Various Artists
The Inspiring New Sounds of Rio de Janeiro
by Joe Tangari

Listening to someone rap or sing in a language you don't understand affords an opportunity to experience the human voice as pure sound. This is different from hearing someone sing wordlessly, intending to use the voice as just another instrument, because the rhythm of syntax and syllables is very much in play, yet free of the baggage of meaning. Portuguese is a language that sounds like it was invented by singers, and Brazilian dialects seem to highlight its natural musicality.

Brazil's music industry is very nearly as large as that of the U.S., and extremely diverse-- the country has produced many unique styles of its own, from batucada and samba to bossa nova, MPB and Tropicália-- and it's usually pretty easy to pick a Brazilian record out of the crowd regardless of its genre. There's just a certain Brazilian edge, a distinctive melodic warmth that's unmistakable.

Today, Brazilian society is marked by a disparity in living standards easily as bad as at any point in history. The mansions of the country's great cities are balanced by teeming, violent slums where opportunity can seem like a very distant dream. Rio de Janeiro isn't the largest Brazilian city, but it's the most mythical, with its dramatic harbor, imposing mountains, massive statue of Christ, and white, curving beaches, but its modern realities are like those of any other city, with crime and poverty a part of the landscape. The favelas of Brazil have produced huge quantities of music, and the recent baile funk craze is just a part of the story. Verge Records' Inspiring New Sounds of Rio de Janeiro compilation, while burdened with a pretty lousy title, nevertheless does a fine job of collecting a handful of interesting artists and showcasing some excellent tracks.

The disc's 13 songs are split between five different artists, and they range all over the map from twitching hip-hop to sunny funk-rock, crazed dub, and driving neo-samba. Verge records founder Emmanuel Zunz founded the label after hearing the funky rock group Movimento Na Rua while working in a Rio favela for a Canadian NGO called Schools Without Borders, and a portion of sales benefit the organization. The ultimate goal is to build a state-of-the-art recording studio in Rio with the specific mission of developing new artists.

The band that opens and closes the disc, A Filial, is tough to describe-- they have a chilled-out vibe to their sound, with casual guitar riffs, funky rhythms and an overall feel that recalls classic Brazilian popular music updated for the hip-hop era. Lead MC Edu Lopes seems to have picked up some of his technique from De La Soul. On "Cartilha", he trades verses with a jazzy, muted trumpet, while "Camila" is more fractured, with motor-mouthed verses traded back and forth by multiple MCs-- at one point, it sounds like they're trading verses over the phone.

Gabriel Moura, who once played in a band called Farofa Carioca with Seu Jorge, turns in two wildly divergent tracks that recall Brazil's musical past. "Brasis", with its big brass arrangement, frenetic rhythm and frantic vocal, reminds me of Wilson Simonal's late-60s pilantragem phase and, more distantly, the carnavál music of Agostinho dos Santos. "O Perfume da Nega" is more closely related to Bebeto's late-70s MPB records. That couldn't be more different from the two Digitaldubs tracks, one of which features deep, gravelly vocals from baile funk rapper Mister Catra, while the other is straight-up roots reggae with dub production and pounding, modern reggae rhythm tracks full of programmed drums and electronic bass lines.

Bnegao e os Seletores de Frequencia offer an electro-acoustic pop/hip-hop hybrid that makes it clear how far ahead of his time Tom Zé has been throughout his career-- he's anticipated this sound for decades. This sound's time has clearly arrived, and it deserves a prominent place on our hip-hop planet. The mix of harmony singing, rapping, live, acoustic instrumentation, and programming has few genuine parallels anywhere. That brings us back to the band most responsible for this compilation's existence: Movimento Na Rua. Their "Soldados Nunca Mais" flips back and forth between funk and rock, balancing intricate vocal arrangements on the funky verses with flat-out riffing on the chorus. They embrace reggae and hip-hop on "Periferia de Jah", and outer space groove on "Realidade," and it's not hard to see what Zunz saw in them that inspired him.

At its core, this is all music born of struggle, even if its sunny disposition doesn't always let on. And that's where the language question comes in. I have no doubt that being able to understand the vocalists on this compilation would deepen my appreciation for what they're doing and open my eyes to certain realities I'm not aware of. But at the same time, I don't need that extra layer of meaning to listen to this and know that it's vital, exciting music produced by people who have kept their art and culture vibrant against heavy odds.