Classroom lesson · Music · 🇧🇷 Brazil

Funk carioca - Rio's beat

A fast, punchy beat invented by kids in Rio - now heard all over the world

What is it?

Funk carioca is a kind of dance music born in Rio de Janeiro. Despite its English-sounding name, it is very different from American funk. It has a fast, repeating drum pattern called the 'tamborzão' and lyrics that often shout out neighbourhoods, sports teams, or just things the singer loves. Kids in Brazil have grown up dancing to it for over 30 years.

Tell me more

Funk carioca started in the 1990s. Young musicians in Rio took drum machines and sampled the rhythms they liked, then sped them up and added Portuguese lyrics on top. Because so much of it was created in Rio (people from Rio are called 'cariocas'), it got the name 'funk carioca'.

The beat is instantly recognisable: a big kick drum on the first beat, a snappy snare, and a tambourine sound underneath. Once you've heard it, you can pick out a funk carioca song from across a noisy room. Brazilian sports teams sometimes use the beat as a stadium chant.

Funk carioca dances are full of energy. Kids invent new moves all the time and post them online. Some moves spread across Brazil so fast that within a week every school playground is doing the same dance.

These days, funk carioca artists work with pop stars from all around the world. The beat has shown up on songs in dozens of languages. But almost every funk carioca producer still records in studios in Rio - the city where the sound was born.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01Why might young people invent their own kind of music? What do you think they wanted that other music didn't have?
  2. 02A new dance can spread across Brazil in a week. How does something like a dance move travel so fast?
  3. 03If you invented a brand-new style of music, what would the beat sound like? What would you call it?
Try this

Classroom activity

As a class, invent a short dance move - one step, one arm move. Pass it around the class so each person adds one more step. By the end of the class, you have a brand-new dance that nobody else in the world has done yet.