The flows of funk: an analysis of the circulation of peripheral art in São Paulo through the Baile da DZ7

Abstract

This paper investigates how funk paulistano, produced in the urban peripheries of São Paulo, manages to reach broader scales of circulation, reverberating on global dimensions. Aiming to understand the tension between peripheral origin, state repression, and expanded circulation, the study takes the Baile da DZ7, located in Paraisópolis, as its case study, and adopts the mobilities paradigm as its theoretical framework. Based on this framework, the hypothesis is raised that the agents who produce funk (MCs, DJs, and producers) circumvent the mobility regimes imposed on the genre through network capital, building social, economic, and cultural connections that constitute a globalizing urban cultural circuit. Starting from funk's arrival in São Paulo via cultural collectives and the dissemination of hip-hop in the peripheries, the research seeks to fill the gap in studies on funk paulistano after 2020, a period of significant expansion in the genre's consumption at the national scale. To this end, the initial research design called for participant observation and semi-structured interviews at the Baile da DZ7; the intensification of police repression over the course of the fieldwork, however, shifted the investigation toward a multisited approach, aimed at tracing the different circuits through which São Paulo funk currently circulates.