Anitta

With one name but many hyphens, Anitta is a pop star born for this globalised era of music. The singer-dancer-actress and songwriter from Brazil is a global triple threat who has made bangers with Missy Elliott and the K-pop boy band TOMORROW X TOGETHER. As a singer, she can sound effortlessly sultry-sweet in Portuguese, Spanish or English; her facility with languages, along with a gift for adopting musical vernaculars, has made her Brazil’s foremost cultural ambassador. She is equally insouciant trading bars over dembow with Mexico’s Peso Pluma on “BELLAKEO” as she is introducing international audiences to the funk carioca of Rio de Janeiro, where she was born in 1993. Anitta claims her roots in Rio’s favelas even as she transcends them, bringing their unique music culture to the world without being bound to any one beat. This eclecticism is part of her Brazilian identity. As she told Apple Music, “We have a huge mixed culture. I didn’t want to choose a style. That’s very against who I am.”