Brazil Playlist

Brazil's funk is playing loudest right now. Across more than 7,000 stations, brega-funk and funknejo fill the airwaves, and the October airplay ranking reflects it. Take it to the clubs and the picture holds: in Porto Alegre, Cucko runs nights called BAILE FUNK and TUDO 2, and its playlist mixes funk with pop and electro-pop. Brazilian pop keeps folding in samba, bossa nova, funk carioca and electronic music, often with lyrics that switch languages. Pabllo Vittar and IZA sit where the mainstream meets the underground, and that's the ground this scene likes to stand on.

This month the WorldWidePop playlist added eight videos. Most came from a followed channel, and a clip by Gelado no Beat sits alongside a new Gordinho Bolado upload, both loud and rough around the edges, which is the point of the sound. The playlist was also expanded when a batch of videos was merged in from another playlist. Among the additions is MC Pele's Namorar Pelado, a throwback on YouTube since 2012 that still belongs in a funk set. Taken together, the month says the scene is pulling old and new funk into the same room.

Listeners are writing in from Algeria, Poland and Colombia, so the sound is travelling beyond Brazil. Keep an eye on the Festival Estilo Brasil in Brasília, which runs from 30 October to 25 November and puts Marina Sena and IZA on a bill that also includes Criolo and Seal. It's a good place to see whether the mainstream and the underground are still shaking hands.