- MC Bin Laden is a larger-than-life sensation with a half-blond head of hair and a beer belly that literally and figuratively precedes him. YouTube surfers may have seen the video for his 2015 hit "Ta Tranquilo, Ta Favorável," where he's shirtless, popping champagne, wearing Oakleys and dookie chains and being goofy with his friends on the beach. The 23-year-old São Paulo rapper is one of the new stars of baile funk, (or just funk, as it's known in Brazil), a genre that returned to the global stage in the last couple of years, thanks, in part, to his hilarious music videos. His new EP, É Grau, collects a handful of tracks that already went viral in Brazil—including "Ta Tranquilo" and the irresistibly catchy "Bololo Ha"—for his first internationally distributed release.
A ridiculously charismatic performer, MC Bin Laden's absurdist whimsy comes across even if you don't understand Portuguese. On the infectious "É Grau Olha pra Traz e da Tchau," he raps about blasting past the speed limit in a pack of "over 40 motorcycles." The instrumental—which consists of sparse drums and the sound of motorcycles revving—shows the inventiveness of modern baile funk producers, who take an anything-goes approach to sampling. The instrumental for "Ombrinho com Romano" is literally an 808 kick drum and the sound of a single metronome click. A MIDI horn comes in around the two-minute mark.
But there's stranger and more exciting music happening elsewhere across the baile funk landscape. These five tracks are a lot of fun, but they're pretty vanilla compared to some of the stuff on, say, Putaria Maxima, a mixtape by Venus X and Asmara that pairs baile funk with American rap. Check out tracks like "Toma Maderada," by MC Lan and MC Gomes, or "Lança de Maracujá," by Bin Laden and friends, and you'll hear some really unorthodox ideas and sampling. É Grau is a nice introduction to one of baile funk's biggest personalities, but it's not the most mind-blowing stuff the style has to offer.
Tracklist01. Vai Virar Puteiro feat. MC 2K
02. Ta Tranquilo, Ta Favorável
03. É Grau Olha pra Traz e da Tchau
04. Aham, Pode Pá
05. BOLOLO HAHA
06. Ombrinho com Romano