“At some point, it was bound to erupt”: The Defiant Sounds of São Paulo Nightlife

One of the first things you notice when leaving Guarulhos International Airport in São Paulo is the cacophony of car horns and engines blaring from the gridlocked streets nearby. The intensity at which this medley of automobile noise rings around the atmosphere adds both an element of apprehension and excitement to your visit: an unfamiliarity from the more regulated chorus of commuters you get used to in London. It’s what you should expect from the largest city in Brazil and Latin America, with a population of close to 23,000,000 people, its Gotham-like, metropolitan sprawl is vast, and a day doesn’t go by when you aren’t awoken to a symphony of off-kilter car honks and other transport-related sounds.   

For a city that makes so much noise, it’s unsurprising that it has one of the world’s most influential music scenes. Unless you’ve been living under a culture void rock, you’ll be aware of Baile funk, which translates to funk party in Portuguese, the sound characterised by its tinny “um-cha-cha-um-cha-cha” rhythm. The genre, which can be traced back to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the 1990s, blends dance music from the Afro-American and Afro-Brazilian diaspora, like Miami bass, electro, hip-hop and Latin freestyle. Made in response to the increasing militarised police presence and brutality in the city’s poorest areas, the sound has since been celebrated globally, landing on hits by everyone from Travis Scott to Major Lazer and Cardi B.   

São Paulo’s Baile funk scene is vastly different to Rio’s. Transformed by the internet, a generation of teens started building out their communities online, distributing music via platforms like Kondzilla – which now has 67.6 million subscribers – to reach fans all over the country. Yet still, the funk-adjacent scenes are sonically diverse from one favela to another in the city’s Vila Andrada and Sacomã districts. At Brazilian funk parties in São Paulo, you’ll find a wealth of subgenres intermingling with one another; the lines between each are blurry but they have notable features to help us at least attempt to make sense of the madness.  

Funk Bruxaria, translating to witchcraft, is characterised by its toe-curling synth screeches and sinister, horrorcore samples. Meanwhile, funk ostentação focuses on braggadocio, with emcees taking the materialistic tropes of hip-hop to flex cars and jewellery while outlining their ambitions to leave the favela. Then there’s funk proibidão, which portrays the violent realities of living in São Paulo’s working-class communities and funk mandelão: a style defined by distorted bass and repetitive lyrics that feel like you’re at a Corinthians football match. They evolve rapidly, responding to internet trends and intermingling with international music scenes, but their origins are deeply rooted in the tumultuous political climate São Paulo finds itself in. 

“These genres emerged from segregation in the city and social neglect. São Paulo is a massive city with extreme inequality,” explains Tijolo Records head honcho SIXX4SIXX. Bridging the gap between electronic music from the city and underground bass and break-focused genres, the label and event series sits at a unique intersection between Latin and global music scenes. “That’s why the sound coming from São Paulo has this raw and defiant character. From the rap of Racionais MCs to the sounds coming from the streets today, they all carry this weight and emotion. It makes everything denser and more political. Our distractions have always been the city and its dangers,” he adds.

Electronic music has become a tool to connect a new generation of Paulistanos with something more sensitive, serving as a protest and outlet for their frustrations with social inequality; the city’s core and periphery are worlds apart in terms of income and humanitarian issues like health and education. Similarities can be found in the Tropicalía movement, encompassing music, art and literature, it celebrated Brazil’s people while protesting against the lack of freedom under the oppressive regime of the military government in the ‘60s. Indeed, music as a conduit for politics is nothing new in Brazil, nor São Paulo: the shuffling, syncopated rhythms of samba came from African immigrants wanting to connect with a part of their culture that had been violent cut from them. Like Baile funk, it became a way for working class people to succeed and progress from the ghettoisation of the favela communities. Fast-forward to 2025, and in the country’s most densely populated city, electronic scenes and parties have become a new form of resistance.  

One of São Paulo’s fastest rising stars is DJ Blakes, who started mixing for soundsystems at local street parties before becoming the internationally touring artist he is today. He believes the increasing ostracisation of the city’s fringe communities has created hyper-localised scenes driven to make music that innovates. Poor transport links between favelas and the city centre mean artists have no option but to use what’s around them. Flying the flag for funk mandelão, the subgenre and its street parties are regularly persecuted by authorities but have allowed DJ Blakes to find a career beyond São Paulo.  

“Every day, we try to do something new and experimental,” he says. “My style used to be marginalised but now reaches thousands of listeners. It went from being a genre for favela dances to being played all over the world. Taking our music to other places has helped it expand and evolve.” If you watch his Boiler Room x Ballentines True Music Studios set from last year, you’ll witness this non-conforming approach firsthand. In between two towering psychedelic soundsystems, he chops between high-pitched whistles, calypso steel drums, traditional house rhythms and booming 808s, responding to the crowd’s impromptu bumping and grinding. 

You could put this wave of sonic innovation down to regional variants and cultural diversity in São Paulo, but the increasing presence of the city’s DJs on the international club circuit also plays a role. North America, Europe and Africa have welcomed the genre with open arms, adopting various funk styles and playing them around techno, garage and grime. Nyege Nyege Tapes is a record label from Uganda that has released music by funk artists like DJ K, a producer from Heliópolis who’s a leader of the Bruxeria movement. “This is what the party sounds like when you take the wrong drugs. I love it,” reads a comment from one supporter on Bandcamp.  

“We have so many artists with substance and musicality who were ignored for a long time – this goes for all of Latin America,” says SIXX4SIXX. “At some point, it was bound to erupt and now that’s happening.” Looking closer to home, Kennington rapper Blanco recently collaborated with São Paulo singer Veigh on the single ‘Tyla’, blending his Portuguese tones with a more traditional, lo-fi drill instrumental. Across the pond, Canadian artist SadBoi shot to fame last year, mixing traditional baile funk rhythms with Toronto’s underground club flavours on her debut album, DRY CRY. 

As much as the world is taking in São Paulo’s electronic continuum, the city has long absorbed different music and cultures, connecting global sounds with a suburban Latin perspective. Looking at DnB as a case study, São Paulo became arguably one of the genre’s most important cities in the ‘90s, as the legendary DJ Marky, XRS and DJ Patife started playing records that revved-up jungle’s breakbeats and combined them with Latin guitars and samples of renowned Brazilian musicians like Jorge Ben. This more soulful and uplifting version opened doors internationally, proving the sound could live beyond the dark and elusive spaces it was being played in Britain.   

But despite its impact globally, electronic music still faces persecution in São Paulo. At the turn of the decade, parties like Mamba Negra, spotlighting contemporary underground Brazilian DJs, were occupying unregulated spaces in the downtown as a form of social advocacy, providing music lovers – especially in BIPOC and queer communities – a place to be free while highlighting the city’s inequality. The party has grown stronger, but not without adversity from former and current conservative mayors João Doria and Ricardo Nunes, who have put pressure on the use of warehouses over concerns relating to the city’s public.   

“Right now, São Paulo is experiencing real estate speculation. Many parties that started on the streets moved into abandoned warehouses to survive and now big business owners have brought these spaces, taking over almost all the clubs,” explains SIXX4SIXX. At the Boiler Room x Ballentine’s True Music Studios party, I bump into DJ, producer and founder of the Sangra Muta party Gezender, who originally moved to São Paulo to work on Mamba Negra. They believe these effects have given underground parties no choice other than to go mainstream. “The nightlife in São Paulo changes a lot, mainly because of the economic situation. Most underground parties cannot be underground now because they have to pay their bills. For Sangra Muta, I am tired of fighting to get in. I just want to exist.”  

Combining American ballroom culture with Latin-focused electronic music has set Sangra Muta apart, creating a new style unique to the Brazilian LGBTQ+ community. But Gezender has had to compromise the party’s vision to survive, regularly working with sponsors to keep the night afloat. Nevertheless, Sangra Muta maintains its core values of freedom and equality. “Underground is something quite contradictory now. It’s more of a feeling, being on the dance floor around people that like the same things as you. At Sangra Muta, there aren’t many rules, and I’m not talking about drugs; I’m talking about the freedom to express yourself. I think parties where you can be yourself show the spirit of underground music.”

These environments are not only radical because of their values of self-expression, but they allow DJs and creatives a space to experiment. It’s important to realise that although Baile funk rules the current electronic music climate in São Paulo, DJs are stepping outside of the bubble. One of those artists is DJ Crazed, who draws on Detroit electro, breakbeat and old-school carioca funk to open new paradigms within the Brazilian funk paradox. “There are a lot of people in the city who are expanding the limits of electronic music in São Paulo, mainly because they have a unique aesthetic in their sound. There are too many talents to mention, but some that I can think of right now are: RHR, Caio Prince, DJ Bassan, Kenya20HZ, D.Silvestre, DJ Dayeh and Kenan E Kel DJs,” he tells me. “These artists don’t follow strict rules when creating music. Instead, they set their own rules.”

“You shouldn’t feel like you have to play music from your country,” adds Gezender, whose sets traverse electronic music from all over Latin America, not just Brazil. “Electronic music is global. We’re finding our own electronic music, which is amazing because we have more intimacy with the sounds that we’re playing. However, you shouldn’t feel like you have to play São Paulo music as a São Paulo DJ.”

With a muffled bassline vibrating intensely through the wall next to us, Gezender finishes our conversation by mentioning there’s an underground scene in São Paulo reimerging in illegal spaces, but they’re quick to reiterate that the former ‘underground’ parties have gone mainstream. As for where São Paulo’s volatile electronic music scene goes next, not even those closest to it can make a prediction. One thing’s for sure, though: where there’s hardship in this grandiose and fervent creative city, innovation will never be far away. As SIXX4SIXX explains, “São Paulo has always been unpredictable, and that’s what I love about it. But I dare to say that big movements always emerge from chaos. And in this city, chaos is on every corner.”