26-Dec-2011 - Nova IguaÇu Journal: Don Blanquito, Funk Star and Rio’s Bravest Gringo

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Then there is the 30-year-old American in a U.C.L.A. Bruins shirt, equipped with an M.B.A. and a fluency in Portuguese that one acquires only in Rio’s favelas, or slums. “That’s Don Blanquito,” said Claudia de Oliveira, 21, a commuter who smiled in admiration of the American before stepping off the train in the Mesquita district. “He’s the most courageous gringo in all of Rio.” It is not every day that an American gains household-name status in Rio’s gritty periphery, much less with a nickname that translates roughly as “Sir Whiteboy.” It is even rarer that he does so as a singer and a composer of Brazilian funk, a musical football jerseys genre that emerged in the favelas. But Don Blanquito, whose real name is Alex Cutler, is not just any American. “I know it must seem insane to find a white guy from California in this scene,” said Mr. Cutler, who earned an undergraduate degree from Northeastern University and an M.B.A. from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. “I could’ve gone to Wall Street, eating at Nobu every night. But the funk world is where I found myself.” Brazilian funk, not to be confused with the classic sounds of James Brown or Parliament-Funkadelic, is American hip-hop’s rapid-fire cousin, influenced by the Miami Bass style in the United States while blending in elements of local rap, samba and techno. The result, with lyrics that often graphically celebrate the sensuality of Rio’s women and the exploits of NBA jerseys its drug lords, is not for the faint of heart. Samples of machine-gun fire are blended into prerecorded beats, and some funk shows have turned into riotous bacchanals. The most explicitly violent songs, those considered by the Brazilian police to incite violence, are illegal, putting them in a league with other Latin American outlaw musical genres like Colombia’s “prohibited ballads,” which celebrate guerrillas and paramilitary warlords. In a musical subculture that still frightens and fascinates many residents of the self-described noble seaside districts literally in the shadow of Rio’s hillside favelas, Mr. Cutler talks the talk. His Portuguese flows with roguish street terminology and self-deprecating wisecracks, a stream-of-consciousness commentary that would merit at least an R rating. And unlike many fair-weather foreigners who frequent Rio for its beaches, he also walks the walk. He performs here in the gritty city of Nova Iguaçu and other sketchy parts of the Baixada Fluminense, the patchwork of poor districts on Rio’s periphery. He has put down stakes in Tabajaras, a favela perched atop Copacabana, where he paid 20,000 in cash for a tiny house where he lives with his girlfriend, Yasmin Leiros. Tabajaras is a long way from Los Angeles, where Mr. Cutler was raised in an affluent Jewish household, before attending Berkshire, a Massachusetts NFL jerseys wholesale boarding school. (His Anglo-sounding surname, he jokes, was changed by an ancestor who emigrated from Russia, thinking it sounded like “cutlery.”) Mr. Cutler clawed his way into the funk world from the ground level, after earlier efforts rapping in Spanish in the United States and then the Dominican Republic. He said he was drawn to rap, and later to funk, by the sense of incomparable adventure these genres offered compared with working in an office. The brother of a Dominican girlfriend christened him Don Blanquito, a name he kept. After moving here four years ago, Mr. Cutler traveled by bus and train each weekend to the Baixada Fluminense, where he distributed his music to prominent D.J.’s. Cutting his teeth in these clubs, ducking bullets sometimes when gunfights broke out, he says he found his calling. He relies on what he calls guerrilla marketing, passing out CDs to passengers on train cars, as well as T-shirts and condoms emblazoned with “Don Blanquito.” “I want my fans to laugh a little and remember me, even if it’s during one of those intimate moments,” he explained.

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26-Dec-2011 - Nova IguaÇu Journal: Don Blanquito, Funk Star and Rio’s Bravest Gringo

Visted 1 times

Then there is the 30-year-old American in a U.C.L.A. Bruins shirt, equipped with an M.B.A. and a fluency in Portuguese that one acquires only in Rio’s favelas, or slums. “That’s Don Blanquito,” said Claudia de Oliveira, 21, a commuter who smiled in admiration of the American before stepping off the train in the Mesquita district. “He’s the most courageous gringo in all of Rio.” It is not every day that an American gains household-name status in Rio’s gritty periphery, much less with a nickname that translates roughly as “Sir Whiteboy.” It is even rarer that he does so as a singer and a composer of Brazilian funk, a musical genre that emerged in the favelas. But Don Blanquito, whose real name is Alex Cutler, is not just any American. “I know it must cheap NFL jerseys seem insane to find a white guy from California in this scene,” said Mr. Cutler, who earned an undergraduate degree from Northeastern University and an M.B.A. from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. “I could’ve gone to Wall Street, eating at Nobu every night. But the funk world is where I found myself.” Brazilian funk, not to be confused with the classic sounds of James Brown or Parliament-Funkadelic, is American hip-hop’s rapid-fire cousin, influenced by the Miami Bass style in the United States while blending in elements of local rap, samba and techno. The result, with lyrics that often graphically celebrate the sensuality of Rio’s women and the exploits of its drug lords, is not for the faint of heart. Samples of machine-gun fire are blended into prerecorded beats, and some funk shows have turned into riotous bacchanals. The most explicitly violent songs, those considered by the Brazilian police to incite violence, are illegal, putting them in a league with other Latin American outlaw musical genres like Colombia’s “prohibited ballads,” which celebrate guerrillas and paramilitary warlords. In a musical subculture that still frightens and fascinates many residents of the self-described noble seaside districts literally in the shadow of Rio’s hillside favelas, Mr. Cutler talks the talk. His Portuguese flows with roguish street terminology and self-deprecating wisecracks, a stream-of-consciousness commentary that would merit at least an R rating. And unlike many fair-weather foreigners who frequent Rio for its beaches, he also walks the walk. He performs here in the gritty city buy NFL Jerseys of Nova Iguaçu and other sketchy parts of the Baixada Fluminense, the patchwork of poor districts on Rio’s periphery. He has put down stakes in Tabajaras, a favela perched atop Copacabana, where he paid 20,000 in cash for a tiny house where he lives with his girlfriend, Yasmin Leiros. Tabajaras is a long way from Los Angeles, where Mr. Cutler was raised in an affluent Jewish household, before attending Berkshire, a Massachusetts boarding school. (His Anglo-sounding surname, he jokes, was changed by an ancestor who emigrated from Russia, thinking it sounded like “cutlery.”) Mr. Cutler clawed his way into the funk world from the ground level, after earlier efforts rapping in Spanish in the United States and then the Dominican Republic. He said he was drawn to rap, and later to funk, by the sense of incomparable adventure these genres offered compared with working in an office. The brother of a Dominican girlfriend christened him Don Blanquito, a name he kept. After moving here four years ago, Mr. Cutler traveled by bus and train each weekend to the Baixada Fluminense, where he distributed his music to prominent D.J.’s. Cutting his teeth in these clubs, ducking bullets sometimes when gunfights broke out, he says he found his calling. He relies on what he calls guerrilla marketing, passing out CDs to passengers on train cars, as well as T-shirts and condoms emblazoned with “Don Blanquito.” “I want my fans to laugh a little and remember me, even if it’s during one of those intimate NFL jerseys supply moments,” he explained.

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