Commercially, this shift coincided with broader mainstream acceptance of funk, as performers like MC Koringa found acceptance for their songs on the nightly soap operas. In São Paulo, a brash new variety called funk ostentação (ostentation) has emerged, with singers flaunting wads of cash and imported sports cars. Where did Neymar, the star of Brazil’s national soccer team, go to relax before the World Cup? The Dom Room, a funk club near São Paulo. Reflecting the genre’s elasticity, some in Brazil’s evangelical Christian community decided it was time to join the funk scene rather than criticize it. Thus the subgenre of “gospel funk,” featuring biblical-inspired lyrics.

Yet in Rio, funk’s cradle, some of the marginalized proibidão singers persist. Some work in favelas still controlled by gangs, reflecting Rio’s fractious urban peace process. Fewer than 300 of the city’s estimated 1,000 or so favelas are pacified; even in slums now featuring a large police presence, there has been a startling spike in shootings of police officers this year. Around the city, muggings have surged. The homicide rate is also climbing once again in Rio, setting the city on edge just as visitors start arriving for the World Cup.

Amid this tension, new funk stars are emerging, exemplified to a large extent by women like Valesca Popozuda and Anitta. One rising voice in Rio’s clubs is MC Lexa, 19, whose real name is Léa Araújo. She doesn’t come from a favela, pacified or otherwise, but from Jacarepaguá, a sprawling suburban area interspersed with slums. On the cusp of stardom, MC Lexa delayed her civil-engineering studies and has begun performing in cities like Brasília and São Paulo. “Few people have a real chance for a career in funk,” she says. “I need to make this moment count.”