I popped up an article on mosh pits the other day and in the comments underneath I got an insightful infobomb about Brazilian Baile-Funk clubs in Rio, Brazil, which literally kicked the crap out of any mosh pit I’ve ever encountered. In a mosh pit, if you fall over or get injured everyone rallies around you and gets you out, you’re all still pals at the end. Not in these Brazilian Baile-Funk events they don’t though. If you go down they will kick your fvcking head in and quite possibly kill you to death. And no one likes being killed to death do they? Here’s a quote from a forum I found:

“His body was covered in blood, urine and feces. Someone had stamped a footprint onto his face leaving him disfigured, swollen almost beyond recognition. Then she saw his right eye, or what remained of it, hanging from its socket. In spite of his injuries, Eva recognized her 15-year-old son immediately. And so she asked: “Are you alive?” Julio Miranda Cavalcante nodded a reply, his last response to any question…..”

The slums – or favelas – of Rio are dodgier than the love child of Toxteth and Mosside. There are lashings of poverty and no hope of escape for the down trodden. And as is often the case with us humans, no hope = no peace. Rival gangs pour in to these Baile-Funk nights, Team A on one side and Team B on the other. The DJs play a type of music that they call carioca or funk, but it’s not like any funk you would have heard before, it’s an 80’s/90’s electro, retro, made in a bedroom, repetitious, frenzy inducing kind of a thing. Kinda like this trap shit. The music has to be made in their bedrooms because, even though the music is popular to the under class, technically it’s illegal because it incites crime and violence. So even the recording artists could be jailed if they were caught. The DJs control the rage levels of the crowd to a certain extent, and often play pre-recorded gang chants through the PA, just to get them double riled up.