Slum Dunk Presents: Funk Carioca CD

Take a dash of most '80s dance style you can name from electro to hip-hop, from new romantic to the cheap Casio beats of early dancehall, mix and match them wildly, and you pretty much have funk carioca. Having grown up in the favelas, or slums of Rio de Janeiro (hence the name carioca), it has started to find a more global audience. This, the first compilation of the style, shows it in all its ragged glory and silliness. Yes, it does sound odd to many ears, simply because everything is so familiar -- but also so strange, like Alice down the rabbit hole. Above all, it's fun. Unless you understand Portuguese, you won't have a clue what they're shouting -- and it is a shout, not rapping or singing -- but it doesn't matter. The exuberance communicates, whether in cheap synthesized horn riffs or rattling percussion. MC Batata, one of the elders of the new funk, rips it up on "Feira de Acari," but he's only one of many represented here. This is the first wave, and it remains to be seen whether it will really take off outside Brazil. But if you want a crash course in the '80s as if it had been through a blender -- as well as something that's just fun to dance to -- this is it. ~ Chris Nickson