BRAZIL IS THE NEW UNDERGROUND EXPORT — THE WORLD WANTS BRAZIL, BUT WHO IS TELLING THIS STORY?

The world wants Brazil.

It wants the yellow jersey. The flip-flops. The football. The tan. Rio de Janeiro printed on a T-shirt produced thousands of miles away. It wants the favela as scenery, Portuguese as texture, the passinho as choreography and, above all, the beat.

In 2026, this stopped looking like a coincidence.

The Associated Press described the country as experiencing a rare moment of international cultural expansion: film, fashion, sport, tourism, music and digital behavior crossing borders at the same time. More than 9 million foreign tourists visited Brazil in 2025 — 37% more than the previous year — while major brands and international creators began incorporating Brazilian symbols at a scale large enough to make “Brazilianness” function almost like a global aesthetic category.

In fashion, the phenomenon already has numbers of its own.

Lyst data published by Vogue shows that Brazil-related interest rose 91% between the first and second quarters of 2026. For Brazilian brands, the increase reached 204%. Havaianas alone saw a 271% increase in interest measured by the platform. Zara, H&M and luxury houses began working with colors, names, symbols and references associated with the country.

But there is a difference between the world wearing Brazil and the world hearing Brazil.

That is where the story changes.

01 — THE SOUND ESCAPED

In 2025, Brazilian artists generated approximately R$ 2 billion in royalties on Spotify alone, up 24% from the previous year.

Over the same period, Portuguese was the fastest-growing language among those already generating more than US$ 100 million on the platform: 26%.

And among all genres generating more than US$ 50 million, none grew faster than Brazilian funk.

+36%.

More than K-pop.

More than Latin trap.

More than reggaeton.

Funk is no longer just a Brazilian export.

It is starting to function as raw material for global digital culture.

Between February and May 2026, posts using #brazilianfunk grew 34% in Europe compared with the previous period analyzed by TikTok.

For #brazilianphonk, the increase was 62%.

These are not just Brazilians living abroad.

European creators are using these beats in football edits, car videos, gym content, fashion, memes, choreography and every kind of vertical content.

The sound left the baile.

Then it left Brazil.

Now it is even leaving music itself.

02 — A GENRE BUILT TO TRAVEL

To understand why this matters, we need to avoid a comfortable version of the story.

Brazilian funk was never born in isolation.

The first Rio bailes were connected to Black American music. Soul, funk, freestyle, hip-hop and later Miami bass crossed the Atlantic and were dismantled, reinterpreted and transformed in Rio de Janeiro.

DJ Marlboro released Funk Brasil in 1989. Over the following decade, the beats developed an increasingly localized identity, tied to favelas, peripheral neighborhoods, DJs, MCs, sound systems, dance, language and Brazilian urban experience. Studies of the genre’s history highlight precisely this transformation: an international influence that was locally appropriated until it produced something culturally distinct.

That makes the current debate more complex.

Culture has always circulated.

Funk exists precisely because sounds traveled.

So the question cannot be:

“Do foreigners have the right to make funk?”

That question is too small.

The right question is:

03 — FROM CRIMINALIZED TO EXPORTABLE

The same genre now presented as an asset of Brazilian soft power spent decades living with stigma, policing and attempts at control.

In 2008, a Rio de Janeiro state law established specific requirements for holding funk bailes and rave parties, including prior authorization from the state’s public security authorities. The law would later be repealed.

In 2009, Rio formally recognized funk as a popular cultural movement.

In 2024, Brazil officially established July 12 as National Funk Day.

The trajectory is difficult to ignore.

First, marginal.

Then, a problem.

Then, culture.

Now, an export product.

And perhaps no image captures that shift better than what is happening in Spain right now.

04 — GRAN CANARIA, OCTOBER 2026

From October 21 to 25, thousands of music industry professionals are gathering in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria for WOMEX 2026.

Brazil arrived with its largest presence ever recorded at the event: more than 60 Brazilian professionals spread across different initiatives, including entrepreneurs, producers, curators, artists, agents and industry representatives.

In previous editions, the delegation organized by Funarte had approximately twenty members. In 2026, Brazil’s presence became much larger and now involves different institutions and programs.

WOMEX is not simply a festival.

It is also a place where buyers, agents and programmers decide what will be booked, exported and put into circulation in the years ahead.

At the 2025 edition, for example, the Brazilian mission held 104 meetings between 21 companies and 15 international buyers. According to ApexBrasil, those meetings later resulted in invitations, contracts and tours.

But Brazil’s most symbolic presence in 2026 may not be at a negotiating table.

It is inside an installation.

Its name:

BAILE FUNK INVASION.

05 — WHO GETS TO TELL THE STORY?

Created by Favela Sounds and presented with support from Embratur, Baile Funk Invasion occupies WOMEX with archives, video, testimonies, interactive elements and documentation spanning more than three decades of Brazilian funk.

The exhibition begins in the favela, moves through different Brazilian territories and subgenres, and arrives at the present moment: a genre influencing dance floors and producers around the world.

But there is a second layer.

The exhibition is not there simply to tell the European market that funk exists.

The European market already knows.

That is exactly the problem.

According to Favela Sounds artistic director Guilherme Tavares, funk has already become a reference point for DJs and producers across Europe and the United Kingdom, while the presence of Brazilians in the international production and circulation of that same style remains relatively low.

The project’s director, Amanda Bittar, raises another issue: part of the European audience already consumes funk without necessarily knowing where it comes from or recognizing who built that language.

público europeu, que já consome o gênero, mas muitas vezes sem conhecer sua origem e, principalmente, sem reconhecer seus verdadeiros criadores

That is why one of the discussions on the program received an almost perfect title:

IS BAILE FUNK HERE TO STAY?

The discussion included figures such as Deize Tigrona — one of the foundational artists in the genre’s history and now based in Marseille — alongside Brazilian representatives connected to the creative economy.

After the discussion, Bonekinha Iraquiana brought funk submundo to WOMEX’s own radio station.

In other words:

while the industry debates who represents funk abroad, funk itself is playing right next door.

06 — ENTER BRAZILIAN PHONK

There is, however, a new variable.

The algorithm.

What platforms now call “Brazilian Phonk” is not necessarily a clearly defined Brazilian genre.

The label can encompass funk automotivo, montagem, bruxaria, mandelão, Brazilian vocals, bass music, phonk, distortion and structures created specifically to work in short-form videos.

Sometimes all it takes is a voice in Portuguese, a recognizable drum pattern and enough saturation for the internet to classify something as “Brazilian.”

This is where music begins to lose its geography.

The label 0to8 offers one of the most extreme examples.

Founded by Russians Artem Shargin and Kirill Smetkov and operated from Dubai, the company entered this universe after its founders began studying Brazilian tracks that were performing well on TikTok.

They did not come from baile funk.

According to Shargin, at first they did not even know the term.

But they understood the algorithm.

Brazilian vocals can be separated from their context, slowed down, distorted and turned into tracks designed not necessarily for a dance floor, but to fit beneath fifteen seconds of football, cars or memes.

The destination of the music changes.

Consequently, its architecture changes too.

The result can travel much farther than its origin.

A Filipino producer, BellyJay, took a production from this ecosystem, MONTAGEM HIKARI, onto the Billboard Japan Hot 100 in 2026.

That may be the true meaning of global music in 2026.

07 — BUT THIS IS NOT A THEFT STORY

It would be easy to end the story here.

Foreigners found a Brazilian peripheral culture.

The internet turned that culture into an aesthetic.

Foreign companies monetized the aesthetic.

Brazil lost.

But reality is not that simple.

0to8 itself says it works directly with Brazilian MCs such as MC MN, MC Fernandinho, MC Duduzinho and MC GW, building relationships with artists to obtain vocals and organize the use of the material.

International producers can collaborate, pay, credit and open markets.

Brazilian artists are also entering the international circuit directly.

The Weird Baile collective — JLZ, VHOOR, Mu540 and RaMeMes — carried out its first European tour in 2026. Bonekinha Iraquiana had already toured the continent. Galecta works in Europe bringing Brazilian underground styles to clubs that historically had contact mostly with more commercial versions of funk.

In April 2025, another seemingly technical change showed that the industry was beginning to recognize that autonomy.

Beatport began treating Brazilian Funk as a standalone category on one of the world’s leading platforms used by DJs.

These shifts matter because internationalization should not mean preventing cultures from mixing.

It should mean making it possible for the people who created the language to participate in the market built around it.

08 — BRAZILCORE HAS THE SAME PROBLEM

Music is not alone.

In fashion, the debate is almost identical.

The current Brazilcore wave has turned football jerseys, Havaianas, green, yellow, blue, beaches, Brazilian city names and an extremely specific vision of “Brazilianness” into an international language.

But Brazilian designers interviewed by Vogue warn about the distance between reference and participation.

Symbols can be reproduced by international brands without Brazilian designers, companies or communities participating economically or creatively in the operation.

The problem is not that a green-and-yellow T-shirt exists in Paris.

It is Brazil becoming nothing more than a library of visual references for other people to exploit.

Misci founder Airon Martin summarized the issue by arguing that lasting international recognition requires putting Brazilian creators in a position to participate in their own narrative — rather than merely serving as inspiration for it.

It is exactly the debate funk is having.

In another industry.

With the same question.

09 — THE ALGORITHM DOESN'T CARE WHERE YOU CAME FROM

For a long time, exporting culture required heavy infrastructure.

Record label.

Distributor.

Radio.

Press.

International agent.

Festival.

Visa.

Plane.

Today, a fifteen-second clip can cross the planet before its creator even realizes it has left the country.

That creates real democratization.

A producer in a Brazilian peripheral neighborhood can reach audiences that would have been structurally inaccessible decades ago.

But the same infrastructure also separates sound from context with unprecedented efficiency.

The algorithm does not need to know where a tamborzão came from.

It does not need to know who created a montagem.

It does not need to know where Heliópolis is.

It does not need to understand Portuguese.

It only needs to discover that something keeps someone looking at a screen.

And when it finds that pattern:

Until what was born in a specific territory begins to exist as a sensation with no territory at all.

10 — THE WORLD WANTS BRAZIL

Maybe that is why 2026 feels different.

This is not just another wave of international interest in Brazil.

The country has been “in fashion” before.

It is the speed at which different parts of Brazilian culture are being absorbed simultaneously — fashion, football, music, language, tourism, film, dance, digital aesthetics.

The AP notes that Brazilcore has already moved beyond simply meaning green and yellow and has begun to function as a much broader international celebration of Brazilianness.

That represents an enormous opportunity.

The world is not asking Brazil to look American.

It is not asking Brazil to sing in English.

It is not asking Brazil to hide its accent.

In many cases, it is exactly the opposite.

The more recognizably Brazilian something is, the greater the interest seems to be.

But perhaps it is precisely now — when the world finally does not demand translation — that the question of authorship becomes more urgent.

Because exporting an aesthetic is easy.

Exporting power is different.

11 — WHO OWNS THE NEXT UNDERGROUND?

There is no such thing as cultural purity.

There never was.

Brazilian funk was born from circulation, appropriation, transformation and invention.

What came from outside was dismantled in Rio and sent back into the world as something that could no longer simply be called Miami bass, electro or hip-hop.

It was something else.

It was from here.

Now the process is happening again, but in the opposite direction.

The difference is scale.

And speed.

The internet can separate a language from its territory in hours.

The industry can turn it into a category.

The algorithm can turn it into a format.

A brand can turn it into a campaign.

A producer can turn it into a sample.

A creator can turn it into a trend.

Perhaps none of those transformations is, by itself, the problem.

The problem begins when what crosses the border takes the aesthetic with it — but leaves the creators behind.

DARKVOID // 2026

THE WORLD WANTS BRAZIL

The underground was never meant to stay in one place. But when it moves, somebody decides who gets to move with it.