The Brazil sound has taken drum and bass by storm. Credited with injecting the soul back into dnb, what it's also done is demonstrate that it's not just a flash in the pan. The interesting thing is that such a huge movement was spearheaded by a tiny group of people – essentially Patife, Marky and their UK liason, Bryan Gee. These individuals have opened the floodgates and following in their footsteps are a barrage of new talent bringing new perspectives to dnb. Not only was Patife one of the people who brought this music to you, he is also a driving force in pushing the sound forward – constantly changing up the formula. With a handful of successful mix CDs and more singles than you can count, Patife has demonstrated his fertile creativity and lasting power. I was lucky enough to cross paths with drum and bass history in the making three years ago. And now, here I sit chronicling the short story of this new movement and one of its Dons, DJ Patife.

March of 2000: having destroyed my shoulder snowboarding, I nevertheless accompanied my rugby team on tour to England and Wales. It was there, in Cardiff, that one incredibly hung-over morning, while the team was touring the newly completed rugby World Cup stadium that I glimpsed a black and white poster on an abandoned building. It read, DJ Die and some guy I'd never heard of, DJ Marky from Brazil. I thought, “shit, that would've been a good party, I wonder when it was.” It hadn't happened yet - it was that night. I ran, wide-eyed, back to the hostel and told everyone on the team that we were in the home of drum and bass and whether you were a fan or not, you owed it to yourself to go and hear some quality tunes. Needless to say, everyone would rather go to the top 40 club where all the easy women were. I managed to convince the one guy who never came out – the fat guy – to come with me.

So we went to Clwb Ifor Bach (the Welsh Club) and after waiting in line for nearly an hour were told that we had to buy memberships where we pledged to uphold the Welsh language and culture wherever we went. We did (the things we do for dnb!) and finally entered. Once they found out that we were Canadians, the Welsh punters fed us beer after beer – they are a hospitable people.

Being well liquored up and a responsible representative of the web-magazine TorontoJungle.com, I decided to approach the headliners with some cards. Die took one and turned his back before I had a chance to even say hi. I decided to let it go and approach the Brazilians. There were two of them - one big, one small. You could tell that they weren't too comfortable with English. But thanks to some nice business cards and some wild arm gestures, we were able to establish that I worked for foreign media. Their eyes lit up. They warmly introduced themselves as DJ Marky and DJ Patife. Marky spoke no English whatsoever at this point, so Patife did all of the talking. He was shoving flyers, CDs and promos into my hands – I had nowhere to carry them, but was overwhelmed at their enthusiasm.

Then Marky took his spot up at the decks. He tore the place down. I'd never heard anything like it in my life. But the Welsh Club wasn't your normal club. It was more like a typical British pub – adorned with well-urethaned pine paneling - but with all the tables cleared out to make room for the dancefloor. After the set, they told me about a Movement party at Bar Rhumba in London they were playing the next week; luckily I'd be in London the same time. We agreed to meet again. Little did I know that due to some dealings with the Certificate 18 crew, I'd spend that night at Teebee's record release and not in fact attend the Movement party with the Brazil crew.

I nevertheless returned home to Toronto raving about these two Brazilian guys, Patife and Marky, and about how there was all this shit going down in Brazil that no one had bothered to notice over here. My news fell upon deaf ears. That was until the Brazil sound exploded in the next year. Marky's stage show was recognized as one of the most electric in the whole electronic music community and Patife's production credit became a common sight on huge tunes. It would be more than two years before I'd get a chance to chill with the Brazilian boys again, but this time it was on my home turf – Toronto, at Marcus Visionary's Theory party at the Guvernment Complex. But who would have predicted that a chance encounter on a vacation would eventually lead to a cover story in Rinse Magazine?

To understand Patife, you've got to know a little about Brazil – it can be a scary place. There have been no less than 5 regimes in Brazil in the last century. From coffee industrialists to leftists to military dictators and now back to a shaky democracy, Brazil is a place where torture was only officially outlawed in the 1988 constitution. Aside from a corrupt government, Brazil is also a violent place. In the late ‘90s the murder rate ran at 700 a month in greater São Paulo (many committed by the police), making it one of the most violent places on earth. But Brazil isn't best reflected in statistics or institutions. The flavor of Brazil is in its people. It's not so much a nation-state as it is a lifestyle – and in these terms, it has a lot going for it. It is one of the most culturally cosmopolitan countries in South America. Huge numbers of Italians, Poles, Jews and Japanese immigrated to Brazil in the early 20th Century. As a result of these varied influences, Brazil has one of richest and unique cultures in the world. From the dance/martial art Capoeira, to the musical genres of bossa nova and samba and the all out attack of the national soccer team, Brazil is rife with unique and hybrid cultural experiences and developments.

Considering that Brazil is so different from North America and Europe, how would someone discover dnb, pursue it and ultimately bring something so new and fresh to the world scene as to change it permanently from that point on? Well, Patife's story may not be as different as you think.

Patife, or rather, Wagner, comes from family of seven. Despite the legacy of sharing a name with a canonized classical composer, Patife pleads that his parents didn't have a vision of musical stardom for their son. “I think it's funny, because my mum and dad don't know who Wagner is... for them, music is nice; for me it's everything ... imagine me with all that experience!” He goes on to say, “I don't have a musical background, [everything] I know comes from listening to radio shows since the mid ‘80s. I always loved rap, RnB, funk, soul, reggae, dance music in general and a bit of Brazilian music. I don't play any instrument but now I'm learning a bit of keyboard because I really need to!”

It wasn't all mown lawns and white picket fences for Patife. He grew up in São Paulo City, which, at 17 million, is the second largest city on earth. São Paulo does not have the beaches and tourism of Rio de Janeiro; it is the industrial city of Brazil – no glitz and no glam. He was already working at age 11 – delivering pizzas. He then moved on to being a motorcycle courier throughout his teens before getting hooked up with a job at a record shop and now of course, his current occupation as a V Recordings star DJ and producer with its obligations of touring the world to spread the gospel of the Brazil sound.

Even though São Paulo isn't exactly London or New York, Patife tells the common story of a young upstart DJ. “Before I got into dnb, I used to be the DJ in a hip hop group. We did many parties in garages, on the street, at school, for birthdays parties and all that.” That was, until he walked into a shop and struck up conversation with the guy working there. That guy turned out to be Marky and their friendship would prove to be the backbone of the SP scene.

“I used to buy records in the shop where [Marky] worked [called Up Dance Records]... so the relationship started on that time. [One day,] he played something for me that was really broken and fast and said, ‘This is the future,' and I loved it! Since that time, I've started to spin dnb as well and together with Andy, Koloral and Marky we started to build up the scene in Brazil.” He goes on to describe the key factors in the development of a dnb scene in São Paulo. “There are a lot of things involved. Firstly, the people who have been following us for the last eight years [have been essential in our success]. Marky played in a club called Sound Factory and another called Toco - every weekend we had 5,000 people raving. The sound [itself], local magazines, radio shows and things like that made dnb spread out in SP.”

Everyone knows about how energetic Marky is. We're all familiar with his constant head banging during his sets. But I'm not sure Patife has the same reputation - he should though. Rolling into the photo shoot at 12:30am and fresh off the plane from Atlanta, he was bouncing around in front of the camera, eyes bulging and feet bouncing to the beat of the DJ in the next room. I feel that I should end every one of his quotes with an exclamation mark because the guy is so into what he does. And that energy transfers itself into his sets - you can feel it in the bounce of his production. It's that off-beat drum and bass bounce. It's also that off-beat samba bounce. Whatever it is, it's in his blood.

However, no matter how vibrant the SP scene was, we wouldn't even know anything about it if it weren't for the essential link between the SP scene and V Recordings. Patife elaborates on how this came about: “In ‘98 I decided to start a dnb night called Movement, and the promoter who was doing it with me told me that it wasn't a good idea to use the Movement name. He told to me to ring those guys in London and tell them our thoughts so ... look what happened!

And with that, Bryan Gee and Edo Van Duyn (now his manager) flew down to Brazil to see what all the fuss was about. At the legendary lov.e club when Marky went on, this is what Edo had to say, “Incredible, for here was a DJ who hardly spoke any English, lived 5,000 miles from the drum and bass Mecca [London] and still managed to inject more energy, enthusiasm, originality and creativity into mixing drum and bass than anyone we'd seen before.” The rest they say, is history.

Now, with a slew of successful tunes and mix CDs under his belt, Patife the producer and Marky the DJ are reaping the rewards of their hard work. But wait. Marky is producing (ever heard of a tune called LK?) and Patife is spinning. So the lines are being blurred. But Patife plays no second fiddle to Marky. While Marky champions the “really-hard-isn't-hard-enough” school, Patife really injects his country, culture and people into his work. When you hear it, it is undeniably Brazilian and undeniably Patife. Like the British dnb originators finding their source material in old dub tunes, Patife finds his muse in the rich musical history of his country – a history so rich in fact, that now everyone from Ian Pooley to Future Cut is scrambling to find original samba and bossa nova records to sample from.

So next time you feel a Latin-tinged flavor you love, remember what Patife was doing in '98 when we were all Funkindemup. Man, we've come a long way.

URL: djpatife.com.br