Anitta, the Beyoncé of Rio: “I don’t work for money and success, but to change society” | Culture

Entering the suite room From her Parisian hotel, next to the Elysee Palace, we interrupt Anitta undergoing a spiritual cleansing via mobile phone. “It’s okay, I’ll finish it while we talk,” the most international Brazilian singer, born Larissa de Macedo Machado (Rio de Janeiro, 31 years old), reassures us in almost perfect Spanish. The interview will take place while the healer virtually purifies her energies. “Every time I change cities, I organize a cleansing or reiki session. On the last tour I ended up very tired, not only physically but also mentally. I don’t like taking so many planes and sleeping in hotels without my dogs, without my family,” said the diva of the Elysee Palace. funk Brazilian, which was once only heard in the favelas and nightclubs on the outskirts.

With Anitta, the Beyoncé of Rio, everything has changed. The style has crossed borders, stripped of the stigmas of yesteryear and even politicized in favor of those who have less. Converted into an ambassador for her country, bearer of a message of social justice that she transmits through fiery rhythms and torrid dances, the singer will perform this week, at the height of her success, in Madrid, Barcelona and Ibiza.

“If I had lived through it seven or eight years ago, I don’t know if it would have been good. I wasn’t mentally ready and I wouldn’t have made the best decisions. Now I believe in the timing of God and the universe. They make sure everything goes well,” adds Anitta, who is Candomblé. The video for her song will be released in May. Oil It cost her a wave of hatred in her country, where Afro-Brazilian religions arouse animosity in a section of the population. The singer lost 200,000 followers on Instagram in a couple of hours. It was not a big deal: she has 65 million.

In just over a decade, Anitta has gone from dancing in the streets of the Honório Gurgel neighborhood, about twenty kilometers from Ipanema Beach, to collaborating with Madonna —she performed with her in Copacabana a few weeks ago—, Cardi B, Snoop Dogg, Maluma and J Balvin. “If I have done well it is because I have always had a purpose. I don’t work for money and success, for the hits and money. I always wanted to change people’s lives, to change society,” she replied last Saturday as she prepared, dressed in a camisole and with thick sports socks on her feet, for her double concert in Paris: the first, with the Solidays festival, and the second, at the Elysée Montmartre in the French capital.

Minutes later, we climb into a van and drive across the city in record time to the first one. As she looks out of the car window at the Champs Elysees, Anitta says she feels satisfied with her achievements. “I have changed many things in the industry in my country, behaviour, sexism. I have fought for the freedom of women and the LGBTI community. Yes, I am proud.” And no wonder: when you aim for a mass audience, in a country as polarised as Brazil, the gamble was risky.

“It could have gone very wrong, but when you do things with love and truth, everything ends well, even if you make mistakes. A style like this funk “It was frowned upon because it gave a voice to the poor and the blacks. Politicians make us believe that this music encourages crime and marginalization, when it doesn’t. Musicians from the favelas talk about what they see when they go out on the street: violence, drugs and sex. If politicians want their lyrics to change, they will first have to change their reality.”

She does not deny that, a few years ago, she knew almost nothing about politics. “When you are born in a favela, you don’t have the structure that allows you to learn how it works. This is the case for 80% of the Brazilian population,” she says. “I thought of taking live political classes on my Instagram, so that my audience could learn with me. That changed the political scene for many of my followers.” Anitta has “a council of people” who inform her about current events and draw her attention to issues on which she should speak out. It is headed by Paula Lavigne, Caetano Veloso’s wife. “They are both very good friends of mine. She puts me in contact with researchers and specialists in the environment, racism, social rights and LGBTI,” explains Anitta. Recently, the singer protested against a new law that penalised Amazonian cultures. She says that her words had an effect in parliament.

In another era, names like Veloso, Gilberto Gil or Chico Buarque were persecuted by the military junta for their subversive lyrics. Today, protest songs have been reincarnated in the sensual dances of Anitta, spokesperson for the protest against Jair Bolsonaro, whom she opposed on her social networks and even blocked several times on Twitter. The Brazilian singer supported and voted for Lula, although she does not exempt him from her criticism. “There are still a lot of problems and we must say that. Even though he is the president we chose, we cannot behave like a fan club,” she says. “Even so, I chose him because my priority was democracy. I did not like what Bolsonaro did with the country: confronting us. We are a society with so many personalities and identities… How can we see ourselves as just two opposing groups? That would be like understanding the country as a football match. And politics is not football.”

In 2022, she became even more famous in Spain when she danced with Isabel Díaz Ayuso: “They told me she was the president of the Community of Madrid. I understood that she was part of a community of fans.”

Night falls and the public waits inside the Elysee Montmartrea historic venue in the lower part of Montmartre. Fate has it that Anitta performs on Pride Day: the singer declared herself bisexual in 2018, as part of the Go Anittaher docuseries on Netflix. “I was advised not to do it, because there was a lot of prejudice in Brazil. But this happened: I was recorded kissing a girl at a party and that triggered a crisis in my team. We had to find the person who had posted the video so they could delete it. It seemed to me that if I had kissed a boy there wouldn’t be such a fuss. And that’s when I decided that it couldn’t be. I want to be free to kiss a girl without worrying,” says Anitta. “My family has always known. When I was 13, I told my mother that I had kissed one.” She admits that she feels closer to her father, a car battery salesman, than to her mother, who makes handbags and purses. “My father is my best friend. I talk to him about everything, even my boyfriends, he’s not shocked by anything. My mother is a bit more conservative, so I spare her the craziest parts.”

In Spain, her most memorable performance took place in 2022, when the Brazilian star decided to dance alongside Isabel Díaz Ayuso. “My publicist told me that she was the president of the Community of Madrid, but I didn’t understand it, because in Brazil, autonomous communities don’t exist. I thought she was talking about a Facebook community, that she was the president of my community of Madrid fans,” she laughs. We tell her that Ayuso’s first job in politics was as a community manager. “Oh, really? I wasn’t that far behind…” The roar of a crowd that can’t wait any longer can be heard. Anitta is out to win, as always.Get ready, I’m going to dance, pay attention” (“Get ready, I’m gonna dance, pay attention”), he sings in one of his biggest hits, Go MalandraAnd suddenly, as the room burns, we don’t see how to stop it.