DJ Marlboro
Fernando Luís Mattos da Matta started as a teenage sound-system operator in Rio before becoming the DJ most credited with inventing funk carioca, translating Miami bass and freestyle records into Portuguese-language funk for the city's baile parties. His 1989 compilation Funk Brasil is generally treated as the genre's founding document, and he has spent the decades since as funk's chief ambassador, touring the sound internationally long before Anitta or Bad Bunny made Latin and Brazilian pop a default part of the global charts.
enthusiast, ear-level
listen forDJ Marlboro has said directly that Afrika Bambaataa and Soulsonic Force's 'Planet Rock' was the single biggest spark for funk carioca's emergence. Its synthetic 808 electro pulse is the DNA underneath the tamborzão-adjacent groove DJ Marlboro and Cidinho & Doca built 'Rap da Felicidade' on more than a decade later.
enthusiast, ear-level
listen forDJ Marlboro's foundational Funk Brasil compilation started as Portuguese-language versions of Miami hip-hop and freestyle records, especially cuts by 2 Live Crew. The booming, sustained 808 kick and party-chant energy of 'Throw the D' is audibly the template DJ Marlboro adapted wholesale for 'Melô da Mulher Feia.'
enthusiast, ear-level
listen forDJ Battery Brain's 1988 '808 Volt Mix' hit Rio in the early '90s and got adopted so widely as a drum-machine loop under funk carioca tracks that Brazilian producers gave it its own nickname, 'Melô da Latinha.' The ringing, metallic 808 percussion is the same rhythmic bed you can hear DJ Marlboro and Bob Rum still leaning on decades later on 'Rap do Silva.'