Economic Aspects of Brazilian Popular Music: The Baile Funk Circuit

Abstract

The paper aims to deepen the discussion of the production, circulation, and consumption of Brazil’s musical genre funk carioca, identifying its main agents in the music field, besides the figures and the practices that move their businesses. Since its consolidation, funk has created both a sustainable and autonomous pioneer circuit in relation with the major’s label model, which allows us to sketch a model of the popular music economy in Brazil, based on practices such as technological appropriation and authorship flexibility, with an emphasis on the live performance instead of selling material supports. This is a model that introduces strategies to deal with the record industry crisis.

Keywords

• funk carioca
• music business
• technological appropriation
• copyright flexibility