Entertainers
Anitta
A global superstar, a businesswoman, and a multilingual artist who is simply unstoppable.
Anitta isn’t just breaking records for Brazil, she’s ascending into a whole new level of superstardom.
Born Larissa de Macedo Machado, the singer, songwriter, actress, dancer, and more rose to national fame with the release of her single “Show das Poderosas” in 2013. In the almost-decade since, she’s been working hard to make a name for herself in the music industry, having the biggest year of her career, so far, in 2022.
In April, Anitta released her trilingual album, Versions of Me, with the project’s cover showing just how much she’s changed over the course of her career. That honest message and the lively music on the album resonated with fans, becoming her most successful release yet.
A lot of that was due to one of the project’s singles, ‘Envolver,’ which absolutely blew up on TikTok thanks to the singer’s accompanying dance challenge. The song topped the Global Top 50 on Spotify in March 2022, making Anitta the first Brazilian artist and the first Latin artist with a solo song to do so. It also became the most streamed song in a single-day in 2022 (7.278 million) at the time.
The star covered Billboard magazine following her chart-topping success, where she talked about just how hard it was to cross over from being a big act in Brazil, to being a big act everywhere.
“Being an international artist is not only about being famous wherever you go, because the world is so big,” Anitta told the publication. “It’s about being able to impact culturally different areas at the same time.”
She just became the first Brazilian artist to win a VMA.
“I Was Born and Raised in the Ghetto of Brazil… We Never Would Think This Is Possible”
It seems like everyone in the performer’s corner was against the idea of going global, with Anitta admitting her brother and label executives both told her it was never going to happen. Because Portuguese isn’t such a widespread language, those other artists from Brazil had a hard time crossing over, but the “Envolver” singer did it by releasing music in not only Portuguese, but English and Spanish as well.
Now, the superstar only continues to trend upward, riding the high of her first Coachella performance to festivals and stadium shows all over the world.
“Anitta is already on her way to the next level, where the world will see much more of her on headline and festival stages across the United States, Europe, the rest of Latin America and beyond,” her UTA agent Jbeau Lewis told Billboard.
Marcos “Marquinhos” Araújo, the owner of Brazil festival company Villa Mix, predicts her profile will soon change at home, too: “In six months to a year, she will come here to Brazil and on her own draw 40,000 people. She will fill a stadium in two years if she continues this growth trajectory.”
