This is the original to the Makossa and Megablast remix

Gaiola das Popozudas – Late que eu to Passando

Dj Edgar

Edgar the criminal! He definitely took good care of me when I was in Rio. Check out the previous blog entries for his music, and go on to youtube to see Edgar on the MPC 1000. Deadly!

Big thank you to Julia Ribas, Joyce Muniz, Nathalie, Bu, Ben Mono, Tee Carducci, Edgar, Marcelinho, Luciano, the lovely ladies from the South, and everybody else who made this trip so enjoyable!!!

Freestyle was a Miami based electro funk outfit which released their seminal “Don´t Stop The Rock” in 1985. The track was produced by Pretty Tony, one of the most prolific 1980´s electro producers. He build the electro legacy which would give birth to the sound of Miami Bass and Freestyle (and consequently, Baile Funk). In the later 1980s he produced Debbie Deb´s “Look Out Weekend” and Shannon. Both Autechre as well as Chemical Brothers cite “Don´t Stop The Rock” as their main musical influence.

Download the Daniel Haaksman Baile Funk Remix of “Don´t Stop The Rock” here – or cop it in high res super sound on the “Rio Baile Funk Breaks” vinyl:

FREESTYLE “DON´T STOP THE ROCK – DANIEL HAAKSMAN BAILE FUNK REMIX”

If you are looking for more tracks that set the musical base for baile funk, check this Brazilian blog – with tons of MP3s – entirely dedicated to the roots of Rio funk:

CLASSICOS DO FUNK

Okay peepz, here´s a nut to crack for all of you. There´s a German band called MIA. which has come up with a new logo that has a pretty obvious resemblance with the logo Man Recordings uses since 2005.

First, a few explanations. The symbol we use on our records, on the website and some of our T-Shirts – in abstract form – represent the three letters MAN. The logo also symbolizes a waveform, the basic graphic display of a sonic signal. When looking for a logo for our record label, we played around with the letters “MAN” noticing that in pairs, the three letters consist of four triangles which could be displayed in a waveform too – thus the Man logo which until now only few people deciphered as symbolising both MAN as well as the waveform. We use this as our company´s logo from release #1 and IT`S OURS!

MAN REC classic logo, in use since 2005:
MIA.´s new logo, first released in 2008:

MIA.´s old logo:

Now, about MIA. : They do a kind of pretty non-funky, middle-of-the-road electro-rock in German language. German kids love ´em but if you know the music from the Neue Deutsche Welle, which MIA. heavily plunder, MIA. is kind of lame. Plus: People in Germany always confuse them with our favourite UK darling M.I.A. (Maya Arulpragasam). So this band is kind of a big pain in the ass. We don´t need further confusion or desire any association with the band MIA. – and we prefer to be the only label using this logo.

Check the MIA. website and see what I mean:
http://www.miarockt.de/

Man Recorder readers, Man Recordings fans, supporters, haters, what time is love? Is this a coincidence? A matter for the legal department? Should we care? Should we sue? Your comments are warmly welcomed.

P.S. Some additional trivia: There´s even another MIA in Germany, Berlin based Techno DJ MIA (Michaela Grobelny) which spells her name as “M.i.a.” Can you dig it? Total confusion, arrghhh!

See footage of DJ Beware´s recent trip to Rio. Oh and by the way, he´ll be a new contributor to the Man Recorder. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome….

As you may have noticed, we love series at Man Recordings. We started the Funk Mundial series and the Baile Funk Masters series, to establish platform for musical concepts. While Funk Mundial is the platform for collaborations between Rio based MCs and producers from the Northern hemisphere, the Baile Funk Masters series is exclusively dedicated to Rio producers and DJs. For our blog, we started the “Man Recordings Inspiration Series” which presents videos from artists that inspired the Man Recordings sound and look. So now it´s the time for another series for our blog. In “The Man Recordings Legends Selection ” we´ll present tracks by bands and artists that were inspiration for us as kids, opening our virgin ears.

There´s probably no better track to kick off the series as the following tune by Bavarian funk outfit Relax. The quartet rose to prominence in 1982 with their debut single “Radio Hörn” (Listening to radio), which is a hard boiled funk track – with err, Bavarian German lyrics. “Radio Hörn” shows that the early 1980s “Neue Deutsche Welle” (German New Wave) wasnt all about post punk and electronic instruments. In fact, it had various protagonists that were massively inspired by names such as James Brown, Ohio Players, Kool & The Gang, Earth Wind + Fire, George Duke and other U.S. funk outfits. George Kranz´s “Din Daa Daa”, the first album by Nena or the tracks by the former backing band of Nina Hagen, Spliff, illustrate that U.S. funk had a huge influence in German pop culture way before hip hop landed in Germany.

So check out Relax and their “Radio Hörn” – and you´ll understand that Germans do have the funk too, even in Bavaria!

RELAX “RADIO HÖRN”

It´s Eurodance time again! Original Baile Funk Master DJ EDGAR from Rio De Janeiro sent us one of his new remixes. It demonstrates once again that DJ Edgar can turn anything into gold – even Gigi D´Agostino´s “I´ll Fly With You”, an Italian progressive-house classic from 1999.

Download it from here:

GIGI D´AGOSTINO “I´LL FLY WITH YOU – DJ EDGAR REMIX”

The German New Wave had many effects on the emergence of electro funk in the U.S. and DAF´s “Der Räuber Und Der Prinz” illustrates why. The song hasnt got a real funky beat, but when released in 1981 people considered it perfect for the dancefloor. In opposition to the electronic beats of Kraftwerk, DAF used a heavy, live drum beat that sounded like minimalist rock, combined with a set of spare electronic sounds. When surfacing, “Der Räuber Und Der Prinz” sounded so alien, it was considered music from the 21st century. Besides it´s heavy popularity on post-disco dancefloors across Europe (e.g. Cosmic Disco in Northern Italy) it became big in the NY downtown scene. Thus not only NY electro funk was largely influenced by “Der Räuber Und Der Prinz” (”The robber and the prince”). Also visually the song had a huge impact: The video featuring mechanical toy puppets (in lack of budget and robots) was quite possibly the main inspiration for Herbie Hancock´s legendary clip of “Rockit” from 1983.
Until today DAF are considered Germany´s prime influence for electro pop across the world and the later emergence of techno and late 90s electro – right next to Kraftwerk. P.S. Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft = German American Friendship (a much used Cold War term in West Germany)

See Herbie Hancock´s “Rockit” video here:

DJ Beware just visited Rio for the first time. See him talk about his first impressions.

Big up for the interview to Tee Cardaci, who runs the highly recommendable “Sanfrancarioca” blog. Sanfrancarioca reports from a Gringo´s perspective on music, politics and culture in Rio De Janeiro. Check Sanfrancarioca here: http:/sanfrancarioca.blogspot.com/