Music

From Rio to Rabat: The Curious Rise of Baile Funk in the Arab World

BYYassine Hariss

November 20, 2025

If no one wants to say it, we will: there has to be something connecting our region to Brazil. Maybe it’s because, before continents drifted apart, North Africa and South America were literally pieced together. Or perhaps it’s just pure coincidence: the looks, the values, the way of living. Whatever it is, there’s a certain je ne sais quoi between the Middle East, North Africa, and Brazil; a familiarity that feels deeper than geography.

And you can hear it in music too. Recently, we wrote about the unexpected cultural highway between the Levant and Brazil— a Bossa Nova–inflected sound that seeped into our airwaves and that we cheekily dubbed Boussa Nova. But it doesn’t stop there. North Africa, for reasons we still can’t fully explain, has embraced the rhythms and arrangements of Brazilian baile funk, reshaping them into a hybrid sound that feels entirely its own.

Stemming from Rio de Janeiro, the genre locals simply call funk carioca — often mislabeled abroad as baile funk (which technically refers to the parties where this kind of music is played) — is rooted in a fusion of Miami bass and freestyle, the latter being a form of electronic dance music that originates from New York, Philadelphia, and Miami amongst Black, Hispanic, and Italian-American communities.

Popularized in the 1980s within Rio de Janeiro’s favelas — the city’s predominantly Afro-Brazilian, low-income communities — funk carioca quickly evolved from a local sound into a national force. And by the mid-1990s, it had fully broken into the Brazilian mainstream with lyrics that span everything from poverty and human dignity to racial pride, violence, and social injustice. For many academics, the genre stands as an unfiltered expression of the harsh realities faced by Rio’s less-privileged communities; a raw soundtrack to the city’s most urgent struggles and those who experience them daily.

In Brazil, funk carioca has long been criticized for its explicit lyrics. But as the lingua franca of the streets, it was never something anyone could contain. And now, it’s seeped into our side of the world, blending with our own influences until it feels like something truly ours. And if you’re wondering how to spot it, here’s the simplest trick in the book: the boom-cha-cha factor. If the drums hit boom-cha-cha in the back, odds are you’re listening to baile funk. Lazy explanation, sure — but it works. And if you don’t want to take our word for it, hit the playlist below and test it yourself.

Keep scrolling for a string of songs that should serve as your first taste of a genre you’ll soon be obsessed with.

From Rio to Rabat: The Curious Rise of Baile Funk in the Arab World

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From Rio to Rabat: The Curious Rise of Baile Funk in the Arab World

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