Anitta

From Brazil, Anitta has built a worldwide profile as a vocalist, composer, performer on screen, digital personality, and business figure. Possessing a natural alto range, she stepped into the vanguard of Latin pop with the 2012 single “Meiga e Abusada,” which secured her a Warner Bros. deal. Her self-titled first album arrived in 2013, reached the top of the Brazilian charts, and earned platinum status. The 2014 follow-up Ritmo Perfeito registered on multiple international listings before she made her screen debut in the comedy Copa de Elite and launched her own management and production outfits. Bang!, released in 2015, also achieved platinum certification in Brazil and led to an invitation to sing at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games with Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. The 2018 track “Downtown,” a collaboration with J Balvin, was later certified six-times platinum. The trilingual set Kisses appeared in 2019, containing ten songs each accompanied by its own video; the project reached the Top Five on the U.S. Latin Pop chart. In 2022 she topped the bill on both weekend stages at Coachella and delivered the long-anticipated, three-language album Versions of Me, which set new streaming benchmarks and received diamond certification immediately upon release. Funk Generation, devoted entirely to funk carioca material, surfaced in 2024.

Born Larissa de Macedo Machado on March 30, 1993, and raised in Rio de Janeiro’s economically challenged Honório Gurgel favela, she sang in church during childhood, studied dance, and later embraced baile funk as a teenager. Her stage name derives from the central figure in the television miniseries Presença de Anita, itself adapted from Mário Donato’s 1948 novel that foreshadowed Lolita. At seventeen, a YouTube clip brought her to the attention of funk mentor and leading producer DJ Batutinha, who auditioned her, signed her to his roster, and issued her debut single “Eu Vou Ficar.” In 2012 entrepreneur Kamilla Fialho purchased her contract and assumed management duties—an arrangement that later produced a protracted multimillion-dollar legal conflict—while her brother Renan Machado later shared management responsibilities. The single “Meiga e Abusada” prompted Warner Music to sign her and release her self-titled debut album in 2013.

That album fused the sinuous grooves of her funk origins with a contemporary electro-pop and R&B palette shaped by American influences, achieving immediate commercial traction. Her first Warner single, “Show das Poderosas,” became Brazil’s most-viewed YouTube video at the time with 130 million plays and ranked as the year’s third-most-played song on Brazilian radio. Pro-Música Brasil, the nation’s official industry body, awarded the album platinum certification.

Ritmo Perfeito followed in 2014 and Bang! in 2015, the latter peaking at number two on the Brazilian album chart and moving more than 300,000 units; a succession of hit singles and widely watched videos featuring prominent guest artists steadily expanded her reach. Her smooth vocal delivery, provocative persona, self-choreographed routines, and commanding social-media presence rapidly elevated her to national prominence, yet she harbored still larger ambitions.

Her initial foray onto the global stage occurred in 2016 when she performed at the Olympic opening ceremony in Rio alongside Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. That same year she released the bilingual single “Sim ou Não”/“Sí o No” with Maluma, which attained triple-diamond and gold status.

In 2017 she joined Iggy Azalea on the track “Switch,” marking her first English-language recording. Additional singles that year included the hit “Paradinha,” the Alesso collaboration “Is That for Me,” and the multi-platinum “Downtown” with J Balvin. Early 2018 brought another J Balvin feature, “Machika,” which also included Jeon and charted successfully. Further releases throughout the year encompassed the Silva duet “Fica Tudo Bem,” the solo hit “Medicina,” and the EP Solo, which collected material issued between September and December. In total she put out eight singles; three earned gold certification and four reached platinum or multi-platinum levels, while accompanying videos accumulated hundreds of millions of views.

These accomplishments paved the way for her fourth album, Kisses. Issued in 2019, it represented her first fully trilingual project, with songs in Portuguese, Spanish, and English. The diamond-certified collection drew guests ranging from Snoop Dogg, Mambo Kingz, and DJ Luian to Prince Royce, Alesso, and Veloso, and captured a Latin Grammy for Best Urban Music Album. That year she entered a global management agreement with Brandon Silverstein’s S10 Entertainment and contributed to Madonna’s Madame X on the track “Faz Gostoso.”

During the first half of 2020 she teamed with Major Lazer on “Make It Hot,” Ozuna on “Muito Calor,” and Psirico on “Jogacao,” while also guesting on multiple episodes of the Brazilian telenovela Amor de Mãe. September saw the release of “Me Gusta,” featuring Cardi B and Myke Towers; the song climbed to number five on the Hot Latin Songs chart and became her first Hot 100 entry. She placed “Furiosa” on the F9 soundtrack and issued the autobiographical “Girl from Rio,” which sampled the Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes standard “The Girl from Ipanema.” The track and its remixes with DaBaby and DJ Snake charted. In November she dropped “Envolver,” which, after charting inside the upper half of the Hot 100, set records for the most-streamed song in a single day and became the first track to appear inside the Top 50 of every Latin country on a streaming platform. She also received the MTV Millennial Awards Brazil trophy for Best Musical Artist.

In 2022 Anitta supplied the voice of Letícia dos Anjos for the animated feature Hitpig, appearing alongside Peter Dinklage, Lilly Singh, and Rainn Wilson. April brought Versions of Me, fronted by the single “Gata” featuring Chencho Corleone and blending neoperreo with carioca funk. The trilingual album opened with more than six million streams on its first day, registered nearly 112 million on-demand song streams in the United States during April, and debuted at number two on the Heatseekers chart. She headlined both Coachella weekends, released the Missy Elliott collaboration “Lobby,” and issued the EP À Procura da Anitta Perfeita. Her first 2023 release was the assertive summer track “Funk Rave,” included on the EP Funk Generation: A Favela Love Story. In 2024 she delivered Funk Generation, a full-length project rooted in the funk carioca style.