DJ Marlboro

Who is DJ Marlboro?

Fernando Luiz Mattos da Matta, better known as DJ Marlboro, is a Brazilian DJ.

DJ Marlboro is one of the originators of the Brazilian "funk" music, which is how a crossover between freestyle and rap music genres is known in Brazil. His first LP, Funk Brasil, marks the beginning of the Brazilian "funk" movement, initially with versions of rap and freestyle hits from American artists, especially the Two Live Crew, sung in Portuguese.

He got the idea of making Portuguese versions of American songs by paying attention to how people at parties that played freestyle music in Rio de Janeiro, known as "baile funk," would create and sing their own versions of the songs, in Portuguese, as they couldn't understand English, and how they would nickname the songs as "melô do...", since the original name of the songs, in English, was too difficult for them to pronounce and memorize. The best example is his first song, "Melô da Mulher Feia", which was how patrons of the "baile funk" would call the Two Live Crew's version of "Do Wah Diddy," as they would sing along "mulher feia chupa o ... e dá o ..." to the Two Live Crew's tune. He then made a PG version of the song and recorded it, and was a smash hit on the radio, prompting him to create more songs and record his first album. Later on, Marlboro and others started writing their own songs, and he released several albums.5