Brazilian funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid- to late 1960s when African American musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of soul music, jazz, and rhythm and blues (R&B). Funk emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground. Funk songs are often based on an extended vamp on a single chord, distinguishing them from R&B and soul songs, which are built on complex chord progressions. Funk uses the same extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths. 

Like much African-inspired music, funk typically consists of a complex groove with rhythm instruments such as electric guitar, electric bass, Hammond organ, and drums playing interlocking rhythms. Funk bands sometimes have a horn section of several saxophones, trumpets, and in some cases, a trombone, which plays rhythmic "hits". Funk originated in the mid-1960s, with James Brown's development of a signature groove that emphasized the downbeat—with heavy emphasis on the first beat of every measure, funky bass lines, drum patterns, and syncopated guitar riffs.

James Brown

In Brazil the culture of Funk started in mid- 1970s with the same songs that used to play in the United States. However, the rhythm and lyrics changed a lot over the years, it is now known as Funk Carioca, which means Funk from Rio de Janeiro. The Funk Carioca is an style of song mainly played in the favelas (slums) of Rio. Even though it has the same name of the original funk from the United States is very different nowadays. This difference started after 1970s; by that time there were many dance parties where Funk was played, after a period of time some DJs started to look for new rhythms to add in the Funk. These days only the name remained. The Funk Carioca has an influence from Miami bass and from freestyle. The name implies that is from Rio, however it became very popular and now is played in the whole country. 

Funk Carioca

One problem with this song style is...

Youtubers in Brazil

YouTube is a huge deal these days and in Brazil is not different. It is a  social media composed solemnly of videos. There are all kinds of media being shared through this, song’s video clips, news, entertaining recordings of small animals and children, which sometimes went viral and hit thousands of views. Little was made known to the masses that these videos could actually generate great source of revenue. The advertisements placed on these videos, when interacted with, can generate real money.  That is where YouTubers come in. The YouTube Company treats these people as their beloved “Creators”, giving individuals recognition for their hard work generating all kinds of different and interesting content. Some Brazilians, with their warming and fiery personality, naturally decided to take advantage of this opportunity, becoming YouTubers.

This industry is growing bigger by the day, although, it is not an opportunity for anyone. For content to be shared and viewed it has to have a specific audience, it is very important that the YouTuber uses his or hers talents to create interesting and innovative videos.

Now that all kinds of information can be accessed by my most people in Brazil, and it can be said that most people own a smartphone YouTube has become one of the most used social network for sharing media.

Canal Boom Channel

As YouTubers in Brazil share their ideas and thoughts, they become the generators of opinion for the masses. Famous YouTubers such as Felipe Neto, Kefera Buchman and Whinderson Nunes have now over four million followers who watch them and participate in their individual channels. These people talk about their everyday lives and common sense issues, which sometimes can be entertaining and funny. Either by their choice or not, they become very important figures for their followers. They are able to dictate what one should believe and think about the government, movies, books, actors and actresses, forming opinion and generating discussion.  By being relatable and influential figures, these people truly connect with their audience and some of their followers actually think of them as friends.

It is a growing and lucrative industry in Brazil, everyday new people take this opportunity, although not all can succeed.

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Northeast

Northeast region

We talked a little bit before about the Northeast part of Brazil in this topic Cultural differences in Brazil, but let's be more specific about this beautiful area in Brazil. This region is composed of nine states, all of them are surrounded by the ocean, and differently from the other places in the country, the northeast part have clear ocean water where we can see fishes, it is more like the beaches in Caribbean. One example is Porto de Galinhas in the state of Pernambuco, it is also one of my favorites places in Brazil. It has a crystal water and is a calm place, far from the big cities. Northeast is also known by its sand hills. Where there are a variety of sports, car rides, and/or fun things to do on the top of it. Northeast is an amazing place to visit, even though has less reputation than bigger cities like Rio de Janeiro, where is also way more crowed and dangerous for tourists. If you are looking for heavenly beaches and places to visit, go to some of theses states. Prepare your camera because here it is fun guaranteed. 

Porto de Galinhas, Pernambuco - Brazil

This region is full of festivals, the biggest one is the Carnival. Carnival is one of the main reasons the region northeast receives lots of tourists, especially in the cities of Salvador and Recife. Carnival in Salvador has the biggest street party in the world with more than 2.7 million people in its six days of party. This party counts with many of the most famous Axé singers of Brazil. Carnival in Recife is considered the street party with more cultural diversity in Brazil with frevo song, maracatu song and people dressed as giant dolls. It has also the biggest carnival group in the world, the Galo da Madrugada.  

Carnival giant dolls

Amazon rain forest

We talked a little bit about this place in this blog Cultural differences in Brazil, but today let's talk specifically about Amazon rain forest or Floresta Amazônica in Portuguese. The Amazon rain forest, covering much of northwestern Brazil and extending into Colombia, Peru and other South American countries, is the world’s largest tropical rain forest, famed for its immense biodiversity. It’s crisscrossed with thousands of rivers, the most exceptional being the powerful Amazon. River towns, with 19th-century architecture dating to rubber-boom days, include Brazil’s Manaus and Belém, and Peru’s Iquitos and Puerto Maldonado. Its total area is 2.124 million sq miles. The Amazon represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests, and comprises the largest and most biodiverse tract of tropical rainforest in the world, with an estimated 390 billion individual trees divided into 16,000 species. It is such a fascinating place to visit if you like preservative nature and if you are NOT afraid of wild animals, specially snakes and insects. 

Captured snake in the Amazon jungle

Snakes there are big, not all of them but there are many big ones, like this one in the picture and sometimes even bigger. You probably saw or heard about it in movies. The Anaconda or Python, of course they are not as big as in the screen but they can still be very scary. But there are much more animals over there. As the largest tract of tropical rainforest in the Americas, the Amazonian rainforests have unparalleled biodiversity. One in ten known species in the world lives in the Amazon rainforest. This constitutes the largest collection of living plants and animal species in the world. 

Jaguar

The region is home to about 2.5 million insect species, tens of thousands of plants, and some 2,000 birds and mammals. To date, at least 40,000 plant species, 2,200 fishes, 1,294 birds, 427 mammals, 428 amphibians, and 378 reptiles have been scientifically classified in the region. One in five of all the bird species in the world live in the rainforests of the Amazon, and one in five of the fish species live in Amazonian rivers and streams. Scientists have described between 96,660 and 128,843 invertebrate species in Brazil alone. Plus the fact that there are species that scientists did not
cataloged yet.

Indios

Amazon is also known by having native South Americans, or Indios. In Brazil, we still have some preserved tribes, where they still try to live by their cultures and beliefs, however most of them are leaving their traditions and moving to the cities around, or at least, they are partially living their traditions, part living a city life.
If you like nature and is not afraid of animals, Amazon forest in Brazil is definitely the right place to go.

Traditional food

If you have a friend, a relative, or if you know anything about a Brazil/Brazilian you probably have tried some kind of Brazilian food or desserts. I am not the best person to say if it is good or bad since I love the Brazilian way to cook and the seasoning we use. In case you have tried it before, you probably went to a Brazilian Steakhouse to almost die if the amount of food and meat they serve, it actually never stops unless you ask them to. Also, the way the meat are cut and are prepared are close to perfection, the killer is the Top Sirloin, or Picanha in Portuguese, this is the Brazilian's favorite steak. If you have not yet gone to a Brazilian Steakhouse, go for it, it is amazing and definitely is worth it. As far as dessert the most popular one is the famous Brigadeiro, which is basically made of butter chocolate and sweetened condensed milk = amazing. Well if you have not tried any of these, I am sorry for you but let's talk about some traditional food in Brazil, that actually is difficult to find outside the country.

Picanha - Top Sirloin

As we talked before about the regions in Brazil, see post Brazil's regions, there are many differences in each one of them, and one of these differences are the traditional food. In fact, every state has its unique recipes and ways to cook their own traditional local plate. I am from a huge city of São Paulo, and as I also mentioned before it is a place with a great variety of people and tastes, but does not have a unique and nice typical food. Rio de Janeiro has Feijoada, very common in Brazilian's steakhouse here in the US, which is a mix of beans (but NOT sweet beans), Brazilians do not like sweet and salt together in the same meal, then it made of beans, pork sausage, pork meat, and seasoning, very popular and delicious, Minas Gerais are famous by its pão de queijo - cheese bread, queijo de minas - a type of cheese, and doce de leite - dulce de leche (it is actually a Spanish translation, but if you know that you would know by the Spanish version since there is not  a name for this dessert in English. North and Northeast part of Brazil have their plates mostly made from sea food. Region North has some interesting plates as Vatapá, made with shrimp and corn, Tacacá, made with shrimp and a sort of a sticky thing from a plant (this one is kind of weird), and Maniçoba, this one is like Feijoada, but instead of beans they use a leafs of a poisoning plant, since it is poisoning they need to cook it for seven long days.
Whatever place you visit in Brazil you will have, good and unique flavor and plates.

Brigadeiro

Sports

Sports in Brazil are a big deal and are not at the same time, let me explain. In Brazil we are very passionate for some kind of sports, if you are guessing soccer as the main sport there you are right. However, generally we only give heed to soccer, volleyball, judo, MMA (mixed martial arts), and swimming; I guess this happen because we are good at these sports and we are not in others, save some exceptions. The great problem is that the government do not support and/or help people who want to practice sports in Brazil, and this makes much more difficult for everyone there, especially if we consider that Brazil is a poor country. As we talked before, soccer is a huge deal in Brazil, you will see people (it does not matter the age) playing soccer everywhere in Brazil. They play in fields, in the sand, in case you are on the beach, in courts, or even in the street. One main difference about soccer there and here in the US is that there in mainly play by men, although we have a few women who plays it too. As the most successful sport we have, we received the FIFA 2014 World Cup, but we did not won it. We are the only country who participated in all editions of the World Cup (the most important soccer tournament), and we are the only one who won five times. Even though if you are not really into soccer, you probably know about the Brazilian team and some players like Ronaldinho and Neymar. In addition, we are the team who won more soccer tournaments in history, however we never won the soccer competition that takes place during Olympics.

Neymar

Talking about Olympics, we are going to hold the 2016 Olympics, that is going to take place in Rio de Janeiro City (learn more about Rio by clicking here Rio de Janeiro). Everyone is very excited for it; again especially regarding those five sports cited in the beginning where most of our Olympics medals come from. Brazilians also have a big hope that we finally win soccer tournament since we have the "home factor" now. Volleyball, swimming, and judo's athletes brought some golden medals home in previous editions.
As mentioned in the post about Rio, Rio is not a secure city, you will need to be careful during Olympics if you planning to go, however it is guaranteed that you will have fun during your time in Rio and in Brazil.

Rio 2016 Olympics logo

São Paulo

As I mentioned before in the previous post, São Paulo is my favorite city in Brazil, part because it is the place I am from, part because this huge city is full of things to do and to visit. Let's check some numbers about São Paulo. It is a city with 12 million people, the biggest city in the southern hemisphere, and the 10th biggest one in the world. In addition, São Paulo is the second city in number of helicopters and in a variety of gastronomy. We sometimes refer to São Paulo as the New York City of Brazil.

São Paulo City

Even though Brazil has a lot of culture to see and to taste, São Paulo has a little bit of everything, a little piece of every country, the most popular ones are Arabian, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese and Italian food. Some of them have their own neighborhood. Bairro do Bexiga is an Italian neighbor-hood, and Bairro da Liberdade is a Japanese one. However, São Paulo does not have a specific food or a strong culture, due to some many cultures together. The most popular food there is Pizza, but it is a really good pizza. I did not find a better one here in the US yet. Only São Paulo City sells one million pizzas everyday, you heard it right one million pizzas are sold every single day. My favorite one is pizza de frango com catupiry (Chicken with a sort of cheese we have in Brazil).

Pizza de frango com catupiry

 The variety of food is one of the best things about this huge city, which also have lots of museums, parks, historical places, and things to go or to do. On the other hand, with this much people it is expected that everywhere you go there are a lot of people and the traffic is really bad. In case of São Paulo the traffic gets even worse because of the many motorcycles that ride between the cars. They run fast in "their own lane"even when the traffic is slow and this result in many accidents, in fact, there is one accident per hour with motorcycles and one motorcyclist dies everyday due to an accident in São Paulo. See picture below to understand where is the lane they invented.

Traffic in São Paulo

Going back to the museums and parks, the most popular ones are the Museu do Ipiranga (where Dom Pedro I declared the independence of Brazil from Portugal in September 07, 1822). Museu do MASP, it is an Art Museum who call people's attention by its unique architecture style. As far as parks the most popular ones are Parque Villa Lobos, and Parque do Ibirapuera. In this last one, it has an enormous Christmas tree every year, and  a water show in its big lake everyday.
São Paulo is the city who receives more tourists in Brazil, but most of them go there because of its many companies, so they go to do business, not for leisure like in Rio. No matter what are your plans if you are going to São Paulo, it is definitely a city you are going to like.

Ibirapuera Park

Cultural differences in Brazil

Regions in Brazil

Brazil is a huge country as far as territory, it is the fifth biggest country in the world. The country is divided in five regions, South, Southeast, Midwest, Northeast and North. Each of these regions have their own culture that completely differs from the others.
Let's start talking about the South part of Brazil, the states are Parana, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul state where the Gauchos live. Rio Grande do Sul is one of the most traditional states in Brazil. The amazing Brazilian barbecue that you might know and we all love it is actually a tradition from them. They have a different drink called Chimarrão, basically is a drink made of mate herb with no sugar and hot water. It may not sound tasty for you, but people over there are addicted to it.  In addition they keep different and unique clothes and dance styles, my favorite is the Xote carrerinha, see picture of their traditional dance below.

Xote carrerinha

Region Midwest is popular by their music, called Sertanejo that is similar to country music. It is composed by three big states Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, and Goias. They all help the country's economy by being huge cattle producers, even though they do not have a big population in these states. Also, Brasilia the capital of Brazil, is located in his own state Distrito Federal, however looking to the map this state is part of Goias. This region is not a coastal region, but has some amazing places to visit as the city of Bonito in Mato Grosso. This city has wonderful crystal clear rivers and is a famous place to divers.

Rio da Prata, Bonito - MT

Region Southeast, it's the most populated and wealthy region, it is also my favorite. It is composed by four states, Espirito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Espirito Santo has many nice places and beaches. Minas Gerais is famous by their art and their amazing food. For example, they have a specialty cheese called Queijo de Minas, and if you have been to any Brazilian restaurant you probably have tried Pão de Queijo, cheese bread, which is equally amazing. Mineiros (people from Minas Gerais) are also very friendly in receiving visitors and tourists, but be careful, if a Mineiro say to you that a place is "logo ali" (is close) there is a big chance it is actually very far. Rio de Janeiro as we have talked in the last post (see post here Rio de Janeiro) is the most popular city in Brazil where is located the image of the Christ. It is the second biggest city in Brazil and is a very hot place with many beaches and hills. Cariocas (people from Rio de Janeiro) have their own and unique Brazilian accent. Finally, my favorite city São Paulo, where I am from is the biggest city of Brazil and the sixth of the world with 12 million people. There is no beach in the city but we are not far from that, we take around one hour to get to the closest one. São Paulo is the second biggest city in the world in variety of gastronomy, so there are many things to do and to eat around the city 24/7.

São Paulo City

Region Northeast is maybe the prettiest of the country with heavenly beaches and sand dunes, it would be like a sand hill. The water in their beaches are crystal clear like in Caribbean. In its total have 9 states, some of them very small, and a very friendly people. The states are Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Pernambuco, Paraíba, Alagoas, Sergipe, and Bahia. All of them have their own qualities and places to visit, but the three that I personally like more are Rio Grande do Norte where have many sand dunes in where we can slide with boards, well known Bahia with their food, Axé music, and traditional Carnival, and Pernambuco with their strong accent and beautiful beaches. In Pernambuco there is also a place called Fernando de Noronha, it is a archipelago about 350 kilometers off Brazil's northeast coast. It is renowned for its undeveloped beaches, and for scuba diving and snorkeling. Sea turtles, rays, dolphins and reef sharks swim in its warm, clear waters.

Fernando de Noronha, Pernambuco - Brazil

To conclude region North, I have a special affection for this area because I lived here for two years, and I learned how to love these people. It is composed by 7 states. Tocantins, Rondônia, Acre, Amapá, Roraima, Amazonas e Pará. This region is well known by its many forests, and wild animals. Most part of Amazon forest is located in this region. One in ten known species in the world lives in the Amazon forest. This constitutes the largest collection of living plants and animal species in the world. To have an idea one in five species of birds and fishes in the world live in the Amazon forest and rivers. One of the rivers is the Rio Amazonas that is one of the largest rivers in the world. They also have a variety of traditional music, and food, such as Açaí that you might have tried as a juice before, and Tacacá, Vatapá, Tucupi, Maniçoba, Cupuaçu, among others. If you like nature, forest and animals this is the place to go, but make sure you are taking with you mosquito repellents, you are going to need it.

Amazon Forest

Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro, a cidade maravilhosa (the wonderful city) as some Brazilians called, is the second biggest city in Brazil, the biggest is Sao Paulo, and Rio is also the most popular city of the country. Rio is indeed a beautiful and interesting city to visit with many attractions during day and night with its many beaches, parties, bars and clubs. Although Rio has a great number of beaches that are sought after by tourists, Copacabana is the most well known beach of Rio and Brazil, and has the biggest New Year's celebration in the world, this last celebration for example brought together over two million people on the beach.

Copacabana beach New Year's celebration

If you like parties and going out to night clubs, Rio de Janeiro is definitely a good place to spend some time during a vacation. There are a good variety of places to go at night where you can have since a good snack to a high end restaurants with world famous chefs. The music also depends what you like more, in Rio the most popular genres are Samba, Pagode, Sertanejo, Axé and Funk (Funk from Rio has nothing to do with American Funk, besides the name), I particularly like all of them depending of the occasion I am in. If you do not like the rhythm at least you will have fun dancing or trying to dance with Brazilians. Also, you probably have heard about Brazilian Carnaval the biggest street event in the world that usually happens every February, this is a great opportunity to have fun as well; it is a four-day event, it also brought thousands of tourists every year that want to participate of the street party, or a more fancy opportunity is to watch a closed parade in a kind of stadium.

During the day, besides going to the beaches and get some tan in the really hot weather from Rio, we can benefit with the heavenly views Rio has to offer from its hills. The two most common places are the Pão de Açucar which consists in two close hills that have a cable car among them and of course the Christ.

Christ the Redeemer - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In 2007, Christ the Redeemer was chosen one of the seven wonders of the modern world. It was constructed among the years 1922 and 1931, when it was established. Nowadays can be considered the main symbol of Brazil, considering this is the only thing many people can think when it comes the subject Brazil. Said that you might be thinking how wonderful and beautiful Rio is, however we only talked about the good parts of Rio until this point.

Violence, crimes, thieves, shots, favelas (slums), danger! Rio is beautiful, but is also full of violence. 

Favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Unfortunately that is a point you need to be aware of. Rio is one of the most dangerous cities in Brazil, has over 10,000 slums and as the rest of the country has a big social inequality, which helps to increase the quantity of crimes. That does not mean that you are going there and you are going to be shot, however while in Rio please be aware of certain things as people around you, your cell phone/camera, purse, wallets, everything expensive or easy to be stolen needs to be well kept, otherwise you are going to lose it. We do not want to spend much time talking about it however, so as a big hint keep your stuff (all of it) with you all the time, stay alert, and everything is going to be fine, then you can have fun enjoying the good part of the city.

To conclude, how about talking about the cariocas? Cariocas is the title of people who were born in Rio. They are very happy, as any other Brazilian (see last post Happy Brazilians) but these guys know how to party better than others. You will notice it right in the moment you arrive there. They have their own particular accent that differs from any other place in the country and a whole bunch of slang they created. Having fun around them is guaranteed. Remember to be aware of the things we have talked earlier and you will have a nice and fun trip going there.

The happy Brazilians

The first and most exciting thing you need to know about Brazil are the Brazilians or Brasileiros in Portuguese and how they live their lives. If you are planning to go to Brazil be prepared to have fun; not only with a variety of places to visit or parties to go, and Brazilians know how to party, but because of how fun and happy those people are. You are probably agreeing with me now if you have been there before.

But wait, why are Brazilians so happy? Is it the culture? Is it the good weather? Is it genetics? Honestly I am not sure. Brazil is considered a poor country and especially now is going through many economic problems and problems with the corruption of their government. However, how do you think most of the Brazilians are facing it? Are they angry? Frustrated? Going to the streets to protest against the government? Well in part they are, but they are also doing what they do the best. Making fun of all of it. If you have been to Brazil you might have noticed that people over there are VERY friendly, warm, and they make fun of everything, bad and good, it does not matter, they will find a way to laugh and keep living their lives without turning it into sadness.

Another important subject about Brazil and Brazilians is that everyone there love sports, or I should better say they love soccer. I do not think there is a people more fanatic about a specific sport as they are about soccer. Such a passion, shown especially in times of World Cup.

Representation of a World Cup game

Remember! It does not matter your background or the culture you came from and are used to. You are going to love Brazil and its people.