Harara Baile

The influence of Arab culture in Brazil has taken, and continues to take many forms, for many reasons. From the Moorish presence in the Iberian Peninsula to the mass immigration of mainly Syrians and Lebanese in the early twentieth century, not to mention the abduction of Muslim Africans for slave labor, Brazil absorbed Arab and Muslim traits into its mixed culture across the most diverse areas: language, cuisine, architecture and, naturally, music. So the presence of Arabic music in baile funk happens naturally and in many ways: in the use of musical excerpts (samples), in melodies that reference Arabic music, in the identification with anti-imperialist armed groups, and in the simple naming of bailes after Arab countries in Rio de Janeiro. This mixtape gathers many of these tracks that take the Arab world — as broadly understood by Brazilians, as inspiration, reference, or simple aesthetic borrowing. On the HARARA side (Heat, in Arabic), the mixtape focuses mainly on Rio’s baile funk production. The track Arabian 150 BPM, for example, carries a classic sample from the electro group Twilight 22, used in baile funk tracks from the 1990s to the present day. The presence of high-BPM tracks (150 to 180) on this first side reflects carioca production, with special mention of tracks made for Baile do Escadão and for Baile da Arábia, the famous baile in the Baixada Fluminense also known as Baile da Mangueirinha.¹ The JARA’IM side (Crimes), in turn, features more tracks produced in São Paulo, where what prevails is an aesthetic approach: Arabic samples and melodies put to work in pursuit of a heavy, dark musical atmosphere. Over the last few decades, a specific sound has taken shape there in reference to the Arab world, especially in tracks made for the Passinho do Romano, a dance style created in Jardim Romano, São Paulo — which often use vocals inspired by Arabic chanting. The mixtape presents a series of DJs and MCs who sought influence and musical identity in references to what they understood as Arab culture. The tracks generally take the rhythmic foundations characteristic of baile funk and join them to vocal excerpts or sonic elements perceived as Arabic in origin. Artists like MC Bin Laden², DJ Sorriso Talibã, DJ Bruno Mixer, Elk_Music, DJ DZ Sheik and rhonaz, among many others, have built much of their output around these references. A number of other producers regularly turn to Arabic samples, by now common currency in baile funk, to create tracks that associate themselves with — and bind themselves to — a kind of Arab aesthetic within Brazilian funk production. A track like Magrão Arábico, by DJ Blakes, for instance, layers a series of Arabic vocals already familiar to baile funk listeners over a rhythmic base producers call the Magrão beat. Baile funk carries at the core of its creation a sense of awe and terror, given the open way it deals with putaria (lewdness), noise, witchcraft, crime and, why not, blasphemy. Funk almost always establishes paradoxical relationships with the themes it takes on — as when its lyrics speak of women’s bodies, drug use, the criminal life. Its encounter with the Arab world is yet another form of paradoxical, complex identification, in which crime and blasphemy coexist with veneration and admiration. A good illustration of this may lie in MC Juninho da 07’s verses on a track by DJ K (Sua Filha Quer os FDJ), which go: “We’re against the system / And in favor of equality / Just like I ate [had sex with] your friend yesterday / Today I’ll eat you later.“³ DJ Patwa is a moniker for a Goiás-based Brazilian producer of Lebanese descent. His DJ name comes from the Brazilian word patuá. In Brazil, a patuá is a small, protective amulet or good-luck charm. In baile funk and favela culture, it’s common to find expensive gold chains with similar characteristics to a patuá. These chains are often distinctive and personalized, bringing special meaning and protection to their owners. ----- ¹ Baile da Arábia is directly linked to the Tropa da Arábia, part of the Comando Vermelho, a criminal group based in Rio de Janeiro that controls the area where the baile takes place. It is hardly surprising that Brazilian criminal groups found similarities, especially during the 2000s, between their own activity in Brazil and that of jihadist or anti-imperialist groups in the Arab world. References to bombs, grenades, car bombs and the Taliban run through countless baile funk tracks from that decade and still surface in current productions, largely as a way of illustrating the anti-systemic, autonomous character of baile funk production in Brazil’s peripheries. It is worth remembering that the CV emerged over the course of the 1970s from the sharing of cells between common prisoners and political prisoners of the Brazilian military dictatorship, at the Cândido Mendes Penal Institute on Ilha Grande, Rio de Janeiro. Like every authoritarian Latin American government in the second half of the last century, the Brazilian military dictatorship only succeeded with decisive American influence and intervention. The United States sent warships to the Brazilian coast in 1964 as part of the so-called Operation Brother Sam — a fleet organized by the US government to support the military coup and, if necessary, intervene militarily to guarantee the overthrow of President João Goulart. It is no exaggeration to say, then, that the United States bears its share of responsibility for the emergence of the CV, as it does for the emergence of other armed groups, criminal or terrorist, around the world. In early June 2026, the US government decided to designate the CV as an international terrorist organization. The fact is that the CV’s activity could hardly be classified as terrorist or ideological. While obviously a criminal group, its aim has always been, and remains, profit. ² MC Bin Laden (now MC Binn) has stated that the name was nothing more than a “periphery joke,” describing its use as irony without any apology for terrorism: “foreigners see my name as satire, as mockery.” [MC Bin Laden, que anunciou troca de nome, já foi barrado 3 / Qual o verdadeiro nome de MC Bin Laden, do ‘BBB 24’ / MC Bin Laden pensa em mudar seu nome artístico - Terra] ³ The use of audio samples featuring recitations of the Quran generally stems from ignorance of their origin, as producers of tracks contested in Brazilian courts have themselves stated: “We didn’t even know it was a Muslim prayer. I didn’t mean to offend anyone,” said MC Dadinho, then 20 years old, in his defense. Ruling on an appeal filed by the Sociedade Beneficente Muçulmana (Muslim Beneficent Society), the Brazilian courts wrote: “A song intended as mere entertainment, which makes no mention, positive or negative, of the Quran. Absence of discriminatory content or content revealing hatred. Absence of any intention to ridicule or scandalize sympathizers and followers of another’s faith. The mere use of recited excerpts as a background soundtrack does not constitute, from a constitutional standpoint, an offense to the Islamic community’s freedom of belief or to its religious sentiment.”