The mysterious producer lets us into his frazzled, through-and-through Brazilian world of mashups — sort of.
Sometimes the stars align and by refreshing our feeds we find what can only be described as a mythical algorithm pull. A colorful thumbnail draws you in. Clip-art, rainbow Japanese characters, Windows XP text boxes, and a 10 year old wearing the heaviest gold chains you’ve ever seen. Click the video and within the first 30 seconds you’re bombarded with techno synths and the unmistakable acapella “tchu tcha tchas” pumps unfiltered Brazilian funk straight to your veins.
Scrolling down, the comments treat him as the new Messiah: “Finally, Music 2,” “Alive Internet Theory,” “the end of the dark ages and the beginning of the Renaissance.” But this is just the work of 20-year-old Marcelinho MeteBala.
The producer from a small town in the interior of Rio de Janeiro state has rapidly shot to the forefront of the very online Brazilian mashup scene. His identity has been mostly wrapped in mystery except for the name (which roughly translates to “Lil’ Marcelo Bullet Shooter”) and a picture of a young boy with a neat lineup and a phone case full of money. As it turns out, that’s not actually him—and he still refuses to divulge his real identity, at least until he decides to perform live.
He snatched his avatar, a swagged-out child, from random photos online. The boy embodies the “cria” stereotype, which MeteBala explains is “about being a local, an OG. You’re a freshman at school and you look up to the upperclassmen and they’re the ‘crias.’”
MeteBala’s twist was to combine cria culture with digicore, leading fans to christen his style “cybercria.” “I was always the biggest ‘Rate-Your-Musicist’ of the world, the biggest ‘LastFMer’ of the world,” explains MeteBala. “While listening to music, I saw something very unlikely: What if I blend the Brazilian funk I listened to with friends with all this repertoire from my online life?” In return, the RYM community he grew up worshiping is raving about his music, putting three of his releases — Quebradeira Pura, Computaria Sound System, and MARCELINHO CYBERJAMS — in the site’s top 100 albums of 2026.
His most recent release, June’s MARCELINHO CYBERJAMS (a 10,000 YouTube subscriber special), distills 2010s nostalgia to 13 tracks of peak cybercria. Interpolating No Doubt, Barbra Streisand, and “Careless Whisper” with classics any Gen-Z Brazilian recognizes from chopadas, 15 year old birthday parties, and Furacão 2000 classics. MeteBala blends a perfect union of Jersey club whips and squeaky mattress samples, funk carioca’s bubble beat, and the unmistakable vocals from icons like MC Delano, MC Carol, MC G15, and MC Menor da VG. The album is dedicated to all his friends from his Only Leite Discord (and his mom!). Signing off from the year 2077, MeteBala leaves his motto: “The future is cybercria.”
MeteBala began producing at 13 with a crash course on YouTube tutorials. Starting with more traditional chill baile, techno, and a cracked copy of FL Studio, MeteBala’s experimentation reaffirms that Brazilian teenagers with a laptop and a pirated copy of a DAW can go toe-to-toe with European powerhouses.
Following the steps of the Brazilian old guard like Kondzilla, Dennis DJ, and the Furacão 2000 collective, the cybercria movement rewires tradition for a generation that grew up hardwired to the internet. Thanks to piracy and foreign influence on Brazilian radios, the history of baile is intertwined with the transformative nature of mashup music. Brazilian funk will always transmute songs from “the gringa” into anthems authentically from the favelas. In the online age, mashup culture within funk is a symbol of Brazilian patriotism.
“I draw a lot from old web aesthetics. Frutiger Aero, Y2K, early Internet you know? I also always liked religious imagery, Buddhism fits within the ethereal soundscape of the project,” explains MeteBala. “In general, Marcelinho is an extension of myself, an extension of my mind.”
MeteBala is not alone in the cybercria movement. “MC Sapato leans into synthwave. DJ LASERDISC leans into vaporwave. DJ Malamé Amarelo is more similar to me. Our niche is this unapologetic funk, nostalgic sampling, Summer Eletrohits,” says MeteBala.
In tracks like “Mochila Nas Costa/Death by Gazamour,” a collaboration with DJ LASERDISC, the Undertale boss fight track “Death by Glamour” gets smashed into classics from the 2010s funk proibidão movements, the Brazilian funk parallel to gangsta rap. The synthy video game soundfont from Undertale serves as the guiding bassline. In contrast, the classic Brazilian funk beats adds the patriotic spin while MC Orelha’s “Faixa de Gaza,” a track with heavy ties to criminal faction Comando Vermelho, offers lyrics about taking over the favela and killing your rivals.
Brazilian funk has skyrocketed in the international community over the past few years. DJRaMeMes, a cornerstone in both Brazilian SoundCloud mashups and general shitposting, was sampled in JPEGMAFIA’s “it’s dark and hell is hot.” Hyperpop producers like Dylan Brady have made Brazilian funk in projects like Melhor Cachorro.
“Gringos can’t produce funk the same way Brazilians do, you know? There’s no way,” says MeteBala. “Gringos can have everything on paper to make perfect funk. But it will never be the same. I don’t think they have what it takes.”
By sampling staples that rang out at every Brazilian teenage party in the 2010s, MeteBala’s music has become a reflection of an entire generation. “Gringos think the music is good but they don’t know exactly what’s going on. So they interpret funk as ‘experimental,’” MeteBala explains. “I don’t necessarily make baile. It’s also not strictly techno, we sample techno but with funk a capellas. It’s a musical Frankenstein. I have no other way to describe it.”
“DJ Ramon Sucesso ran so we all could walk,” says MeteBala, who’s contemplating leaving anonymity to play at bailes and DJ events around the world. “I’ve gotten offers to play in London, but I still don’t have my passport,” he laughs. “If I were to play overseas I think everyone would love it. I don’t make music for Brazilians. I don’t make music for gringos. I make music for everyone to dance together.”