08/08/2025
feature on Bruxaria sorcery
Hearing the music of DJ K is like stepping into a bright, noisy room while still trapped in the afterglow of a flash-bang gr***de. The 24-year-old Diadema, São Paulo native born Kaique Vieira is responsible for a strain of baile funk known as bruxaria (witchcraft), an unholy union of funk mandelão’s threadbare rave beats with whatever you hear in your worst nightmares. At its root is the “tuin” — an obliterating, high-pitched buzz designed to put you in the mind state of someone who has just inhaled lança, the drug of choice at the favela street parties known as bailes.
quickly made a name for himself as a regular DJ at the Baile do Helipa in Heliópolis, São Paulo’s most populous favela. And in 2023, the internationally renowned Ugandan record label Nyege Nyege reached out about a record deal. The resulting album, recorded over the course of three days, was Pânico No Submundo, a 43-minute aural assault and psychological siege, unrelenting from either angle. The project was inspired by pandemic-era social unrest, and this atmosphere “prevailed in the sounds of the album, showing that we were on the brink of collapse,” K tells me. “It was meant as a cry for help, and I sweated on all the songs.”
K’s new album Radio Libertadora! tones down the horror in favor of a call for revolution. It begins with a 1969 clip of a radio speech by guerilla revolutionary Carlos Marighella, followed by a loop of a female broadcaster calling for the end of military dictatorship. Chaos continues to reign in K’s heart, but he’s attempting to channel it now, in service of a greater goal.
Read ’s interview with the producer at the link in bio.
📸 Felipe Larozza
# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #
