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!