Anitta Talks Mystery Illness, ‘Funk Generation,’ Acting Career – MASHAHER

For most of her life, Anitta didn’t think much about her death.

Despite growing up in the notorious favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian multi-hyphenate just knew that her life would be as glamorous as she always imagined: she would sing, dance and act her way to global stardom. Gradually, that vision has been coming to life.

“I never thought that I wasn’t going to get what I wanted,” she says. “Everyone around me has been maybe more realistic, but I just have these visions for how my life will turn out. I don’t tell anyone, because I know how easily outside pressure can influence the results.”

Anitta, 31, has been a superstar in Latin America since the release of her self-titled debut in 2013, and she was poised to achieve a similar level of success in the United States in 2022 with her fifth full-length album, “Versions of Me.” She made a splash — a Grammy nomination for best new artist, a vibrant performance at Coachella (with a cameo from Snoop Dogg), a global hit with the song “Envolver” — but the album, with songs in English, in styles ranging from pop and rock to reggaeton and Brazilian funk, was trying to have something for everyone and confused listeners.

Then, Anitta was hit with a mysterious illness that racked her with chronic, full-body pain and fevers that at times rendered her unable to walk. She was tested for cancer and autoimmune diseases but still doesn’t have a solid diagnosis for what she was experiencing. In her search for relief, Anitta took a month off and retreated into the Yoruba faith she’d learned as a child from her father, taking trips to several countries to connect with ancient healing traditions, from kundalini yoga to meditation. A few hours after this interview took place, she flew to Greenland to spend a week alone, visiting shamans and hiking through “spiritual portals” — parts of the earth that are said to be sensitive to energy.

“Now I appreciate death so much,” she says. “I thought I was going to die. And if I did, I wanted to be sure I left behind a body of work that I felt truly represented me and the sounds I love. I’d already had the hits; I already did it by the numbers. Death, and the fact that we don’t know what tomorrow holds, make me feel the most alive. Now I want to try something that makes me feel like an artist again.”

To advance that new approach, Anitta felt she needed a new team. In the aftermath of the underwhelming response to “Versions of Me,” she cleaned house, parting ways with her longtime manager, Brandon Silverstein, and Warner Music, the label she’d been with for her entire professional career.

At the time, she didn’t tell the world that she was on the verge of dropping out of the music industry. But she’s brutally honest about it now, explaining that her efforts to be palatable internationally were neutering the boldfaced individuality that made her a star in the first place.

“I didn’t feel happy,” she says. “I didn’t have the energy anymore. I was looking at the sales numbers too much, reading what the internet and critics had to say. And after having thought so much about what life could look like if I quit, or if I died … my priorities shifted.”

However, she was contractually obligated to deliver at least two more albums to Warner. So Anitta effectively launched a social-media campaign against her label, claiming its executives never believed “Envolver” — a rare RIAA Latin Diamond-certified single — would be successful without the aid of a co-billed artist, and that her team at Warner’s Latina division wasn’t doing enough to promote her music. “If there was a fine to pay, I would have already auctioned off my organs, no matter how expensive it was to get out,” she wrote on X. “But unfortunately, there isn’t.”

Ultimately, there was, in the form of a reported multimillion-dollar settlement with Warner — $6 million, some sources say (representatives for Anitta and Warner declined to comment on the deal) — as well as a reasonably amicable separation from Silverstein, who, shortly after their parting, was seen speaking abusively to someone over speakerphone in a widely circulated video. Anitta and reps for Silverstein declined to comment on the video, but she says carefully, “[Brandon] did what he needed to do, and what I wanted to do at the time, but my focus changed. He was always very respectful and understanding with me.”

Then, just a month after leaving Warner, she announced a new deal — with Universal Music’s Republic label — and shortly after that, a new manager: Miami-born Rebeca León, who’d helped steer Rosalía, J Balvin and Juanes to superstardom.

From there, Anitta quickly released new music — a three-song EP titled “Funk Generation,” which was expanded into a full album under the same title that dropped on April 26. But instead of leaning uncomfortably into popular Western styles, she went back to the youthful baile funk sound of the favelas — a vibrantly danceable combination of samba, Miami bass, hip-hop and syncopated African beats.

“With León, it’s different,” she says of her new manager. “We are both women and no matter how hard they try, men will never fully understand you on that level. There are just certain things that work for men that don’t for women in this industry. Plus, she’s already been through the big successes and is ready to experiment. That’s what I need.”

Experiment, Anitta does: “Funk Generation” has lyrics in Spanish, English and Portuguese over sweltering rhythms of favela funk. She’s the first to acknowledge that it will be a challenge for some of her more pop-leaning fans, not to mention new ones.

“For a long time, the numbers have decided whether I won or failed, and that will push you to do something unoriginal,” she says. “I want to be very clear: That doesn’t mean I don’t love my old songs. With ‘Versions of Me,’ I was trying a little bit of everything to try to solidify myself in the mainstream, but I don’t care what the fuck is gonna happen with this next album. I love the adrenaline of not knowing whether people are going to like it.”

“That is the true definition of fearlessness,” León says, “when you only want to do what you do because you fucking love it.”

When Anitta first reached out, León had recently transitioned out of managing Rosalía to focus on growing her production company, Lionfish Studios. After working as a co-producer on a 2022 remake of “Father of the Bride,” León and Lionfish Studios are developing several female-driven projects said to have heavy music components that showcase the nuances and intricacies of Latin culture.

“I was on my pseudo break, and [Anitta] asked me to essentially assess her career with her,” León recalls. From that meeting, she found the singer’s resilience inspiring and the opportunities for her career virtually limitless. But she, too, found that in the process of chasing that crossover dream, Anitta had not been making the music she wanted to make.

“She’s gotten here. Now she’s fighting to do what she’s always wanted to do: bring [baile] funk, a marginalized genre, to the big stage,” León says.

And although the genre is lyrically hyper-sexualized, Anitta says her take on it is “all about the sound.”
“Brazilian funk is very, very sexual and very explicit, but those lyrics don’t reflect what I’m living personally now,” she says.

“It’s more an exploration of my love for the beats, the parties, and how it all makes me feel,” says Anitta. “A lot of the producers on this album are people who came from the ghetto, the slums, the favelas. They live and breathe Brazilian funk — the kind of funk that has crazy lyrics, that nasty shit.”

Where 2022’s “Versions of Me” leaned into American pop production, “Funk Generation” was a crate-digging process for Brazilian producers like Gabriel do Borel and the duo Tropkillaz, who reference contemporary sub-genres of funk, altering its brass sections with sped-up tempos and repetitive electronic patterns. 

Diplo, a longtime friend and collaborator, also produced “Aceita” and “Funk Rave.” Diplo is one of the few exceptions to Anitta’s core belief that non-Brazilian producers very rarely can provide “the same swag as Brazilian producers” because his love for the genre even led him to produce a documentary about it in 2008. Still, “Funk Generation” does leave some room for pop, with help from songwriter Amy Allen (who has penned major hits for Harry Styles, Tate McRae, Lizzo and Selena Gomez) and the Sam Smith-featuring “Ahi,” produced by the Norwegian duo Stargate (Rihanna, Beyonce, Katy Perry).

Despite her distancing comments, “Funk Generation” is seriously X-rated, both lyrically and musically. On the song “Savage Funk,” Anitta repeats the word “fuck” 58 times, phrasing her vocals so that they sound like a bassline.

Not that any of this is out of character: Anitta’s sexuality has always been a focal point of her public image. She’s often described herself as two people: Larissa de Macedo Machado, the person she grew up as, and Anitta. All superstars struggle with where the self ends and the star begins, but for her, it seems to be about self-preservation. “I can see myself leaving the name ‘Anitta’ behind,” she muses about the persona that embraces her “most animalistic desires,” “but I’ll never just be Larissa. I am very protective of her. It helps people to understand that there is the artist, and then there is the human who just wants to go home and hide.

“I use my sexuality as a freedom message,” Anitta concludes. “It’s not like I’m telling everyone to flash their pussies. But we have a right to express ourselves without feeling ashamed.”

Despite all of the self-empowering words, on May 18, Anitta will embark on a project that, in the past, she didn’t really want to do: her first global tour, a 20-plus-date trek in theaters dubbed the “Baile Funk Experience” in North America, South America and Europe.

“Touring is tiring,” she says, “and I don’t like going for extended periods without seeing my family. But I’m so engaged with this project that I want to do it. And I want to still keep it small; I want to be able to look people in the eyes. It’s not going to be enough for you to just stand there and watch. The person who goes to this concert will feel an urgency to be a part of it.”

As for what comes next, Anitta is pursuing acting gigs following her role in the Netflix drama series “Elite.” She plans to work her way up, as she always has. Of course, the future holds little mystery for her. “I know what’s going to happen next,” she says, cracking a mischievous smile. “I’m going to keep making very surprising turns — you’ll be left like, ‘Who is this person?’”

Styling: Maleeka Moss/The Only Agency; Makeup: Allan Aponte; Hair: Florido/The Only Agency; Props: BG Porter/Owl and Elephant