Pedro Gariani is a Brazilian DJ and producer whose career has taken him from local club nights to international stages including Tomorrowland Brasil, Time Warp, HÖR Berlin, and Pikes Ibiza, with support slots for Fatboy Slim and Laurent Garnier among his credits. His latest release, ‘Saci’, arrives on his own label ¡Queer y Latina! and marks a deliberate effort to bring Brazilian folklore into the language of percussive house music.
The track takes its name and inspiration from one of Brazil’s most widely recognised folkloric figures — a mischievous character Gariani grew up hearing stories about. Rather than treating the reference as surface decoration, he describes integrating it into the structural and sonic vocabulary he already uses as a producer. The goal, as he explains it, is for a Brazilian listener to recognise specific cultural markers while someone with no prior knowledge of Saci can connect with the record immediately on a dancefloor anywhere in the world.
¡Queer y Latina! was founded by Gariani as both a label and platform with a specific purpose: to expand the circulation of queer Latin American electronic music without binding artists to a single aesthetic. He describes it as being defined by perspective and community rather than genre, with an aim to connect scenes across the region and give visibility to artists who might otherwise remain siloed within their local markets. Gariani is also co-founder of Cardume, adding another strand to his work as a curator and platform builder alongside his production and DJ career.
In conversation with When We Dip, Gariani was candid about how he views his own international trajectory. Despite the stages he has played and the platforms he has accessed, he says he has not yet experienced a moment where he felt his music had definitively broken through globally. He frames each milestone as part of an ongoing process rather than a turning point, and says he expects to understand the significance of these moments more clearly in retrospect.
On the Brazilian electronic scene itself, Gariani pushes back against the tendency among international audiences to search for a single defining sound. He points to the coexistence of large commercial festivals, underground club culture, queer parties, funk, house, techno, and regional hybrid movements — noting that São Paulo alone can offer entirely different nightlife experiences on the same evening. For Gariani, that diversity is central to what makes the scene worth paying attention to, and it is the same diversity that ¡Queer y Latina! is designed to reflect and amplify.
Source: When We Dip
