Funky, Ferocious Ant Raps

Judging by Sacassaia’s album cover for Sampleando Deus e o Mundo (Sampling God and the World), polyglot, pan-Latino electro hip hop/dancehall is kinda ugly, even a little scary-looking. The LP art–depicting a half dashiki half collared-shirt wearing, three-arm having, grimacing composite of about five people–represents the duo’s diverse musical influences and embodies its God-like human “sampling” title reference. (If God did people like a kid does a Mr. Potato Head, that is.)

But thankfully Sacassaia’s sound is way more gratifying at first listen than at first glance. The Brasilia-based outfit mixes and matches multilingual hip-hop—sung in Portuguese, English, French, Spanish, and Hebrew—with Caribbean and Latin American rhythms like dub, ragga, samba, cumbia, and merengue on tricked-out electro riffs. Named after an aggressive species of ants (also known as Marabunta), Sacassaia evinces an equally voracious, boundless curiosity.

Sacassaia bandmates Geraldo Horta and Gabriel Reis (Gardenel)–began work on the album after their previous group, a dancehall/hip hop trio called EmMassa Produções, split in 2008. The DJ/producers found themselves in the fortuitous spot of having the funding to produce another album, by way of a public subsidy from the Brazilian government, and brought on DJ/producer/audio engineer Tony Roballo, who comes from an IDM and minimal disco-punk background, to collaborate on their effort.

The result–2009’s Sampleando (available for free on their Bandcamp page)–is a pleasurable voyage from start to finish. Cumbia cut “El Culebron” sounds like an imagined collaboration between Calle 13 and electrocumbia dj collective Zizek. “Ululai” juxtaposes jittery, chopped, layered and looped vocals with a reassured flugelhorn solo. Dancehall track “Gem Jam” cleverly samples Tom Tom Club’s classic “Genius Of Love.” No two tracks are alike on the 11-track release, but there’s an overarching cohesion to the album that makes it feel as if its listener’s reviewing the pages of a musical globetrotter’s passport.

Watch album opener “Pega O Gringo” (“Grab The Gringo”):