photo courtesy of O Globo

Special thanks to Rio-based DJ Leo Justi, whose great remix of Kid Conga we featured a while back, for having done a little name-dropping in his profile piece on O Globo. O Globo, which is a huge Brazilian media conglomerate recently featured Leo on their site and Retail DJ was mentioned as one of the “gringo” sites that has shown him some love. We appreciate the mention, and hope that we get even more support from Brazil. As long as Brazil continues to produce some of the best music on the planet, we’ll keep covering it.

Congrats to Leo for the feature, and muito obrigada for the mention!

In hopes of giving the English-speaking readers a better idea of what the article says, here is the translation (by yours truly) of the original article (emphasis mine):

Meet Leo Justi, one of the few (and best) producers of electronic music in the city

RIO - Rio has lots of good DJs, but few young producers making electronic music. The son of an oboe player and a pianist in the field of classical music, Leo Justi, 23, began to study the violin at 8, when he ddn’t yet understand that it was ok to like jazz and funk [carioca] at the same time.

Listen to and download Leo Justi’s remix of “Kid Conga by MC Miltinho

“Nowadays, my parents don’t say much about it, but if I were to start with the story of my [listening to] funk at 13, things would most certainly become tense,” he joked.

A student of Sound Production at Estacio (a Brazilian University), Leo has independently produced remixes for rapper De Leve and others, which has been featured on foreign blogs like Generation Bass, Killah Beez, First Up, Palms Out, Sheena Beaston, Masalicism, Cultural Cannibals, and Retail DJ.

“It’s as if my musical productions vary in accordance with my hormonal flux, with Radiohead vs. Guinga and Missy Elliot vs. Bonde do Tigrao running through my veins,” he explains on his Myspace page.

Leo is a resident DJ for the parties To-toma and Banana Banana. His work mixes funk carioca beats with influences of electronic music.

Leo, a guitarrist, has traded his instruments for programs like Ableton Live and Reason for composing, and Ableton Live, Virtual DJ, or CDJ for playing live.

- Retail DJ

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