If you live in the Benelux area, come down to the Funk Mundial party in Gent on Saturday. All of you who missed out on the banging Funk Mundial party in Brussels a momth ago, will have a chance to shake their booty Brasilian style again.

Yeahh! We smashed it last Saturday @ KVS in Brussels at the Funk Mundial release party, the Belgian edition. DJ Edgar, Joyce Muniz and myself played the big room of the municipal theater and ripped it all apart. See DJ Edgar rocking down the house (photos will follow soon). Merçi Bruxelles, la soiree été un grand plaisir!!

Thanks to DJ TLP, DJ Rakesh and Karim for the hosting, you were great hosts.

The online version of one of our favourite magazines, Dazed + Confused just posted an interview with me on Funk Mundial and Man Recordings, have a look here:

Funk Mundial From Berlin To Rio

The prettiest girls of Vienna came down last Saturday to fiercly shake booty at Café Leopold in the Museumsquartier. Special guest Seiji played new remixes and his current UK funky favourites, while Joyce Muniz spanked the crowd hard with some serious Brasilian macho beats, topped with “Bambolero” from Gypsy Kings. DJ Beware shone brightly with seamless mixing everything from early 90s bogle to the latest Afro rave tunes. I dropped tracks from my new EP and was amazed to see people singing along “Subiu, Desceu” by Feadz which has become a radio hit on national radio in Austria. Big Up Vienna, you showed some big love for us again. A pity though the night had to end already at four though the club was still rammed. But we´ll be back soon!!

Rio strikes back! In our newest release, “Funk Mundial – The Rio Baile Funk Remixes” Rio De Janeiro’s top baile funk DJs give their musical answers to some of the best tunes of the Funk Mundial series on Man Recordings – presenting baile funk remixes of anthems like Count+Sinden’s “Tamborzuda”, Crookers “Para De Graçinha”, Seiji´s “Todo Mundo” or Stereotyp’s “Jeçe Valadão”. Download here the DJ Edgar remix of “Jeçe Valadão” – and buy the full release on all major digital platforms.

Stereotyp feat. Edu K + Joyce Muniz “Jeçe Valadão” (DJ Edgar Baile Funk Remix)

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The deadline for submissions in the Crookers / Funk Mundial remix contest ended last night. Spreading out in the blogosphere like a wildfire the remix contest was featured on many blogs and websites, even XLR8R magazine featured it in its online version. Thus, the results are truly mundial. We received a reggaeton remix from Puerto Rico, a banging Tecno Brega mix from São Paulo and tons of ravey stuff from all over the planet, even from heavy weights like Brabe from Holland or Sticky K courtesy of Dubsided fame.

We are currently in the process of remix evalution – with more than sixty entries, a real challenging job. Until we´ll announce the winners of the contest this Friday, we´ll give you something to play with : The Funk Mundial cube. Download the construction sheet for your own cube here:

http://exiltiroler.net/download/manrecordings/funkmundial-cube.pdf

Special thanks to Analog / Michael Ostermann from Vienna, Austria for designing the cube.

And of course: We´d like to say many thanks to all producers that provided their versions and participated in the contest.

Yo, ever fancied remixing Crookers? Well, here´s your chance. To celebrate the release of the Funk Mundial compilation, containing the best tracks of the vinyl series on Man Recordings, we are giving away original acappella, bassline and drumfills from the Crookers track “Soca Ali Baba” feat. Baile Funk MC Dandão for y´all to remix.

The best three remixes will be officially digital release on Man Recordings and rewarded with Man Recordings goodies and a share in sales.

Please send your remixes to info (at) manrecordings.com. Submission deadline is April 27th, 2009 (we postponed it for one more week). And: It doesnt matter which format you send us your remix. MP3s are preferred, if the remix gets a full release, we´d ask you for .WAV formats.

Download the parts from here:

http://www.zshare.net/download/58089059d64facf2/

Listen to the original track snippet here:03-soca-ali-baba-feat-mc-dandao-snippet

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Our favourite Ed Banger, Feadz, has provided #9 in the Funk Mundial series. Fusing a major melody from old Europe, i.e. Mozart, with the banging beats from Rio De Janeiro, Feadz has quite probably created the most radio friendly Funk Mundial track to date. Sinden, Annie Mac, Shir Khan and DJ Beware already dropped it in their radio shows and on Austria´s FM4 station Feadz tune is played in daytime radio.

Here´s the original Montagem from Rio on which Feadz´track is based. Hurry up with copping the 7″ – it´s limited to 500 copies. It´s also available thru the Man Rec web shop.
montagem-mossart-original1

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As you may have heard, we´re about to release the best tracks of the Funk Mundial compilation on CD on April 20th. The CD launch celebrations officially started last Saturday, with a release party kick off at our bi-monthly Man Recordings night at Scala. Sinden, who provided “Tamborzuda” in the Funk Mundial series together with Herve, came over from London to rock some bass, supported by Mr.Wix from Parra Sound System Amsterdam and myself. See the photo journal here.

Mr.Wix and Sinden gearing up before the show

Wix heating it up

Sinden dropping some amazing dub step and funky house

The crowd at Scala going whow

The best bootleg T-Shirt of the night

I´m back from Asia. Shock freezed in cold ass Berlin, but glad to be back in the office and kick off the fourth year of Man Recordings which promises to be full of great releases and events. Spring 2009 will see Funk Mundial releases by the ZZK all stars from Buenos Aires: Funk Mundial #8, feat. El Remolón, Chancha Via Circuito, Douster and Frikstailers, the first ever Cumbia-Baile release. Funk Mundial #9 will follow shortly after, prouding us with a contribution by our favourite Ed Banger Feadz from Paris. His release is a collab with 8 year old Rio based MC Wesley  – released as limited edition 7″ vinyl.

Despite various vinyl distributors folding in the 4th quarter of 2008, making us loose money and stock, and the all over world economy looking up to grim months to come, we´ll still keep up to the vinyl format. A look at the photo ensemble which we recently shot of our releases should say it all: MP3 my ass, vinyl is here to stay.

We are proud to present #7 in the Funk Mundial series: It´s by Jesse Rose and Oliver $ from Berlin, and both have teamed up with Rio funk MC queen Deize Tigrona and created two incredible tracks. We produced a limited edition of 300 copies in red shiny vinyl, so get to your nearest vinyl dealer or order the vinyl through us. Superduper-Anti Mp3-Sound included. For those without a turntable, go to Itunes or Beatport from next week to download the digital 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!

Rio de Janeiro´s TiM Festival is an annual live concert extravaganza sponsored by Brazilian-Italian telecom giant TIM. This year´s headliners included Björk and Arctic Monkeys, plus shows by Spankrock, Girl Talk, Lindstrom, Toktok, Juliette & The Licks, Killers the main attraction on the festival´s last night however was the FUNK MUNDIAL stage.

The line up was: MC Gringo, Daniel Haaksman, DJ Sandrinho, Sinden, Diplo, DJ Marlboro. A night in which the international ambassadors of funk would meet up with Rio´s hottest funk talents. Months before the event it was decided not to include any MC from Rio as political dynamics within the MC community wouldve boasted the night´s program. It´s still scarce that MCs from the funk community get the chance to participate in international festival stages in Brazil so to keep heat low, MCs were excluded, except for MC Gringo, the German-Brazilian MC, who was considered neutral for the event.

Sound rehearsals started in the afternoon – MC Gringo being the only artist performing with a live instrument, he needed some adjustment with his co MC Gus to warm up.

After rehearsals Sinden went off with MC Gringo to a footie match at Maracana stadium. Daniel Haaksman chilled at the pool of Sheraton Rio – to doze off after a hard party night in São Paulo. Diplo was busy putting his final hands on his “Favela On Blast” movie and a hungover from Björks party the night before.

While on his way up to his room, Haaksman crashed into Diplo. Sinden followed shortly after, together they hung out in the lobby, laer, a small bus took the bunch from Sheraton to the festival.

The TIM venue was rammed with people, three stages attracted tons of folks hungry for partying – the night before it was raining cats and dogs, Saturday night was a perfect and warm early Rio summer night. Soon the FUNK MUNDIAL tent filled up. Backstage all artists came together for a quick talk about running order and playing length. Sinden and Haaksman met TIM programmer Hermano Vianna for a brief chat

MC Gringo started the night in the giant tent and soon proofed his skills as a A list performer. Backed by DJ Comrade from NY and his Co MC Gus, Gringo filled the tent in a second and soon got the audience moving their hips in funk carioca stylee.

Up next was Haaksman who added extra bass to the stage and got the crowd moving fast. Hermano Vianna mentioned “It was the best set to make sex too”. Some dancers agreed, others like Deize Tigrona, Sany Pitbull, Diplo and Sinden decided to do other dance routines.

After Haaksman, DJ Sandrinho took over the decks. And with his party proof MPC/Pioneer CD-J wizzardry soon brought the tent to the boil.

Finally our boy Graeme Sinden burned the tent with a breathtaking mix of niche, brandnew tracks by himself as well as remixes from the Dubsided crew.

Last but not least, Diplo brought the party to the peak with his irresistible mix of Bmore joints, baile mashups and party bombs. Rio just couldnt do nothing else but dance – even the bouncers joined in.

The night was rounded up with DJ Marlboro playing tracks from his label – sorry, no photo available!

ARTIST: CROOKERS
TITLE: FUNK MUNDIAL #3
FORMAT: 12“ VINYL + DIGITAL DOWNOLAD
CAT.NR.: MAN 014
RELEASE: MAY 18TH, 2007

Since it’s inception in November 2006, the Man Recordings series Funk Mundial has pushed the boundaries of what is called „Brazilian Music“. The tracks by Stereotyp feat. EDU K + Joyce Muniz (Man 010) as well as Sinden+Count Of Monte Cristal feat. MC Thiaguinho (Man 013) illustrated that club music inspired by Brazilian music elements doesn’t necessarily have to feature a samba beat or a bossa nova reference to bring European, Japanese or North American dancefloors to the boil. Rather the opposite: The series is not about an emulation of Rio’s hillside beats + bass culture but aims to establish a new hybrid musical form. It uses baile funk both as an energy as well as lyrical blueprint to develop a unique new style: The Funk Mundial style.

Now Man Recordings is proud to present the #3 in the acclaimed series. It comes from the Milan, Italy based duo Crookers. This duo are certainly a hot ticket: With only two 12“es out (on On Da Brink Records UK, the other one on Italy’s Big Sur), and a few remixes (Steellord) and mashups (Kelis) recorded, these two Italian B-Boys have stormed the hearts, blogs and dancefloors around the world with their crunky booty house sound.

When producers cite both J Dilla and Matthew Herbert as their main musical influences, the artistic effort can do nothing but sound exciting. The Crookers deliver a Euro crunk definition of baile funk: Nasty basslines, irresisitble uptempo grooves and jaw dropping breakdowns, all mashed up with the unique and raw rhyme extravaganza of baile funk MCing.

For their Funk Mundial contribution, Phra and Bot a.k.a. Crookers teamed up with two original Rio funk MCs: The EP opens up with „Para De Graçinha“, with MC Leka on the mike. Leka is a former Proibidão MC from the Rio community Parque São José which is known for it’s weekly street bailes, most notably the ‘Caldeirão’ baile. With „Para De Graçinha“ („Stop making fun of me“) she straightforwadly tells a playboy that his moves don’t impress her, nor the size of his dick. „Para De Graçinha“ is followed by „Atomic Baile Boy“ which is a non vocal approach to Rio’s baile funk culture. Fired up by a fuzzy bassline and dirty breakdowns it’s a hell of a monster instrumental track.

The flipside of the single contains „Soca Ali Baba“, a heavy jacking dancefloor smasher which features MC Dandão from the favela Vila Lagé, a Rio community considered to be one of the original hotbeds for baile funk. Reknowned for his biggest hit „Dança da Lombriga’“ (Dance of the roundworm) Dandão delivers a joyful double entendre word play on sexual intercourse in true traditional Rio MC tradition: His verse could be interpreted as a Soca rhyme for Ali Baba or the straight forward demand for „pushing it hard like Mike Tyson till it drools“.

Bonus tracks are the acappella’s of Leka’s and Dandão’s rhyme extravaganza.

Funk Mundial #3: A hot Italian-Brazilian collaboration and another sure shot club hitter.

Tracklist
Para De Graçinha feat. MC Leka (Euro Crunk Mix)
Atomic Baile Boy
Soca Ali Baba feat. MC Dandão
Soca Ali Baba Acappella
Para De Graçinha Acappella

Limited edition of 300 copies in green vinyl.

ARTIST: THE COUNT + SINDEN
TITLE: TAMBORZUDA FEAT. MC THIAGUINHO/ FUNK MUNDIAL #2
FORMAT: 12“ VINYL + DIGITAL DOWNLOAD
CAT. NR.: MAN 013
RELEASE: MAY 4th, 2007

Following the much acclaimed release „Jece Valadão/Uepa“ by Vienna’s Stereotyp feat. Edu K and Joyce Muniz, the Funk Mundial series on Man Recordings presents #2 in the transatlantic music collaborations between Brazil and Europe.

The second Funk Mundial release is produced by Sinden + Count Of Monte Cristal (a.k.a. Herve), currently two of London’s hottest club music producers. Releasing for labels like Dubsided, Countferfeet, On The Brink and many others, the two producers currently turn heads with every tune and remix they release. Sinden has remixed Lady Sovereign, Edu K, Basement Jaxx, Bugz In The Attic, Roxanne Shanté amongst others and has collaborated with Dave „Solid Groove / Switch“ Taylor and Jesse Rose on various unclassifiable riddims. Herve has released various banging 12“es on Dubsided, collaborates with Trevor Loveys under the moniker Speakerjunk, releases mellow music as Young Lovers and recently remixed Bloc Party, Jimi Hendrix and Princess Superstar to much acclaim.

For „Tamborzuda“ Sinden + Herve fuse speed garage beats – London’s late 90s dominating floor shaking groove – with the dope alchemy and rave melodies of Rio Baile Funk, spiced with the rhyme skills of Rio MC Thiaguinho. MC Thiaguinho is one of the former MCs of legendary Rio de Janeiro baile funk outfit Bonde Do Tigrão, famous for tracks like „O Baile Todo“ (the baile funk cover version of „Who Let The Dogs Out“) and „Cerol Na Mão“.

The result of the London-Rio collab is „Tamborzuda“: Call it Speed Baile or Garage Funk Carioca, it’s a fantastic, full on-having-fun-blend of two distinct local and hi energy dance music styles, made to body-rock any party. With it’s rave hook, a gutter teasing bassline and the mad lyrics of MC Thiaguinho about a girl addicted to booty shaking and baile funk’s „Tamborzão“ beat, „Tamborzuda“ is a unique track that will find it’s way on dancefloors and DJ selections across the globe.

Tracklist
Tamborzuda – Rave New World Mix
Tamborzuda – Sin Rave Mix
Tamborzuda – Buggin on Bass + Beats Mix
Tamborzuda – Acappella

Limited edition of 300 copies in transparent vinyl.