Coke. Guns. Booty. Beats. by Blender

While it is often hard to argue for music containing lyrics such as "Shoot the snitch!" and “We’re just like Colombia … the bullets will eat right through you.”, I really admired the points that the blender article "Coke. Guns. Booty. Beats." (hyperlinked in title) lines up in defense of funk. While the article acknowledges that funk is "a retro-minded hedonism borne of violence, drugs and poverty", it also takes a deeper look into the social scenario that creates such extremely controversial music. The article mainly chronicles Juca, a 24-year-old favelado in Rio de Janeiro and his attempt at funk fame in the world of the baile (large funk concerts). The article does little to counter the argument that the context of funk is wildly illegal and morally questionable, quoting Juca saying that “bailes are profit-making exercises...(gangs) attract customers to the favela to buy their drugs.” Arguing for the moral purity of Funk, however, would be an uphill battle. Instead, the article seeks to point to the causes of such a gang culture, mainly police brutality. The elite forces of the Rio slums that run counter-gang operations in the favelas (named BOPE) do not mess around. They use torturous tactics to illicit information about the location of drug lords, including putting plastic bags over a potential informants head to suffocate him into revealing information. They are also known to shoot first and ask questions later. A few days after his show, the Blender crew catches up to Juca, who informs them that earlier in the week the police had raided the favela in an attack against the Red Command (the controlling gang of that favela) and had mistaken an innocent young man for a trafficker and shot him dead. Juca is not especially shaken by this incident because it is a common occurence in the slums of Rio; some 1,200 young people are killed every year as a result of the war between the gangs and the police. Juca goes on to say that “if a trafficker walks past my house, I know he won’t even look twice. But if the police come by, how do I know they won’t shoot me?” This social tension, often erupting in violence, is what gives voice to funk; and what makes the voice so intense. Everyone in the favela has seen atrocities committed, so it would be unlikely for their music to be about flowers and kittens.