Pitchfork contributing editor Isabelia Herrera’s column covers the most captivating songs, trends, and scenes coming out of Latin America and its diaspora.
On her song “A Bruta, A Braba, A Forte,” Brazilian artist N.I.N.A. presents a venomous proposition to her competitors. Quivering cymbals punctuate the understated production, as if announcing the gradual arrival of a vicious rattlesnake. Teeth clenched, the Rio de Janeiro rapper dismisses adversaries who dare question her eminence, declaring in Portuguese, “If snakes kill with an embrace/I present you with the embrace of death.”
These sorts of invitations for battle are the lifeblood of Brazilian grime and drill. Over the last year or so, the country’s rappers and MCs have taken up grime and drill as idioms, reimagining and ushering them into electrifying new directions. In Brazil, the boundaries between the two genres are becoming more fluid, and the movements have begun blossoming in concert with each other; many artists cite Pop Smoke, Digga D, Wiley, and Dizzee Rascal as equal sources of inspiration. But more than mere imitation, Brazilian artists have redrawn grime and drill’s borders, threading in loops and kicks from different branches of baile funk and samba right alongside the speaker-knocking bass of 8-bar and the icy synths of eskibeat, all while they rap about life in the favelas.
Grime and drill’s arrival in the country illuminates the way the internet allows hyperlocal movements to travel across the globe, but it is especially meaningful that these sounds have flourished in Brazil. Not only do they share an obvious aural and cultural history as Afro-diasporic sounds, they have been instruments for critique and belonging. The genres have also been targets of racist, classist criminalization and censorship by governments in both the UK and Brazil. Like baile funk before it, this is a movement of survival, affirmation, and revolt.
So far, the most visible faces of Brazilian grime are largely male: Fleezus and Febem of São Paulo; SD9 and LEALL of Rio; Vandal of Salvador, to name just a handful. But alongside them, and often in collaboration, a new wave is ascending the ranks of the scene, refusing to let it coalesce into an old boys’ club.
Women have guided the course of the movement at every level: There is the aforementioned N.I.N.A., a DJ-turned-rapper and forthright social critic who is unafraid to illustrate the realities of the racist, sexist industry she is forced to navigate. Behind the boards, São Paulo-based DJ Peroli has landed high-profile sets on online radio stations like Rinse FM and NTS. And behind the scenes, women like Yvie Oliveira, executive producer of the YouTube series Brasil Grime Show, are helping to shape the next generation of rappers and MCs; inspired by British platforms like Reprezent Radio, BGS has produced singles, mentored emerging talent, and hosted live performances since its launch in 2018.
As Brazilian grime and drill continue to garner international attention, women deserve to be at the center of its rise, especially in a Brazilian pop landscape that favors white and lighter-skinned artists. While there are plenty of women in this movement, here are some of our favorites coming out of the scene.
N.I.N.A.
N.I.N.A.’s productions might be understated, but don’t confuse them for anything other than raw invocations of personal power. She was a baile funk DJ before she wrote her own verses, and gravitated towards grime in 2017 after she played the same club in Rio as the artist SD9. As a kid growing up in the Rio favela of Cidade Alta, she heard funk playing on every corner; she said it was inevitable that she fell in love with funk and rap rebels like Racionais MC’s and MC Carol as a preteen. You can feel the legacy of these influences in her breathy, relaxed flows and unflinching, incisive verses.
N.I.N.A. spent a year studying philosophy at Fluminense Federal University but left after feeling pressured to conform to white, academic modes of being. She has also been known to push back against Brazil’s racist, sexist music industry. “It is very difficult [for people] to see Black women making music and being real, putting their own spirit in it,” she told Brazilian outlet Portal RND last year.
Also listen to: SD9’s “Stoptime” ft. N.I.N.A. and diniBoy’s “Identidade” ft. N.I.N.A.
Thai Flow
It’s hard to resist Thai Flow. In the video for her 2020 track “Savage,” the Rio de Janeiro-based artist bounces around in a colorful patchwork bra and matching baggy pants, rapping breathlessly, middle fingers out, immaculate sculptural acrylics on full display. Her guttural cadence transforms over the muscular, shapeshifting production, recalling the hard-edged rasp that made women like Ivy Queen peerless.
The battle rap scene nurtured and molded Thai Flow into the rapper she is today. As a budding lyricist, she witnessed the cult MC Negra Rê appear in a battle and immediately saw promise in the form. In 2016, she was the first woman to ever win the Batalha do Real, one of the most important freestyle battles in Rio. The victory made her a rising star of the battle rap underworld.
Thai Flow is most impressive when she shows off the gravelly, acrobatic potential of her voice. Though the beat for “Savage” is overly indebted to Pop Smoke, Thai Flow peppers the production with an addictive gust of pants and throaty meditations on her place in hip-hop. On “Pras Bandidas,” her recent link-up with rap duo ABRONCA and MC Carol, she switches up her flow three times over the course of one verse, her battle rap roots meshing effortlessly with the whispers of funk in the production.
Also listen to: ABRONCA, Thai Flow & MC Carol’s “Pras Bandidas” and Thai Flow & Dababi212’s “Vogue”
Áurea Semiseria
Áurea Semiseria’s journey to grime was a circuitous one. The Salvador-born artist, who also goes by Áurea Maria, devoured the samba her father played at home, but was equally enamored with Brazilian gospel rap; she started writing her own verses after seeing the São Paulo evangelical rap group Ao Cubo perform live as a kid. By her teenage years, Áurea’s tastes shifted towards the breezy grooves and soulful musings of American artists like Queen Latifah and Erykah Badu. The neo-soul singer’s influence is inscribed all over her own music; her 2017 EP, #ROXOGG, is a collection of coming-of-age tales rapped over bare-bones boom-bap beats.
Áurea gradually became a staple of Salvador’s underground rap scene, but her first contact with grime didn’t happen until she discovered Lady Leshurr while scrolling online. The pandemic has put several of her grime projects on hold, but Áurea has already appeared on a Brasil Grime Show cypher and released “Beck de Bandida,” a collaboration with MC Taya. Produced by VINÍ for Brasil Grime Show, the song shows the possibilities of stretching grime’s boundaries, with a beat that collages an operatic choir over candomblé drum loops. Áurea is also adamant about defending grime and drill in Brazil. In an interview last year, she said, “It’s [still] Black music, you know? It continues to be marginalized because of the things we say.”
Also listen to: “Tudududu”
Peroli
Like many of the other women on this list, Peroli has lived a thousand lives already—in music and beyond. Before she started DJing in 2018, she was a shoemaker, babysitter, and retail worker. Since then, she has played at nightclubs and parties across São Paulo, like Side, a relatively new club night dedicated to grime and its musical descendants. She is also a resident and co-founder of the Perifa no Toque project, a party series and platform focused on amplifying music from the margins, especially funk and rap.
In the last year, Peroli has also garnered attention across the pond, recording mixes for British radio titans like NTS, Reprezent, and Rinse FM. Each of her mixes functions like a living archive of Afro-diasporic percussion; she seamlessly transitions between AJ Tracey remixes and grime-inflected baile funk loops, bottling the electric energy of all of these genres into a potent brew. When Peroli shuffles and layers these sounds over each other, exposing their shared rhythmic foundations, she illuminates the power that grime and funk have to puncture all kinds of boundaries—exceeding the limits in which they are allowed to operate.
Also listen to: Peroli’s mix for Jerome Mixfile Series and Rinse FM’s I Am Grime NYE Special ft. Peroli, Jack Dat & Mr Furious
For more artists who are incorporating elements of grime and drill, check out Jô, R3brkz, Glau Tavares, Amanda Sarmento, Lis MC, Slipmami, Scarlett Wolf, and Juju Rude.
