Marcio Local is a big name in the Rio funk scene these days. Brazil's love affair with American funk and soul is legendary, and Local is rightly seen as an inheritor of the musical mantle of the great Jorge Benjor.
Dressed in yellow, with shades and a skull cap, Local projected quirky urban cool at Webster Hall's Marlin Room in New York City. There was some rapping and electronics, but mostly, his tight band kept to the basics of samba-funk. Local's rich tenor at times recalled one of Brazil's iconic voices: Milton Nascimento. But where Nascimento often floats into ethereal jazziness, Local's beats never stopped pumping.
Originally recorded Jan. 11, 2009, at globalFEST.
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