chris @ hive13

DJ Diplo is a producer whose work I came to know during my brief but intense obsession with “Paper Planes“.

He is also a documentary film maker, and he did a piece that digs into NOLA Bounce and in particular, the gay sub-genre of bounce, known as “sissy bounce”. Check out this trailer, tho some of the dancing might be considered NSFW.

He also made a documentary called “Favela on Blast” about funk culture in Brazailian favelas, which I learned about through my brief but intense obsession with “Rap das Armas“:

Also, the loop in the trailer is effing awesome.

i have been obsessed with “rap das armas” since i saw tropa de elite. it turns out that the song has a long history. this is installment 3 in the ongoing “chris stays up all night surfing for weird hiphop videos from foreign countries and includes them in a long ass blog post that’s 90% embedded videos” series.

it seems share some characteristics with “paper planes” in that it’s based on a popular 80′s song and details life on the streets for a group of people forgotten or ignored by society. according to the wiki article, the hook for rap das armas comes from “your love” though i don’t see it. however, i understand the words to your love, so that might actually inhibit my interpretation:

the original “rap das armas” was released in 1994 by MC’s junior e leonardo (tropa de elite takes place in the late 90′s) notice how samples of gunshots are prominently featured, just like “paper planes”:

here’s “paper planes” for reference:

apparently a modified version of that appears in the film, and cidinho e doca remade it *after* the film:

my portuguese is really weak, but i think the words are significantly different.

the version of the song that appears in the film has more african sounding beats, which are reminiscent of angolan kuduro (angola is a former portuguese province, much like brazil). here are a couple of kuduro videos, notice the prominence of dancing, just like the new orleans bounce videos i posted before:

after tropa de elite and cidinho e doca brought the song back to popularity, there have been a lot of remixes. this samba version is my favorite:

this one is neat too, it’s set over a sample from “planet rock”:

if you aren’t familiar with 80′s b-boy tunes, here’s “planet rock”:

i love learning about regional music, especially regional forms of hiphop. i am also a big fan of treme, on HBO, and one of the characters on the show is a big fan of bounce. bounce has found it’s way out of NOLA and into the mainstream in the form of lil wayne, but that’s no reason to discount it

i am also a fan of music that is made from or derived from something else. according to wikipedia, a lot of bounce is based on various samples of the triggaman beat which is a song by the showboys. the distinctive features of triggaman are the police siren and the dragnet theme as you can hear in this video:

bounce is based mostly on call and response and not much of what i would consider rap. here is a bounce track that examplifies those qualities:

dancing is a key component of bounce, in fact that’s probably why it’s called bounce:

which is reminiscent of dancehall reggae, where music is mixed and remixed again and again in clubs and the full musical experience is something that happens live, instead of on physical media. this live component is something that just can’t be downloaded. in fact, this live component is probably what makes those downloads valuable.

in my youth i was really in to punk rock. going to shows, especially shows at small venues like bogart’s in cincinnati. we all called it “the scene” and while the music was a big part of it, there was a lot more to it. this other stuff, the clothes, the social aspect, the venue… it’s all stuff that you can’t download. this is what musicians should be focused on instead of selling tracks.